Restored

A lost sheep back in the fold. This was the stitch marker from the sleeve of the sweater hijacked during Keebler's great adventure last week. I'd assumed it would turn up, but was starting to lose hope.



He looks happy to be home and now both sleeves are finished and surprisingly none the worse for the wear. I even found the artist's tag from the basket. All is temporarily once again well.



With all the wool finally gone, I was able to reclaim not only the floor space and carpet, but also my big loom. It had been surrounded by yarn fleeces and quilt batting for so long that I'd almost forgotten what it looked like. I'm hoping some nice handwoven dishtowels might sooth her hurt feelings.



It's also cooled down enough I could turn off the air conditioning and open the windows. This makes the biggest difference in my day. Seriously. I miss hearing the birds singing, sheep talking, chickens cackling and myself think.



If it's cool enough to open the windows, it's cool enough to sit out on the porch and spin in the evening too :-).

That's a basket of Crazy Esther. I'm still sampling for just the right look. I want it to be textured enough to truly represent Esther in her old age, but yet not so funky she wouldn't be proud to know it was her.

Finally a fun problem to solve.

Sunday Stills - Fire And Smoke

I'm hoping Ed will re-run this challenge some other time. Between how kindling dry everything is and how stinkin' hot that I can't imagine adding any more heat of any sort (also known as the current reason why I'm not cooking dinner anymore ;-), I'm sitting out this week. I thought about taking pictures of our bee smoker, but decided it would stink up the air conditioned house too much and I sure as heck wasn't standing out in the driveway...

So, my other company from Epic Fiber Friday. Still not the hummingbird shots I'm hoping to one day catch, but considering these were taken in the shade, they aren't too bad.









And the look on this young bird's face is priceless.

Blood, Sweat And Tears

Mostly sweat. A lot of sweat. And I might have cried a little...because of all the sweating. I'd set this job aside, waiting for the heat to break and finally had to accept that hell was never going to freeze over and I might as well put on my big girl pants and get to work.



I decided to send some wool off to be mill spun this year. Fleury Sheep and Wool will accept small amounts and were so nice to talk with as they answered all my questions (along with getting a good recommendation from Patchwork Fibers) that I shipped about 12 pounds off to Georgia this morning.

I love the colors of my Jester sweater (1 1/2 sleeves knit up so far!) so decided to separate out the same blends for this project. And since I personally like to know which sheep I'm spinning, knitting or weaving and you can't really do that with commercially spun yarn, I set aside all (well, almost all) the Belly's wool for this project. It's not perfect, but a bit better than "just some random Jacob wool".



The dark gray is going to have a lot of Clover Belly and Baby Belly in it.



Momma (and Grandma) Emily and Anna (Big) Belly make a nice medium gray mix.



This white with just a tiny hint of silver is mostly Caspar Belly.

If I like how everything turns out, I'll add Billy Belly to the mix next year. I'd already had his pretty fleece processed this year before "the plan" all came together.



Gotta love those vacuum pack bags. Yes, that's the same four big bags, compressed. I wish I'd taken the exact same view as the first shot. It's just amazing!



It took me most of the day to get everything just the way I wanted. Even with the ceiling fans running and the wool house porch in the "shade" it was mostly miserable. I did enjoy watching the hummingbirds buzz in and out, fighting amongst themselves. I had a baby cricket serenade me for awhile and loyal Iris never left my side.



Even Weaslie managed to stay out of trouble most of the day. I never saw a single "barn" cat. I guess I know who my real friends are ;-).

A Sweet Treat

It's no secret I'm sick of this horribly hot summer weather. I'm obviously stressed about the possibility of an unusual predator in the area that might find my young, old, fat and otherwise defenseless sheep family (who are also sick of this horribly hot summer weather) and their loyal guardian dog who would most likely die trying to defend them.

As I staggered walked out to the mailbox the other day - toting my twice daily bucket of water to dump on the brave flowers trying to hang on through this horribly hot summer weather - I thought to myself "I hope there's something fun in the mail today."

And there was!

Michelle from Boulderneigh (one of my favorite blogs) had a huge drawing last week. I won one of the prizes and she mailed me not one, not two, but four Interweave Knits magazines. I was thrilled. It was just what I needed.

She had done another giveaway a year or so ago (Pay It Forward) where - I might not get this exactly right - the gist of it was you signed on to gift something to someone else, who in turn would gift something on... As Stella, new beekeeper Phyllis and I went around (in this horribly hot summer weather) checking beehives this morning, I knew what I wanted to do.



I'm going to send two jars of honey out to Oregon. Michelle may keep one for herself and gift the other to someone she knows who could use a sweet treat (because she's sweet like that). If you'd like to play along, leave a comment on this post and Sunday night I'll draw two names. I'll contact the lucky winners (make sure I know how to do so if you are "anonymous") and send on a surprise jar of honey to the person of your choice.

The rain, sun (yes, even the stupid hot sun), flowers, bees, beekeepers, bloggers and commenters can all do a little to Pay It Forward...in this horribly hot summer weather (I may have already said that :-).

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

An interesting mathematical perspective from my smart friend Flowerweaver...

OK, out of curiosity and using an architectural perspective technique I learned in college, I leveled the photo and drew the horizon line, from which I projected a line through the base of two objects (fence & cat). From the same vanishing point I projected another line across the top of the cat, which shows you how tall the cat would if the same fence were next to it.

To me it looks like the cat is roughly half as tall as the fence. It's your call on how tall the fence is to calculate your cat. Hope this helps!