Yeah! New Toys!

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I met up with my friend, Irene from Cotton Clouds, to take in TNNA. This is the trade show for yarn shops, designers, etc. WOW!

This is my first trip to TNNA so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I didn't plan on buying anything, but I found a few goodies for the shop. Here is a preview of some of them.

Whimsical artwork by Thomas Joseph.

The very cool SideKick, the newest wheel from Schacht Spindle Co. (will be shipped in May).

Ashford's newest loom, the Katie. This is a great 8-harness loom that comes with a carry-bag. Everything in front is removed or lifts up so you can get right up to the heddles to thread it.

The Unpattern--creating your own pattern based on your favorite sweater.

Unicorn Fibre Scour and Fibre Wash. wpnderful products for getting fleeces and garments clean.

These products and more will  be on the website soon and in the shop within the next couple of weeks.

 

Warm-up for Lambing

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I got back from 3 days at TNNA (trade-show which needs a blog post by itself) and an hour later there were lambs! This wasn't a complete surprise because, although lambing isn't due to start for another 6 weeks, one ewe definitely stood out from the flock as "more pregnant". Phyllis is a lilac ewe that had been sold a few years ago. She returned to me this fall, but no one said anything about being bred. I guess that was due to a mishap at her previous home. Even though I knew that these lambs would not be 100% Jacob, I'm so used to seeing spots, these were an initial surprise.

The lambs' fleeces are quite different. The one in the foreground has that wavy, coarser look and the other is curly. Notice too that the one in the back is lighter. I don't know how much of that is due to the camera (I think it flashed when I took this photo) and how much is real. I thought that he didn't look true black, but in this photo he is definitely lighter. He might make a great fleece wether. (I think the sire may have  been a Merino--have to ask about that again.)

 

View from my desk on New Year's Day

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I should modify the title of this post. This is the view to my left and behind me. The view to the right is SOMEBODY sitting in the recliner with a cat on his lap waiting for football.

This morning our non-landscaped front yard seems like a wildlife sanctuary. I'm taking photos from the comfort of my house through the windows. Those are female pheasants.

We support the fattest quail!

And behind me:

I didn't see the whole Rose Bowl Parade, but these were my favorite entries of what I did see. That's a Brahma-cross steer he's riding. The rider looks like a kid on that big guy.

This was such a beautiful float honoring wild horses.

Amazing.

My new toys

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Look at what I got for Christmas!

I don't have a movie collection like my kids all do, but this is one that I wanted. Its a documentary of the sheepherding in the Montana mountains.

Wow! My son gave me the docking station for my ipod (which he gave me earlier in the year). He had let me use his in the shop when I wanted Christmas music for my Holiday Open House. I thought it was a long-term loan, but then he wanted it back. I guess he felt guilty so he bought me my own.

I asked Santa for this one and my husband followed through. Now I'll be able to include videos as well as still photos...after I figure out editing.  I spent all day working with the new software that I uploaded for this. I actually really like it because there are features that Picassa doesn't have, or at least I hadn't figured out.

My daughter-in-law made this calendar with lots of family photos, including photos of people (and our dogs) on their birthday squares. It is really great!

I gave this to my husband, but I think it was for me. We finally finished our back-porch/mudroom/entryway remodel. It started when we talked to Mike Carson, the blacksmith who demonstrates at the CA State Fair as well as others. In fact, last summer his blacksmith shop was right near the Nursery at the fair and I talked with him when I went to check on my sheep and goat. I have always admired his work but don't need fireplace tools, not having a fireplace, and can use only so many key-chains, etc.  I have bought some of his gadgets with horse heads, but this year he had a ram head on something. We got talking about doing some custom work and I said that I'd get back to him. Some time after the fair my husband started the remodel project. I have had all my food in laundry baskets all over the kitchen floor ever since because the new entry way was the old pantry. The end was in sight (with Christmas as the deadline) and I called Mike to see about getting this coat rack made in time for Christmas. I sent him photos of sheep and Mike delivered it to me at the Artery when I worked on Christmas Eve Day. Isn't it fabulous?

These are all sheep from photos that I sent.

Here is the rack in use with hooks to spare, although since then I've added my headlamp, gloves, and hat to this. But there is still room!

 

Christmas photos

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I had this idea to take photos of a sheep and my dog with a Santa hat. The sheep were in the pasture yesterday, but I thought we'd try the dog since Jackie was willing to help. It's not that easy to get a good photo.

Rusty is  not looking very enthusiastic.

Ok. Now he's obsessed with shadows on the ground. Let's try again.

In the meantime, Jacki's dog, Mobi,  cooperated a little better.

Rusty, Take 3. At least he doesn't look too unhappy when he's watching shadows.

This is the best we could do for that day. Maybe I'll try a sheep.

 

Holiday Open House

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Does it bother you when people call an event the  "First Annual..."? Well, we had such a good time today, that I can say that we had our First Annual Holiday Open House. We WILL do it again. Two friends joined me with their wares. Jackie's business is Jack's Wool/Isabelle's Items.

This is one of Jackie's signature paw-print felted bowls and a felted sheep.

How about a felted hot-pad?

or felted ornaments?

Diane's family are commercial bee-keepers. She has recently explored local marketing of their honey and beeswax products.

Diane had sage, wild-flower, and clover honey. We sampled them and there are definite differences in the flavors.

Jackie and Shelby taught visitors needle-felting throughout the day and everyone took home a needle-felted ornament.

One of the best things about the day is that my shop is clean and orderly.

Thanks to Jackie and Diane for helping me with that. It is such a relief to have that done. What a pleasant place with Christmas lights sparkling and Christmas music playing.  This was our big advertised day, but I plan to be open again next weekend even though Diane and Jackie won't be here. I really love my shop and it's a great place to spend the day!

 

 

New Yarn

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Isn't this a beautiful sight?

This is Jacob yarn and some black Rambouillet from a sheep rancher in Rio Vista.  The light gray Jacob in the lower corner is already sold!

This is white, lilac, dark gray, and black Jacob yarn, labeled and for sale .

Here is the Rambouillet. I  sent this batch to a mill that said that they could work with the fine, short-stapled Rambouillet, and they did a great job. It is very soft and I knit up a small sample on #6 needles. I don't have this yarn on the website yet, but it's available in the shop.

Here is some white yarn from sheep that live up the road from me. I can't wait to start weaving with some of these yarns!

Re-establishing the pecking order

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This is ram jail, where the rams spend time  getting re-acquainted after being shorn and having been taken away from their respective groups of ewes.  Putting them in close quarters prevents the serious injury that could occur if they had room to back up and bash each other. The rams spent about 36 hours here and another 12 in the double-size pen.  This morning I let them out into their regular ram pen. There was still some tussling, but it was relatively mild.

 

It was obvious to figure out who was #1. Savor and Tioga are the yearling ewes and Savor has the top spot. He didn't let anyone forget it.

Tioga didn't put up much of a fight. If he acted as aggressive as Savor there would have been trouble.

Tioga protected himself but did not challenge Savor.

Savor thinks he's hot stuff...

...but he's not finished yet. Granite is the two horn ram lamb who is shying away from Savor's  show of authority. Granite is #3 under Tioga but there were a few challenges between them. I think that Granite will be ready to try again for the #2 spot after he is a little bigger. Tioga comes from  mild-mannered ancestors. His sire, Ranger had his skull fractured by Houdini, a very aggressive ram I had a few years ago.  Ranger healed and was always a well-mannered ram, as was his father, Rocky.

Savor is still not satisfied.

Savor and Tioga are still tussling here. Notice that Granite is confronting Diego, another 2-horned ram lamb (in 4th place ranking). Do you see the lowest ranking ram? That's the 4-horn ram lamb from Michigan. However, what the other rams don't realize, is that Clint actually had the last ewe to breed to himself. While the rams were in "jail" one of the ewe lambs approached the pen wagging her stubby tail. I took Clint out and he took care of the job quickly before he had to go back in with the bullies.

Now it seems that its OK to hang out together. This reminds me of an article that I just read in Smithsonian magazine--it was all about he social hierarchy of male elephants. Lots of posturing. That avoids some of the bloodshed.

 

Shearing Day

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I look forward to Shearing Day all year and this was one of the best ever. That is due to the number of friends who helped and to the outstanding shearer. Farm Club members helped in the barn and two good friends staffed in the shop (unfortunately I don't have photos of them). That left me free to run and back and forth for things we needed, take photos, move sheep, and thoroughly enjoy the day. Shearer John sheared 67 of my sheep, 19 sheep that belonged to other people, and 7-8 Angora goats. He started a little before 9 a.m. and finished at 1:30! Here's the photo tour. Sheep in full fleece the day before shearing.

This is Fran.

Here is Tioga...

... and Clint, the ram lamb I got from the Sweetgrass flock in Michigan.

We gathered all the ewes while John was shearing my friend's goats.

Farm club members, Tina and Kathy, and Kathy's friend, Haylee, helped bag fleeces...

...and keep the shearing area clean.

Shelby (and her husband, Greg, who escaped my photos) did a lot of sheep wrangling. This is Shelby with her namesake sheep.

Tina did her share of sheep handling too...

...while my son multi-tasked.

John is an excellent shearer, making shearing look easy (and I know it isn't). He is fast, the sheep look great, and the fleeces are perfect wth no second cuts. We are very happy to have found him. It is always impressive to watch the rams being shorn. This is Savor being shorn.

Savor's fleece.

Staple from Savor's fleece. This fleece went home with Jackie, another Farm club member, who helped skirt and sort fleeces and answer questions.

Jackie, and another helper, Linda, helping a customer skirt a fleece...

...and now I have a lot of fleeces to skirt and put on the website for sale.

Rusty enjoyed the day.

Sometimes I think the sheep enjoy getting that wool off.

We certainly had great weather  from the sheep's point of view.

Thanks to all of my helpers!

Barn Make-over

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It may not be as extreme as the Home Make-over TV shows, but I feel like they just rolled the bus away and I got a new house...almost. This was a Farm Club work day prior to Shearing Day which is next Saturday. I had a list of chores and we checked off a lot. The weather was fabulous too--sunny, warm, dry and it's November!

I told Tina I had buckets to wash before I put them all away. You could serve dinner out of these buckets now!

I needed to get the salted pelts out of the stall so I could get them ready to ship off as well as empty out the stall so I can use it. Even though the pelts have cured, the salt remaining on them draws the moisture out of the air and they feel wet. A day in the sun took care of that and we put the pelts  in big plastic bags which went in the back of my car until I can find boxes to ship them. We counted 31 pelts in all--that will be some shipping order!

I have an appointment on Monday with the State Vet who checks tags, etc to monitor compliance with the Scrapie Program. Tina, Greg, and Shelby volunteered to check all the sheep and make sure they all have their scrapie tags and that my paperwork is correct. They did a great job and found just a couple of sheep that needed tags. In the meantime we found their namesake lambs.

Here is Shelby and Shelby.

And this is Tina and Tina.

Kathy and Kathy.  Greg will have to wait. I have two more lambs to name and register so maybe he can pick one of those.

I am so tired of tools falling out of corners, being knocked over, not finding them but I have never put up the gadgets to hang them. This was on the list.

Isn't this cool?

Try to conceal your envy at my organized tools.

I love my stall barn, but it's hard to use the big sliding doors with sheep. The doors work, but I feel like the sheep are in jail and in warm weather they get no ventilation when the stall door is closed. I have been using my Shaul's panels with gates, but wiring them up. Greg and Kathy put eye-bolts into the walls to mount the panels properly.

Shelby found time to play with a chicken. Rusty wasn't sure that the chicken was in the right place.

Thanks to all of you for so much help! Next Fun Day is Shearing!

Artful Fibers

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The show is up at the Artery. Here is a preview.  These photos aren't as sharp as I like because I need to get a faster lens or bring a tripod.   After I take better photos I'll post them on my website so you can visit the whole show.

Red Canna in chenille with Julia's felt hat.

These are 12 felted berets by Julia. You can just see the photo of the Kandinsky painting they represent.

Ruffles in bamboo.

Pleated scarves.

Hooded ruana in Zephyr wool/silk.

Tired of twisting

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We're setting up the Artery show on Thursday so instead of weaving all day I twisted fringe all day. I don't particularly like twisting fringe, but I think that most of the things that I weave are best finished with a twisted fringe.

This is a shawl woven with fine bamboo yarn. If I leave the fringe loose it will get hopelessly tangled in use. Also, the bamboo yarn seems to separate into it's plies fairly readily. So twist it is.

When I weave wool blankets I count on fulling them in the finishing process ( agitation in hot soapy water). The threads become somewhat attached to each other and the whole thing becomes a cohesive unit instead of a bunch of intertwined threads. That is not the process that you want for loose fringe. Twist again.

The green and brown blanket has already been washed. This light blanket (inspired by clouds in a painting of the Sierras while the green one represents the forest) has not been washed.

I wove this ruana fabric a few weeks ago but hadn't twisted the fringe. Even though I had woven a lot of items I had hours ahead of fringing. Now I think I have just one shawl left and the scarf that I'll finish tomorrow.

 

What season is this?

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It was a beautiful day today in our part of  California. After a little morning fog the sun was out and it was warm. The ground is wet and there is new grass in the areas where it has been dry all summer. That means fall, but it felt like spring.

There were even a few new flowers.

It really is fall however and there are noxious weeds to show for it. I am vigilant about keeping the worst of these weeds out of my pastures,  but there is one area that is not regularly grazed and I wasn't paying attention.

Pretty flower, but appropriate for a Halloween post, this is Devil's Claw.

Here is the green seed pod.

This is what the seed pod looks like as it dries out. Those two pointed tips are very sharp. When they get stuck in wool you can't get them out.

Fortunately this plant is very easy to get rid of. The stems aren't tough and one chop with the shovel will take care of it. These are in the burn pile now.

I have done pretty well at getting rid of most of this spiny cocklebur, but missed the plants in this area. Why is it bad? Take a look at a close-up.

Not only is it spiny, but those burs stick to wool like velcro as well as having an extra sharp point on the end. In the summer I hoe all the small cockleburs that i see. Even though I chopped and will burn all of these plants today they left hundreds of cockleburs (seeds) behind on the ground.

Here is a lesson in seed dispersal.

O'Keefe and Courbet weaving

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I wove these projects a few weeks ago but just got them finished--that is, I wet-finished them. When a weaving comes off the loom it is not considered finished until it has undergone some kind of treatment. That could be anything from gentle soaking in water and spreading out flat to dry to vigorous processing in the washing machine and dryer. Whatever finishing process is chosen it changes the character of the project, sometimes dramatically. The finishing method should be factored in to the planning of the project.

This is a waffle weave blanket woven in Jaggerspun Lambspun wool that I sell. It is machine washable and won't felt with washing. It does change character however.

This is the same blanket after going through the washer and dryer.  The inspiration for this blanket is the following Georgia O'Keefe painting. I started with white yarn and sprinkled dye powder over the yarn to get the varigated shades.

I love the subtle colors of this painting, but I also love the vibrant ones in the next.

Seascape by Courbet. I used the same washable wool yarn for this project. I wound the warp and then dyed it. Here is the finished v-shawl.

Van Gogh blankets

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After the ruana project (which still has not been sewn, fringed, or washed) it was a relief to do something easier. This project was inspired by this Van Gogh painting.

I dyed yarn. This is Jaggerspun Superlamb, a washable Merino yarn. I usually don't leave white spaces in the space-dyed yarn, but there is a lot of white in the painting so I thought that I needed it here.

I warped the loom for two blankets in an advancing twill.

The color in the detail shot is more true. It's a soft blanket with a nice drape.