Accomplished

The long weekend is over and all those out camping this last weekend have gone to their homes with the idea that they should get up this morning and go to work. I'm glad Teapot is a teacher and has his summers off.

Over the weekend he began culling the flock... he butchered three of my animals and got some work done on the fencing. Once the fleece started rolling in I had to take a look and decide what I wanted to do with it all... we spread them out on the deck and I have to say that they are quite nice fleeces. Both are somewhat coarse but that's the nature of those two particular breeds. What I was amazed at was the size difference.....

The fleece on the left came from a Shetland and Shetlands are quite small.... there was absolutely no fat on her. The fleece on the right came from a Cheviot/Merino cross and she was nothing but fat..... The Shetland fleece is fairly coarse but I am keeping it because Lopi yarns can be spun fairly softly and they are usually done from Icelandic sheep or you can use Shetlands which have similar characteristics. The Cheviot/Merino fleece is just gorgeous.... I would have kept her but she was a glutton and feeding her took reams of hay and the others sheep suffered for her gluttony.

The fleeces lay in the sun yesterday as I picked through them to see what was what and along came Tootsie the Chicken herder who no longer has chickens to herd and.... well..... maybe I could teach him to herd the sheep?!!!...

He really seemed to be enjoying having a snooze on this fleece in the sun, because when Teapot woke him up, he looked like this....Now if that is not a dismayed face then I don't know what is.

Over the weekend there were all manner of things accomplished.... besides what Teapot was up to. I finished my bag from the percentage dyeing.... well, it still needs a zipper at the top and I still need to put the handle on, but I think it looks really awesome. Those colours blended so nicely.... you can hardly see where one ends and the next begins.... except for the yellow, the yellow was a little bit bright. I do like the dye I used... they are Mother MacKenzie dyes. (I'm sorry I don't have a link I couldn't find anyone who stocked these dyes in Canada.)


Then I wanted to get the Ombre samples woven and written up too while it was still fresh in my mind so here are my woven samples.... and they look pretty darn good too....

Then I finished the skein of yarn that I was spinning from the pencil rovings.... I used the multi coloured pencil rovings for one single and I used a teal coloured pencil roving for the other single and I got quite a nice 2 ply yarn..... this one will be among my stash for sale.....

In addition to those little projects I decided to start a weaving project.... well, it is just a little one.... not at all like the Big j.c. I have decided to make a baby blanket out of commercially spun yarn which happens to be a merino wool bought from Louet. I am doing this because I am working on an article for the Threads Along The Peace newsletter. I will weave on my Hazel Rose loom, 6 x 6 inch squares in a Brooks Bouquet pattern, enough squares for the baby blanket... some 48 in all. The clincher is that I am going to finally try the 25 shades of dye in Logwood, something I've wanted to do since last year when I finished the 25 shades of yarn in Madder.
You can see here that I have begun to skein the fibre into the right amount to weave my samples remembering that I need 25 skeins.... and of course I ran out of fibre. I have 8 skeins of 56 yds. each and 1 skein at 100 yards. The 100 yd. skein will be for the sewing together at the end and the other 24 skeins will give me 48 blocks. So I will get 25 shades of Logwood.

Having run out I will have to wait till my supplier can order more for me which she assures me will take about ten days. That will be ok as the next newsletter is due out on the 16th of August. If I get the fibre in time (somewhere around the tenth) then I will be able to get the dyeing for this project done in time for the newsletter, which is the important thing. The weaving can take all winter if I want! I may even do the weaving on knit night.

Anyway, that is it for today... I actually did accomplish a little bit, even though my back has really been terrible over the last four days..... I hope it gets better soon so that I can get even more done. I think I'll go take another anti-inflammatory....... hmmm...... but then maybe I'll sleep and get nothing done..... argh!