Gold

No, this account has not been hacked.  It's really me, posting three days in a row :-o.  

I saw a beautiful goldfinch working the sunflowers this morning and did a quick grab with my camera.  I didn't have enough time to think about my camera settings.  It's not terrible and I'm glad to have it, but hopefully I'll get another chance.  

In the meantime, here's a fun new puzzle.  

 

Yarn Shots

First I was just going to quickly post the new and improved yarn shot, but then I thought it might be interesting to share the before and after pictures to show how different they actually were.  I loaded the big girl camera shot...

 ...and...that's not what it looks like on my camera and computer and in real life.  

Oh right, I'd forgotten that Blogger "auto enhances" our pictures to "improve" them.  There is a way to turn that "feature" off, but it's fairly complicated and involves services I don't really use, so...whatever.  Yeesh.  I'll post the picture directly to IG and see what happens there.

Here's a picture of a smiling Wool House :-).  This little fence has been used for way more than stopping chickens from digging up my flowers this summer.  I love hanging yarn on it and it's perfect for drying towels and sheets as well.  

The main Tour de France/Fleece is wrapping up this week, but there's still the women's race next week so our group is spinning on.  So far I've spun Tessa, Blaze, Murphy, Muffin and Ellie.  I'm counting Tessa even though she was technically a warm up spin.

If you've been spinning for the Tour, how's it been going? 

What A Brain

I've been trying to take pictures of the B Garden all spring and summer and had yet to get even one that I'd liked.  The B Garden has been Beautiful.  So much color, so much depth, sooo many bees, some butterflies and a few birds...but none of the pictures ever captured any of that.  I've been unhappy about it for Many Weeks. 

Of course I was using my iPhone...that does take some really nice pictures...but when it doesn't, I have a tool that can fix that.  I even set out it where I had to step over it to get in and out of the Wool House.  I stepped over it for Several Weeks and then finally put it back away.

This morning I tried to take a picture of some yarn from the Tour de Fleece and could not get a picture that truly reflected the softness and the rich creamy color with just a hint of halo and shine.  Even adjusting some settings on the phone didn't help...but I knew what would.

(blows dust off big girl camera)

Yep.  Sure enough.  That was the picture I was going for.  The picture of Ellie's yarn...looked just like Ellie's yarn.

Hey, while you've got your head out of your...  you have the camera out, why don't you go take some pictures of the B Garden!

Oh look!  A pretty picture of some of the flowers...and a hummingbird and bumble bee thrown in to boot!  Do you see the bee?

This is pretty much how most of my life has felt this summer.  I'm not happy with the way things are going...and I have the tools to fix them...but I just keep stepping over them.

I had fun taking some nice flower pictures.  When the hummingbird buzzed in, I happily set up my camera to best capture her.  I thoroughly enjoyed sitting on the bench next to the garden to wait.  I even ate my lunch out there...like in "olden" times.

I love my iPhone and I take a lot of great "memory pictures" that I'd completely miss if I had to carry around a heavy DSLR all day.  The camera you have on you is frequently your best camera.  Still, there are many times I miss the days when phones really weren't very good and I mostly used the big camera.  

There are many things I miss from the days before we carried computers in our pockets.  I hate thinking about everything I'm missing now because of that computer that doesn't stay in my pocket as much as it should.  And all the things I should be missing.  

I'm going to try to fix that.  I have the tool to do it.  I've been tripping over it all summer. 

If you'd like to hang out in the B Garden for a bit longer, here is a video from this morning and a new puzzle :-).

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Enjoy!

Tour de Fleece Detour

The early part of my Tour de Fleece is making a detour through Indiana this year.  One of my challenge projects is spinning some yarn for a friend, from one of her sheep. Blaze is a Shropshire/Border Leicester cross and this is definitely a Sara fleece.  I like wool that feels like wool.  Not scratchy by any means, but not cottony or too silky either.

The light gray color is her most recent growth (nearest her skin) and the red, sunbleached tips are what had been on her the longest.  Unfortunately this beautiful fleece has a fiber break, or a weak spot, about 2/3 of the way up the growth.  This is fairly common with ewes raising lambs.  The weak spot is in the red area.  The staple length is quite long though and I pulled out a big chunk of what I thought was the best and gave it a wash.

My plan was to comb off the ends and see if what was left was still a good spinnable length.

I lashed on small groups of locks by the strong clipped (as opposed to the tips) end.

Combed the fiber from one comb to the other.

This is what came off.

I did two passes with the combs (one to comb it off the stationary comb and one to comb it back on) and then pulled out a long thick "strand".  I do this by gently pulling from the very end, pull, pull, pull, not letting the "strand" break apart.  This is called combed top.

I wrap it around my hand and then tuck in the end and it's ready to spin.

I started with 8.8 ounces of raw wool.  After washing (which removed oil and dirt) it was 6.4 ounces.  After combing (which removed broken ends) I have 3.6 ounces left to spin.  I started spinning it last night and we are good to go :-).

The following is a short video of the yarn being spun.  I also show how I join the next "bird nest" of combed top.  

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I'll post updates on IG/FB as I go and I'll share a picture of the finished yarn here.  Don't let me forget!

 

June

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