[Blogging]

Nineteen years ago today was a snow day.  I know that because I was out taking pictures of the sheep for my very first blog post.  The two pictures I shared that day remain two of my very favorite pictures ever, but I've shared them many times over the anniversaries so this year I'm going to share another old favorite instead.  I believe I only have these beloved pictures because I started blogging...nineteen years ago.

So many old friends in this picture from February, 2015.  I wish Hank was mixed in there too, but I'm thinking that might be what Elizabeth, in the front, is looking at.  Don't miss Comby sitting on the fence.  It's all part of the puzzle.

Praying

 

It doesn't have to be 

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try to make it elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver

Thank you for still being here and being my other voices.

 

Spinning With Friends

I recently finished painting a spinning contrast apron for a good friend who's been a good friend to my flock for many years now.  These are all sheep she's spun except for some Lila she gifted back to me when I was collecting fleeces for the bottle lamb yarn.  

Well, all except one.  How we missed Blossom/Baba when we were counting up sheep...  I'm looking forward to her bringing it back so I can add her in.  

Jared and Rocky

Maisie and Hank

Levi, Andy and Woody

Rebecca Boone, Beanie Baby, Elizabeth, Lila.  Wait...  Holy smokes, I think we forgot Buddy, too! :-o

From The Way Back Machine

Back in 2005 I sent our Jacob fleeces off to be made into quilt batting and kept the darkest batt for myself thinking I'd get a quilt made to match our barn quilt.  Fast forward to 2019 and I've long since given up hoping for a custom quilt and realized I could send that batt back to the mill and have it re-run as roving and spin it into yarn.  

The five sheep in that dark yarn are sadly long gone.  They were our original five Jacobs from Indiana - Jester, Jacob, Joshua, Elizabeth and Crazy Esther.  That yarn is a treasure.  Part of our history.

When I found a sweater pattern I liked and saw that I needed a contrast color I dug through my stash of handspun and found the perfect light gray.  Coincidentally (or not) it was a blend of Emily, our sixth Jacob and Annabelly, her first lamb.  This too is a treasure.

This sweater.  So much history between those sheep and the sheep that followed them.  

Maisie scritches :-).

I love Short Round's sweet face.  One of our newest sheep looking at the wool of our oldest sheep...or the food scoop ;-).

 

Wovember Day 24. Stash

I've decided I need a new sweater.  While I really don't mind wearing any of my handknit sweaters out to the barn, the sweaters I reach for the most are Baaxter and B. Willard - the simple, dark colored pullovers.  I'd wear Ford too, but that's 20's favorite sweater ;-).  

I was also looking for a simple, almost mindless evening knitting project and a simple sweater definitely meets that criteria...until I mess up something ;-).  I have Jared's yarn set aside for the Iknitarod in March, but who wants to wait that long!

Remember the Jacob yarn I spun for the Tour de Fleece a couple of years ago?  It would be perfect for a cozy warm barn sweater.  I then searched Ravelry for a new pattern and picked the Sophiasburgh sweater by Sam Lamb.  Just enough color to keep things interesting and it has an interesting design feature I want to try.

I was sure I had something in the yarn stash that would work for the patterning and I did.  I could tell it was Jacob, but I couldn't remember which sheep it was.  I had a couple guesses, but unfortunately I hadn't tagged it.  I scrolled back through the blog and found it under a Spinzilla post from 2015.  

To refresh your memory, the dark Jacob yarn was from our very first five Jacob sheep.  I think it was a 2005 shearing.  It had originally been processed by Ohio Valley Natural Fibers as quilt batting, but when it became obvious I was never going to get a quilt made, I had them re-run it as roving.

The light gray? It's a blend of Emily and Annabelly, our very next two Jacobs!  Nothing could be more perfect.  

The historical significance of these yarns is (inspiring/heartwarming/exciting....?).  I'm really looking forward to spending some time with seven of my most favorite Jacob sheep ever and wearing the finished sweater while working around our present day flock.

Stash for the win!

The Start Of The 2019 Tour De Fleece

As I posted last week, our team captain this year is Maisie.  She's let it go to her head just a little, but so far, so good...unless something has happened late today and I haven't heard yet.  I happen to have a small sheep in my "inside flock" that reminds me of Maisie, so I've picked her to be my spinning mascot.

She's wearing a warm jacket because I have turned the air conditioner in the Wool House on high :-o.

I'm spinning something pretty neat this year.  17 years ago, when I was just getting started with our wool flock, we were gifted five Jacob sheep from a kind shepherdess in Indiana.  I really didn't know what to do with So Much Wool (hahahahaha), so I had some processed into roving and some into quilt batts.  

I think I must have divided up the black and white wools because I remember having some light gray batts and one dark one that I kept for myself in hopes I could find someone to make a real quilt from our barn quilt. Sigh...

You know...I thought this spring...rather than just sitting in the loft, that dark batt could be re-run as roving.  Roving from our very first five Jacob sheep.  Wouldn't that be neat?  Like an historical do-over now that I'm a better spinner...and those sheep are no longer with us.

This year for the Tour I'm spinning Elizabeth, Esther, Jester, Joshua and Jacob :-).  There are 2.5 pounds of dark gray roving.  I'd like to spin all of that, but I'm off to a slow start, so I may not be able to reach that goal...but I'm going to try.

So what is Mini Maisie looking at in the picture above?

View this post on Instagram

Posting this here so I can post it to the blog. It will all make more sense in a bit 😉. #tdf2019 #jacobsheep

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jul 7, 2019 at 7:03pm PDT

The legacy of those five Jacobs :-).

And we're off!

Tough Old Ladies

We hit -1 around 6:00 a.m.  We've had colder nights over the years, but not with so many elderly sheep, cats, dogs and chickens.  The wind during the day yesterday was brutal, but thankfully it died down in the evening and the 10:00 barn check wasn't bad at all.  There is a fun video over on Instagram, but it will only stay up for 24 hours :-(.

I'd put up heavy plastic on the west side of Easy Breezy and closed their door.  That helped a bunch with the wind and I did several hay feedings throughout the day.  Allie is going to be 15 this spring and is horribly thin.  Even though she assured me she was Just Fine Thank You, I felt better putting a coat on her.  

Does it look familiar?  

 

Remember dear old Miss Ewenice taking such good care of new arrival Renny?  Remember Renny's story?  Well, only newer readers won't remember her story.  

Hard to believe Renny is in the Easy Breezy pen now.  Not that she's exceptionally old and definitely not because she's thin, but because the other side of the barn all slopes downhill and her injured legs are starting to give her some trouble.  EB walks out onto a flat paddock.

When I put her old blanket on Allie I wondered what she would think.  Would she remember it?  She didn't.  She was scared of it.  Or of Allie wearing it.  None of the other sheep cared.  I wonder if they remembered seeing that blanket years ago?  Renny wouldn't have actually seen it, wearing it...

Speaking of blasts from the past, Allie is one of Elizabeth's daughters, from well before the blog.  Her sister Amy is still living as well, over at the original Crazy Sheep Lady's farm, and she, too, is wearing a coat this winter.  

All those tough old ladies :-).

Yarn Along - The Denim Elizabeth Shawl

Once I finally settled on what I was doing with the colors, twill structure and sett, the rest of the project went off without a hitch.  Actually, the entire project from dyeing and combing to spinning and finally weaving was completely enjoyable.  I think it does look like denim and I'm giving myself an A for creating and using c-o-l-o-r :-D.

I was worried there were too many white stripes, but side by side, it's probably not far off.  I wish I'd had a little more of the very light blue yarn, but again, it's not too far off.  The brown stripes can be either to match the pocket stitching or the dirt that is inevitably ground into my clothes just minutes after I put them on ;-).

The orange stripe on each edge is to match the side seam stitching and hems.

And this beautiful shawl pin (made by a friend who didn't just create the pin, but made the glass beads as well!) nicely represents the coppery/brass button.

My biggest fear in weaving a shawl was that it would end up thick, stiff and blanket-y when I wanted light and drape-y.  I worried a bit about how loosely woven this was, but I had confidence in the yarn and it came out just as I wanted. 

Thanks, Elizabeth!  I had a great time and, as always, learned a lot.  A great project :-).

Edited to add:  fiberpusher wanted to know the shrinkage after fulling.  Just off the loom and before fulling (which I do in the washing machine) the shawl measured 20" x 86".  After "washing" it measures 17.5" x 80.5".  It weighs 8.8 ounces.  There are 6.2 ounces of yarn left for another project :-).

My book this week is The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg.  After last week I wanted something completely Pollyanna and this definitely fit the bill.  Nothing earth shattering, but a completely enjoyable story.  Perfect :-).

Joining in with Ginny...

Yarn Along

Yeah, I know I missed last week.  These pictures were actually all taken, well, most of them, last week, but I didn't have the mental energy to explain them and then the next thing I knew it was...like Friday.  

It's quarter after ten and I once again don't feel like I can give this post the energy it needs, but I'm going to try to hit the high spots so I have a record of at least some of how this project has progressed.  This is the Elizabeth shawl.  Finally.

After stewing and stewing on how much of each color I wanted to use and how I wanted to use the colors, I finally decided to just figure out the percentages of the colors as they came off the wheel.  I don't remember now how I separated out the colors before combing and spinning, hence the importance of documentation (head smack).  

I like how Betsy appears to be studying the loom (the Big Mac) in front of her.  She's probably amazed at the dishtowel mess on there.  I'll be weaving the shawl on the Baby Mac for just that reason.  

I'm not going to address how the warping board also appears to be appalled at the dish towel mess in front of it.  

Normally I wouldn't have left each color on as I wound the warp, but I wanted to see all the colors together in case it told me something about the mix aka something else to stew about...which I did for about a week and then finally decided to just go with it by the math and how it turned out was how it was supposed to turn out.  

But yes, still stewing.

I sleyed the reed using the 'by the book' maths to determine which size reed I should use...and didn't like it.  Thought it was too crowded.  

So I pulled out the little Dorothy table loom and wove a sample...like I should have from the very beginning.  I threaded it looser, did a right and left twill, thought maybe I should double check the denim twills and found that actually jean denim is not a 2/2 twill, but a 3/1 twill for heavy denim and 2/1 twill for lighter weight fabric.  

I sampled the 3/1 and hated it and then thought what the heck and pulled the last half of the sample out and re-threaded it for a 2/1 twill and really liked that.  Sorry to not explain that more for non-weavers, but it's now 10:40 and I'm tired :-o.  Here's a good simple explanation.

I also had a great plan to take pictures of 20 and the Sock Monkey doing all this since they tend to be the ones to fix most of my yarn problems...and forgot.  It would have been really cute.  Sigh...  Edited to add the next morning - Oh wait!  I did take a picture of them studying the Baby Mac at least :-).

Staff meeting in the Wool House. Sleyed at 10 epi, but now have decided to go with 8. To keep the width more where I want I need to pull out some threads before re-sleying. We are trying to decide if we should do that in the current ratios or maybe there’s too much white and we should use this opportunity to readjust the colors a little. 🤔 #sertasheep20 #sockmonkey #weaving #handspun #handdyed #handweaversofinstagram #WoolHouse

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jan 19, 2018 at 12:22pm PST

My next dilemma was the orange.  I'd originally planned to just use that for the hem stitching, but stewed on that for awhile and decided (after it was threaded and wound on of course) that I wanted it to run up both edges as well, like the side seams of blue jeans.  

I stewed on how to make that work without un-doing anything, started putting the hemstitching in and didn't like it so took it out, pulled one of the four hand woven (with a needle, long story) picks of the plain weave edge to make it three to match the three shafts I was using (don't ask me why I thought that was important), got the side orange set up and started weaving and after about three inches I decided I did want the hem stitching after all and put that back in.  Yes, I'm exhausting even myself at this point.

I'm a little worried that the fabric is too "sleazy" but it was sleazy on the sample as well and it fulled nicely so I'm [weaving] on with confidence...  I'm about halfway through.

As far as books....yeesh...I've hit some duds lately.  Well, duds really isn't the right word.  My most recent book, The One and Only Ivan was very well rated and I guess most folks really enjoyed it, but even though I had to assume the ending was going to be happy, I really struggled getting to that ending having to listen to and be reminded of what people do to animals.

Speaking of animal books, after I raced through all of the Tiffany Aching books last year I listened to The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.  Terry Pratchett was just an incredible story teller.  I have listened to these six books several times now and each time I catch something new and brilliant that I'd missed before.  These I can highly recommend!

Joining in with Ginny for the...

Tour de Fleece Wrap Up - Prizes!

Although several of us are still pedaling to catch up, the Tour de Fleece is officially over and the group prizes have all been mailed, so I thought I'd share.  

We have new project bags!  I love this design...but with several new additions since last year, it needed an update.  Thanks to Saint Tim, the Ts, Mrs. Pepperpot, Biscuit and Muffin are now all included.  It's a lightweight 10"x12" muslin bag, perfect for smallish projects...or your lunch. He also made us magnets and pins from the Biscuit and Muffin TdF ravatar design. 

I made a "big prize" for this year, too.  These are spinning contrast cloths and the one on the right was for the Punkin's Patch team and the one on the left was for the Meridian Jacobs team.  I picked some sheep that I thought matched some of MJ's sheep and the sheep on the PP cloth are Maisie, Count Chocula and Elizabeth, who were all spun as part of the Tour this year :-).

What exactly is a contrast cloth?  Well, if you were trying to spin some denim colored Elizabeth using your denim colored blue jeans as a back drop...

...it would be much easier to see what you were doing if you were using a different colored background ;-).

Auntie Reg made the cloths and I painted the designs.  I think they are fun and useful and a nice way to finish off the 2017 Tour de Fleece.  Come join us next year!  We had a lot of fun :-).

Most Any Job Is Do-able...

...if you just do it.  I've had a couple of those "do-able" jobs lately.  Putting this blog post up is sort of one as well, just way more fun :-).  

Remember the Tour de Fleece?  Yeah, I barely remember it either.  I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, but I did get enough done that I was happy at the end.  And I did take some pictures throughout even though I didn't post them.  As I really do want to remember at least some of what happened, here goes a flash tour.

First I spun half of Chocula.

Next I spun and plied the dark denim from Elizabeth.

Then I stewed about what to do about all these "not exactly the same" balls of medium blues while I spun the brown and white.

I was really happy with the dark blue and brown and then lost my ever loving mind apparently when I was spinning the white and it came out way thinner than the first two skeins.  I stewed on that for a couple days.

And spun and plied the other half of Chocula to get my nerve back up...while I continued to also stew about the "not exactly the same" medium blues.

Whereas at that point, as I tend to do with most of my yarn/knitting/weaving problems, I turned it all over to 20 and went back to the barn to play with Biscuit and Muffin.

He pulled out all of the brightest blues (on right) that didn't perfectly fit in with all the grayer blues (on left).  He then weighed them and weighed out the same amount of grayer blues.  I spun both separately and then did three plying samples to figure out our next step.

Left to right:  bright blue plied with bright blue, gray blue plied with gray blue and bright blue plied with gray blue.  We decided that the bright blue and gray blue were not significantly different enough  (even though they look pretty different in this picture) to keep separate so I plied them together and then spun the remaining gray blue.

All the blues are twisted together here (including a very small skein of light blue) and you can pick out a few different strands here and there if you look very closely, but if I alternate the all gray blue with the bright and gray blue as I knit or weave, I believe it will all work itself out into a "nearly all exactly the same so Sara is happy" finished project.  

I also found this in the dusty archives of early July.  Those three kids are so stinkin' cute :-).

It's That Time Of Year...Again

It's time for the Tour de Fleece!  20 is still assembling my complete line up for this year's Tour (fingers crossed he goes easy on me ;-), but I wanted to share a sneak peek at my special "big" project.  

Last year, when I was organizing the wool storage/skirting area, I found an old fleece of Elizabeth's. It was from 2013...hence the wool storage area needing to be organized :-o.  Since I already have a completed Elizabeth project, I felt like this gave me a free pass to try something "dangerous".

Several months ago, Miss B and I separated out some dark, some light and some mix of the two and then dyed it various shades of blue in hopes of ending up with a "denim" color.  We then ran it through the picker to start blending it and I planned on carding it all.  

I have no idea what made me try combing it the other day, but I'm so glad I did.  I hadn't been jazzed about the carded samples.  I loved it combed.  My only issue then was the amount.  How much would I have to comb to get enough to make a shawl (my planned project).  

Turns out you can comb an entire fleece if you just stop whining about it and do it!  Who knew... ;-)

You can click the "combing wool" label at the bottom of this post or on the right side bar for more detailed information about "combing wool".  I'm just going to share some quick pics for curiosity and posterity.

Messy to "faded denim".  I love this color...and I think we nailed it :-D.

I still have no real idea how this works*, but it does.  You start pulling the fiber through a diz (yes, this one is straight from my recycling bin ;-)...

...and keep pulling and it all comes out in one long, ready to spin, wool [thingy].  What would be a descriptive word I'm looking for here besides "top"?  Rope?  I then wound/rolled each [thingy] into a "bird nest" (man, this post gets more confusing for non-spinners all the time :-o) and tucked it into a basket.

Natural gray/brown, white, medium blues, dark blues...

...and a couple brighter blues...that I may try to tone down a bit so they are a little less "dangerous" ;-).

That's a big basket of wool!  17.2 ounces total.  I had more waste than I should have, but I learned a whole lot for next time.  The trick now is actually making myself spin it.  I'm so enamored with the basket of un-spun fiber that I'm worried I'll just keep petting it and never move on.

Another similar shot, but with Tilly helping "pose for scale" again ;-).

The colors are more accurate in the previous picture, but I like the light on the flowers and our old truck in this one.  

I finally finished this year's Ravatar/cartoon this afternoon.  Anyone already in the Ravelry group can get a sneak peek.  I'll post it here tomorrow...which most likely means Saturday morning the way things go ;-).  It's pretty cute!

* "It's still magic even if you know how it's done."  Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full of Sky

Yes, that's one of the Tiffany Aching books that I just burned through one right after the other.  Fabulous fun!  With a nod to the old Yarn Along posts...