Yarn Washing

October 10, 2013 by WoolyMama

Monday’s weather was exceptionally lovely, so I thought I’d take advantage and wash out my share yarn.

I’m glad I did, too, because it has been rainy and nasty every day since.

Normally I don’t wash my yarn before using it; but since this is share yarn from Juniper Moon sheep, it was milled with a lot of lanolin left in it. It feels heavenly on your skin (and smells wonderful as well) but you have to account for how much your yarn will change after washing if you don’t do it before you knit. It’s easier to wash your yarn first, so you know exactly how much the wool will bloom for your finished object.

First I let it soak in a bath of tepid water and Eucalan. It’s a very mild soap that won’t harm the wool or cause it to felt. I only very gently squeeze the yarn while it soaks.

I left it there for a little over an hour while I took care of some other things, and then gently and lightly rinsed it with clean water (some people also use a mix of water and vinegar). Then, on to the laundry spinner!

This uses only centrifugal force to spin out extra water. It does a phenomenal job of getting the yarn almost completely dry.

A LOT of water came out.

This is what the soak water looked like. That’s a lot of lanolin!

And just look at that beautiful wool! This is what all the colored fleeces from the flock look like once they’ve been processed.

Luscious!

Scenes From the Craziest Week EVER

September 29, 2013 by WoolyMama

This week we played host to “Yarn Share” prep with Susan and Lauria to get out the latest yarn shares and The Shepherd and The Shearer shares.

This involved dyeing some yarn, packaging some yarn, and just a smidge of tagging yarn. And by “smidge” I mean something like 7,500.

Yup. We took turns stringing twine through product tags and tying them onto hanks of yarn to be packaged and shipped out.

Fortunately Maddie had a ready supply of friends willing to help out while Lauria got the dyeing and labeling of packages accomplished. It took nearly two weeks. But friends, let me tell you. Our hands felt divine after handling all that wool with its soothing lanolin still intact!

I even got to try my hand at dyeing yarn for the first time!

I didn’t dye any of the share yarn – I was waaaay too nervous I’d mess that up! But I had some farm yarn (Cormo/Mohair) kicking around that I threw in the pot.

Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s exactly what I was hoping for.

My friend Tanya threw two of my skeins into a batch of the cranberry dye as well, and it is AMAZING. But I don’t have any pictures of it at the moment. Sorry!

Luscious wool.

Our house was overrun with it!

There were times where every one of us was tempted to lose hope that it would ever get done and sent out, but thankfully we had some of the most hardworking and fun people on the job.

Now we are done and our Tibetan mountain range of wool has become a mere Catskills.

Time to relax, recoup, and get back to routine.

Scenes From Around the House

September 19, 2013 by WoolyMama

YARNSPLOSION!!!! Yes. Every box you see in the garage is packed full of yarn.

Lauria has been here hard at work sorting through yarn and hand dyeing large batches of it. By hand. In pots over hot burners. And it’s next to impossible to make every batch come out exactly the same. It’s times like these I am glad I don’t do this for a living; it’s a lot to keep track of, and it’s a lot of work. And I am starting to think Susan doesn’t charge enough for it!

Dyeing Day

September 2, 2013 by WoolyMama

Yes, we are still cleaning out Susan’s old house. Mostly it’s all books now, so it should go fairly quickly and she will be all packed up.

This week we decided to take a few days off and have some fun. We spent a day out at Ikea (Neve and Maddie are smitten) and we spent a day dyeing yarn and hair.

While they were waiting, the girls put on socks and sprayed some pledge on the floors. Clean floors and worn-out kids is a great combination!

It took two tries to get Oona’s hair pink.

That’s the beauty of homeschool. My kids can have crazy hair.

Susan and I worked on the colors for share yarn (they turned out GORGEOUS!) while Maddie worked on the kids’ hair.

Neve wanted to be “ginger” so we put orange highlights in. Oona of course chose pink.

The colors are a demi-permanent, so they wash out after a few shampoos.

I have never seen Oona so patient as when she was waiting for the color to do its work.

More share color preview. The final color is sooooo much nicer and richer than this.

After the first attempt at Oona’s hair was a total bust we had Maddie try again a few days later. The result? A super happy Oona who couldn’t stop jumping up and down and exclaiming her love for her hair.

It’s adorable.

She’s decided today that she has vampire hair; hence the red on her chin (it’s fake blood).

Yes, my kids are already looking forward to Halloween, and for once I am starting to feel the excitement, too, because IT’S SEPTEMBER!!!!!!!!

Sum Total

April 26, 2013 by WoolyMama

This:

Is the sum total of my knitting for the month.

Two measly rows.

To be fair, it’s been an insanely busy month. I am starting to realize that April seems to be THE busiest month of the farm year. Between babies being born, shearing being done and garden work going on, it’s exhausting.

Plus, Susan is moving, and we’ve been helping her take things to the landfill and storage as needed. It’s been a fun and hectic month, but it leaves little down time. In the evenings, when I would normally be knitting, Oona has decided that snuggles on my lap are essential.

I can hardly complain about that.

The good news is that by next week the majority of the garden prep and planting will be done, everyone will be settled, and things will calm down a bit. Then that yarn and I are going to spend some quality time together.

Trying To Craft

April 10, 2013 by WoolyMama

Some people say I have too many irons in the fire.

Other people say “jack of all trades, master of none”.

I disagree with both.

True, I have waaaaaaay too much going on for most normal, rational people. Especially now that it is spring and I am working on getting gardens in, dealing with new lambs and kids, raising new ducks, clearing out brush, managing four homeschoolers and reorganizing much of the house. It makes it pretty difficult to find time to knit or sew; never mind learn how to use my spinning wheel or loom.

But I think having many varied interests and projects can be a really good thing. For one, I am never, ever bored. Not ever. There is always something that can be done, and always something that can be learned. I can also generally find something to talk about with new people.

It does, however, make it challenging to find the time to do some of the things I enjoy. Often by the time I’ve taken care of all the things that need my attention I am too tired for the things I want to do.

But it’s okay, because soon school will be done for the summer and the gardens will not need such intensive care during the day (in fact once the heat hits for real I’ll be doing outside chores early in the morning and late in the evening). The animals will be in need of more attention, but nothing that I can’t knit in between.

So I have plenty of projects lined up waiting for this magical time of less things to worry over.

This lovely Joel Dewberry fabric is waiting to be an A-line skirt for me. I have a bunch of projects waiting to sew, actually, but right now this one is my favorite.

And just what does one do when one’s best friend is a star in the yarn and fiber world?

You horde all the yarn she makes. (My craft room is looking better now that I’ve got this unit for all my yarn and fabric!)

Oh sure, I get plenty of free samples of her yarn. The problem is, once you’ve held and petted the yarn it becomes imperative to get your hands on as much of it as humanly possible. I’ve spent plenty of time trolling WEBS and buying out quantities of JMF yarn whenever I can.

SO there are plenty of yarn projects lined up.

The one I am tackling first is this lovely Honeybee Stole pattern with some luscious yellow Findley.

Such a fun, light, summery project and I CANNOT WAIT to get started on it! I have a flowy white sundress it will look perfect with. Also, this yellow Findley just cried out for it!

I am hoping to cast on tonight – barring a thousand distractions. It is lace, afterall, and as I have said many a time before, lace knitting and children JUST. DON’T. MIX.

Slow Week

February 7, 2013 by WoolyMama

For some reason this week has felt never-ending. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much. Maybe it’s just the winter doldrums. It’s gone from bitter cold with a smattering of snow (enough to lightly dust the ground but melt by the next day) to sunny and in the high 50’s. There’s talk of rain tomorrow. Winter rain is not something I handle well. It makes me grumpy and bitter that it should be beautiful snow; delicate, beautiful flakes of happiness to settle on branches and cover the world in a layer of fresh white. Instead it’s rain and mud and brown and grey and cold and BLAH.

On the plus side, we actually did get those bitter cold snaps that I was hoping for. With any luck this will keep the overgrowth of parasites and pests in check this year.

Also I should be happy that we’ve gotten some snow. Some snow is better than no snow, right?

Plus, in between the snow and rain and the cold and the warm I have managed to get outside and take care of a few things here and there. Which is when I discovered these:

My garlic has sprouted! All those many bulbs I planted in the fall are waking up and sending out shoots in preparation for spring. I have already begun dreaming of my garden this year and my head is full of plans for what we’ll grow and where we’ll put the new squash bed.

But for now it is still winter, and I still need to tough it out and finish my darn sweater before it gets too warm to wear it.

One sleeve to go!

Staying In

January 16, 2013 by WoolyMama

We are on what feels like day 100 of cold rain and fog. I think in reality it is more like day 3, but we have at least another day or two to get through, and we’ve all pretty much had our fill of it.

The ground was so saturated this morning when the hay delivery came that there was no way to get the heavy bale out to the field where the animals are. It sits in my driveway, waiting for some miracle or genius idea to strike. We peeled off an armload to take out this morning with breakfast in order to tide the sheep over for a bit.

Normally I’d like to imagine myself out in the British countryside on a day like today; wrapped in wool, wellies on my feet. But I am too worried about how to manage this hay!

The chickens are muddy and forlorn. The sheep are muddy and forlorn. After approaching the gate where the dogs tried to greet me, I am muddy and forlorn.

School will be done in front of the fire today. These two like to fight over who gets the most exposure to the heat.

Even the cats see the wisdom in curling up with a thick wool blanket.

Since I can’t spend the day curled up with them in bed I will content myself with some espresso by the fire and work on my sweater.

Stay warm and dry, wherever you are.

And if you have any genius ideas for how to get a massively heavy bale of hay down a slope, across a swampy bridge and up again into a muddy field, do let me know.

Stopping By

January 11, 2013 by WoolyMama

What do you blog about when you’ve spent most of the week trying to hibernate?

Yeah, I don’t know either.

It’s been quiet. Most of the holiday decorations have been put away. We are back to the normal routine of school and work.

The weather is terribly, disappointingly warm. I fear we will pay for it this summer.

We did trek out into town yesterday to make a Trader Joe’s run and to visit my friend Jessie in the hospital – she’s just had her appendix out.

I bound off the body portion of my Wicked sweater; now I have only to do the sleeves. I want to fly through them so I can get to a new project because I have seen – and felt – the new Juniper Moon Farm yarn. It is swoon – worthy, just you wait and see.

I have a decent stash of Sabine I’d like to put to use, and I may have mentioned that I have been hoarding a stash of Chadwick since it’s been discontinued. So much knitting to do, so little time.

The good news is that I’ve seen a lot of Susan this week. It’s lovely to have her back around after her extended stay in Texas.

The animals are doing splendidly and our heads are full of plans to improve the land come spring.

It’s a good time to hibernate.

Behind The Scenes (Photo Heavy)

January 7, 2013 by WoolyMama

This weekend was the photo shoot for Juniper Moon Farm’s Spring and Summer 2013 collection. A lot of my favorite people were there, and it turned out to be much warmer than the last time we shot spring clothes in the winter! There were a lot of pictures taken in 3 short days, and though I cannot show you any of the garments, I can give you a peek at what it looked like “back stage”.

The incredible Lauria, getting Anna ready for a scene. Lauria kept us not only working on schedule, but kept us looking good while doing it.

Maddie and Ann getting lunch ready for the crowd.

Garment prep.

Tanya kept us well fed and happy in between getting her picture taken. When Paul showed up one morning to take care of fixing some props, she had a coffee ready and waiting for him, saying ” I heard you were coming so I made coffee”.

She’s pretty awesome like that.