Random Farm Photos from the first part of July

Is it a continuing theme that I never have enough time to write blog post? Sorry if that is getting old. But it’s real. Here’s an attempt so that I can catch up with some of the photos I’ve taken and because I know that some of you do enjoy reading blog posts I write.

The first week of July I taught a Learn to Weave class. This is the students with their finished pieces.

Students learn all the processes to wind warp and weave off this sampler in two days.

In the meantime I’ve had a major custom weaving project hanging over my head. Normally I wind warps from cones, but this one was naturally dyed in skeins with no time to put the yarn on cones. Thank goodness I have a good swift—Schacht Ultra Umbrella Swift which I just put on the website now. The yarn winds from the swift to the AVL Warping Wheel to make 2” sections. More about this in another post when I get around to it.

This is 57 yards wound onto the sectional beam of my AVL production loom

This is after it is all tidied up. I have woven one so far, only 24 to go.

In between working on winding that warp I was trying to wet finish the last 20 blankets I took off the loom. Then they need to be measured and photographed.

These won’t go on the website for awhile because they are destined for a show at The Artery in October.

I have ignored my garden other than trying to keep a few things watered. A few plants are doing well despite my inattention. My Hopi Black Dye sunflowers are over 8 feet tall. I have had to prop up a few of them because they are getting so heavy.

Speaking of watering we are trying to keep the pasture irrigated but the irrigation district has reduced our allotment of water for the season. As we let the interval between irrigations get longer and reduce the time for each irrigation, we end up with less water and the field doesn’t fully irrigate. Those dry parts are what the Central Valley would look like without irrigation.

I have been conducting field trips for a summer camp through Trackers Earth. The kids spend time in the pasture, watching spinning and weaving and with sheep. Jade is always a favorite. She is an amazing sheep to let any number of people crowd around.

I don’t need any comments here about masks. I don’t think any of my blog followers would make those kind of comments, but when I posted a couple of photos on Facebook, I got nasty responses about children wearing masks. We are wearing masks in close spaces in the barn but not outside. I am selfishly concerned about my own health and missing out on some very exciting upcoming events. So that’s real life right now.

The most exciting thing going on is that my daughter and grandkids are visiting. That will deserve more blog posts. Kirby goes out with me every morning for chores. Jade is the favorite sheep and is always there for hugs and pets.

This is Kirby’s lamb, Rose, daughter of Belle, who Kirby showed at the State Fair as a lamb in 2019. Kirby will be at the fair to show Rose.

Learn to Weave a V-Shawl!

Are you a weaver and you’re looking for something to do on Sunday morning? Yes, this Sunday, September 19. You can attend my virtual class hosted by Lambtown, our local fiber festival which has gone virtual for the second time. You don’t have to be local to attend a virtual event. The class is only 3 hours but it will open up a lifetime of exploration for you. I’ve been weaving these shawls for several years, but in preparing to teach this class (and convert a 2-day in-person workshop to a 3-hour virtual one, I have spent hours and hours weaving and designing and now I wish I had even more time.

What is a v-shawl? Check out the examples below. It is a shawl that stays put on the shoulders and covers the back with a flattering design. When I’m finished getting ready for this class I’ll be putting a lot on the website for sale.

I don’t want to give away all the secrets here but I’ll whet your appetite with a few examples. The one above is handspun Jacob yarn.

Here is a locally sourced very soft wool hand dyed by me.

How about one in rich purple chenille? If you think about it this is a W-shawl and not a V-shawl. There is a story about that to be revealed in the class.

This one is all natural colored, American-grown cotton yarn!

Here are some happy students from back in the take-a-class-in-person days.

This is an example of several wool kits that are on the website now. The cotton kits will be added later. You can take this class without having your loom warped! You will have access to the video through the end of the year so you can sign up at the last minute and take your time with the weaving later. Register here.

Hope to see you there!

Learning to Weave

I started to offer in-person weaving classes again. I haven’t had live classes here since before the pandemic started. My “stay-at-home” started in October 2019 with a severe injury. (There are a lot of typos in that blog post and that’s because I I wasn’t using my hand very well and could barely type a complete sentence.)

Anyway, I started classes this month now that it seemed safe to do so. (With the new variant that seems more dangerous I have decided that people who come here for classes need to be fully vaccinated. As some of my friends and supporters have said, I used up a couple of my lives in 2019 and I don’t need more risk.) I want to share some class photos. I didn’t take that many photos but I am mostly busy talking/teaching when people are here. Besides I try not to be too intrusive with the phone/camera.

Last Friday and Saturday there were four people here for Learn to Weave. The fourth is around the corner to the left of those shelves. Do you see the reason I ask people to be vaccinated?

This is a small area and students are here for 7 hours or more. Besides when you are learning weaving or teaching weaving there are plenty of times when there is close personal contact.

Learning to change the tie-up on the treadles.

Winding a bobbin.

Students learn to read weaving drafts and have the opportunity to weave several patterns.

They can try a variety of pattern and color combinations.

This is someone who has figured out how to minimize loom waste!

These are the four students in the first class. Two weren’t quite ready to cut their warps off the looms but finished later.

Two days after this class I had three more students.

People usually use my looms but in this class two people already had looms they could bring.

Oops! I didn’t get a group photo of this class.

Today I two people came for a warping refresher. They have taken previous classes but wanted some supervision for a new project using finer yarns and a longer, wider warp.

Learn to Weave classes for the floor loom and the rigid heddle loom and classes in weaving a chenille scarf and a V-Shawl (double weave) are now posted on the website.

Random Farm Photos

The Random Photos posts mean that I don’t have anything very exciting to report or a story to tell but I don’t want to be so neglectful of my blog. So here it is.

I have been updating the lamb pages and needed new photos. This is one of the five ewe lambs that is still for sale. Her number indicates that she was the first lamb born in 2021.

This is a lamb I am going to keep. This is almost the last lamb to be born in mid-March.

Tamarisk is the sire of most of the lambs this year. All the rams are putting on too much weight. They get alfalfa because in our area alfalfa is cheaper than any of the grass hays. But maybe I need to switch to something else even though it will cost more.

The goats are always so helpful when I’m doing chores.

This is Ellie and her daughter from last year.

How about some weaving pictures? After all, the blog is titled Life on the Farm and at the Loom. I finished a custom weaving job of 44 throws woven with Northern CA grown and spun yarn. The customer ordered 200 throws, but I said that I could do 40 of them. This is how the weaving looks still on the loom.

I wove these in two batches. This is the second batch of 22. Fortunately I don’t have to do the wet finishing. Someone else is taking on that task.

This is another project I’m working on. I will devote a whole blog post to this idea when I have more finished but the short story is that this blanket represents the 2020 weather pattern in our area. The colors indicate the high temps for the whole year of 2020. The grays and blues are 40s, 50s and 60s. Green is 70s. Yellow, orange, and red are 80s through 100+. There are two rows for each day of the year.

That first blanket has the color changes in the weft. In this blanket the warp indicates the temperature. I hope to market this idea as a kit to weavers and/or weave custom blankets for people based on a special year and place. I sell this yarn at the shop and on-line.

These are samplers that are woven in the Learn to Weave class. I have the first in-person class in a year and a half scheduled for the first week of July. Participants range from brand-new-never-touched-a loom to people who have some experience but could benefit from instruction on warping, reading drafts, etc.

I weaned 7 lambs a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been taking Ginny in there to practice her herding skills. It only took a few days for the lambs to figure out that when the dog is there they need to be near me. A Border Collie’s natural moves are to “gather” the sheep to the handler rather than chase them. But Ginny has the tendency to be to close and I’m working on the “get out” command.

Some of the rams were aggressive toward her at first but now they respect her a bit more.

Ginny is always ready for a dip after working the lambs.