It's been a crazy week....as usual. We survived the big snow storm and the kids have been enjoying the sledding and playing in all the snow. I have been curled up next to my woodstove knitting away on my sweater vest. The colorwork in this vest was a  lot of fun and now it just needs a blocking and I can get ready to steek. I say that with just a tad bit of fear in my voice as I have never .....ever....taken scissors to my knitting before. I am busy watching videos and reading articles and trying to decide on my plan of attack before I actually do this. Have you steeked before? Do you have any recommendations for me? I'm hoping to begin the process this weekend!



I also finished my Reyna Shawl. This pattern is a free one on Ravelry. A great pattern for a colorful skein of yarn.


No new books this week. I'm hoping to find some good reviews as I hop around the Yarn Along and see what everyone else is reading. Happy knitting!!!

This week we are falling into our winter rhythm.

Once we hit Thanksgiving there is no way to have a rhythm around here. Hunting takes up the majority of the boys time and they are gone for days at a time staying at the cabin and trying to fill the freezer. I love that they get this time with their Dad and also Uncle and cousins and close friends. They come home with stories and secrets and I can only hope it continues as they get older and spread their wings.

Then we hit Christmas and that has a rhythm all it's own! But now here we are in the New Year and this mama is trying to reel everyone in.......collect our thoughts and add a little structure to the chaos!! We slipped in some book learning this week and the colder weather has us all pulled up to the woodstove and settling in to this winter rhythm. We are currently reading Lost on a Mountain in Maine. By Donna Fendler and Joseph Egan. We are only a chapter in but it's a true story of a boy lost on a mountain in Maine.....a great boys book!! The perfect winter read aloud!


I am still trying to organize some stash and a trip to ikea this week should help that process along! On my needles this week was a test knit that I can not show yet. A fast and satisfying knit and perfect for handspun!! I also got a few rows done on some socks! I decided to jump into the Never not knitting mystery KAL going on....is anyone else joining in? I love Alana Dakos patterns and so this big worsted weight shawl should be a great knit! I chose some plymouth yarn homestead in the Burnt Orange colorway. I'm a little behind and need to get these wound into cakes so I can cast on today and get clue one done!


We had our spinning guild meeting this past week and I was able to get started on this months club colorway from Three Waters Farm. It is Birds in the Holly on Rambouliett. It was the first time I have spun this breed and I really enjoyed it. The fiber has a very long staple length. I decided to keep the colors pure so I navajo plyed my single.



I was able to spin and clear off a couple more bobbins of singles that were waiting for plying. It felt good to empty those bobbins so I can prepare for my next spin!!

I have just a little more weaving to do before my first dish towels can come off the loom! I'm very excited to see how these look after washing. I am already trying to decide what the next weaving project will be!

Joining Ginny this week for the Yarn Along. I'm looking forward to seeing what you are all up to this week!!

I've been taking this week to go over last years crafting and start thinking about this years. I don't want to call them goals.......no .......more like ideas and thoughts. No pressure and that means no failing.
I'm making some decisions about WIP's and already frogged a couple. It was actually very freeing and now I only have things I love on the needles......and that means things I want to to finish!

This week I have my first FO of 2016!! It was so fun to knit this and I used handspun that was spun this past July! Hannah Grace has been stealing my cowls so it was time for her to have her own. If you want to find a lot of lovely patterns that work really well with handspun check out Stitchnerd aka Susan Ashcroft patterns on Ravlery. Her patterns are very versatile and have lots of interesting texture. Three Waters Farm is having a SAL/KAL right now and she is our chosen designer.



 Can you tell she loves her new cowl!!

I did get some spinning  on my CPW this week. The cold weather has really finally hit and I found my happy spot right here in front of the woodstove. I decided to spin a braid that I picked up at NE fiber festival. It's Spunky Eclectic and her panda base. I broke this into two equal pieces and navajo plyed each. I was thinking it would be sock yarn but now that it is spun I'm leaning more towards mittens. It was a great spin!





 We are almost ready for another harvest of Angora from our newer bunnies! We have 7 in our rabbitry now. 2 German Angora, 3 Satin Angoras, 2 English Angoras and then a dwarf dutch. This is a photo of Asch. He is about 6 months old now and just about ready for a plucking! You will be seeing lots more angora fiber spinning in the future!




 I will leave you with one more photo from our small homestead........this girl loves her chickens!!


I have a list of books I want to get to and I am hoping I can start this week. We did commit as a family in going through the bible in a year. I have been listening to Daily Audio Bible for 2 years now and really enjoy it. So I challenged everyone else to join me and so far we are all keeping up!

Joining Ginny over at Small Things for the weekly Yarn Along! Happy knitting!!

Hello friends! This place has gotten a little dusty over the past year. After battling cancer and being given a clean bill of health in the spring I jumped off the couch and started living again and it has been one adventure after another every since.

I stepped away from here with every intention of coming back, it just took a little longer then I expected. I have missed keeping track of my current projects and my kids antics and so here I am again......no looking back just moving forward! I can not wait to catch up on what everyone is doing!

I hope everyone had a truly blessed Christmas. We ended up with a horrible upper respiratory thing that started on Christmas Eve and is still lingering. So Christmas was a little quieter then usual but that was fine. Lots of game playing and couch cuddling that is still continuing today. And knitting did I mention there was some knitting?


 I have been going through a period where I am not enjoying much of what is on my needles. I have lots of socks that need heels and a shawl this is almost complete. Is anyone else feeling blah about their knitting? I chose to ignore my WIP basket this weekend and picked up my Shakleton Project. IF you would like to read about this Epic adventure you can finds out more here. Sarah from Fibertrek TV is the vision behind this project. I am knitting a fair isle vest that requires steeking......that is going to be my epic adventure. Having never steeked before I am excited to learn this new technique. So I managed to get all of the body knit and I have just separated for the arm holes and am starting the colorwork. I am getting excited about my knitting again!




I did get a spin in before we all got sick. The braid from Threewatersfarm was of polwarth and silk and was a really lovely spin. The color was perfect for the week of Christmas and I am calling it Shiny and Bright!!



There has been some weaving. We somehow ended up with 2 riggid heddle looms....yes 2. Christopher is weaving right alongside me. These are so much easier to warp then the floor loom and portable as well. I have some cotton for kitchen towels on my loom and Chris is making his Dad a scarf.

I have been thinking about my crafting goals for 2016. Thinking is about as far as I have gotten. I need to make some decisions about those projects lingering in the WIP basket and I am thinking about jumping into some SAL/ KAL's to get me excited about my knitting again. Being in community is always more fun then going it alone!




I do want to share one of my most favorite knits from this year. I just got my Josephine Shawl back from my LYS where it has been on display. You can see all my project notes here. I love this shawl and am glad to have it back so I can wear it!

So hoping your New Year is blessed and filled with fibery delights! I'm excited to see what the 2016 will bring!!

Joining Ginny over at Smallthings for the Yarn Along

The warmer weather was here......and now it's gone hiding. the past few days have been cold and rainy, the temp is only 48 degrees as I sit to write this morning. It is June right?

Life got busy again and I have missed the last 2 weeks. My Mom has been very ill and has been living with us for the past 2 months. Lot's of adjustments to life here and plans for what will happen in the future are all going on. After 6 months of myself being so ill it feels like life will never be normal again. I guess we are trying to get used to the new normal.

The kids have all been so busy and most of it related to animals of some kind. We have a new kitten that Elaina brought home and the chickens are all getting so big. Emily is off in Canada riding for the month of June. Elaina has been taking Hannah Grace to ride on her horse Cash. I love seeing her pass on her passion to her younger sister! Hannah Grace loves watching her sister ride and especially jump. She keeps telling me that she will be jumping horses soon.....hmmm....we will see about that!


Between my Moms hospital stays and doctor visits I have been getting some knitting done. I finished the sock blank socks. These were fun and I will be knitting more in the future.


I also cast on for a Hitofude. Finally! I have been wanting to do this ever since Karen over at Pumpkin Sunrise knit hers. What an enjoyable knit and pretty fast too! I only have 2 more charts on the body to finish. This one will be a gift but I know I want to make one for myself as well! Such a clever construction!


There has been spinning and I am still washing fleece. I did a post the other day on how I am processing my fleece if you are interested in that you can find it here I will be doing another post this week on hand combing. I am really enjoying my hand combs and love the way it makes fluffy clouds out of the fiber.

Junes glow colorway on BFL handspun

I also brought home a new fiber toy this week. It is my son Christopher's fault....yes we will blame it all on him.  He has been weaving on a small wooden loom and really enjoying it. While at Maryland Sheep and Wool he was able to sit at a floor loom and actually weave on it. He got up and told me he really wanted a floor loom. I smiled and thought ok maybe sometime in the way future.....where in the world would I put that!!  I love that my 11 year old son has a passion for fiber like I do! He has been my tag along at every fiber festival this year! I told this story to a dear friend who proceeded to tell me she had a floor loom she needed to find a home for. And so this past week we brought home our new addition. (and it was amazing how easily it found a spot in our family room!) So we are now learning all about weaving and are hoping to be warping next week! Do you weave? If you have any great tips or articles or videos to help us I would love for you to share! We signed up for a Craftsy class on weaving and I know a few of my spinning guild members are amazing weavers and we can get help from them if we need it.

Nilus Leclerc loom

I have not been reading a lot lately but the kids and I are planning our summer read alouds. One we will start with is Swallows and Amazons. We read this series when my oldest were young and fell in love with it. I am looking forward to sharing it with our younger ones now.

Joining Ginny for todays Yarn Along! Happy knitting everyone!!

I've been spinning for over 2 years now and have been wanting to process my own fleece for a while. I guess it was a natural progression and the next rabbit hole to go down in my fibery pursuits. I searched the web and read many accounts of how others wash their fleeces, I talked to my fellow guild members and they shared their opinions and I also watched some youtube videos  and all of these thing were very helpful. So I gathered some supplies and just decided to go for it.



I had purchased 1 lb of corriedale from a seller on etsy a few months ago. It was washed and the pictures showed an amazing color. When I received the fiber it was washed but still had a lot of lanolin in it and so I decided to wash it again. It was a coated fleece and had no VM (vegetable matter) at all but I did not want to spin in the grease so more washing was necessary.

locks aligned and ready to wash

With this fleece I decided I wanted to preserve the lock structure for easier combing. I began making piles of locks all aligned with the tips pointing the same way.

I then placed these locks in neat piles inside mesh laundry bags. I filled a large plastic tub with hot tap water. Our tap water gets really hot and so I did not need to boil water to get it above 120 degrees. I squirted Dawn dish soap into the water about 1/3 cup and then placed my mesh bags into the water. I left this to soak for 25 minutes (approx. as I got distracted with other projects a few times)

soaking

After 25 minutes I took the bags out and gently squeezed the soapy water out of them. I then placed them into another tub of hot water to rinse. Another 25 minutes went by and then I repeated this procedure with another rinse soak.

When they were rinsed well I laid the bags on a towel and rolled them up to gently squeeze the water out of them.

I then pulled out my locks and laid them on wire shelves to dry in the sun. It was very breezy and they dried really fast.

A couple notes......water temp is important and must be kept high to melt the lanolin. It also must be kept constant or the cooler water will make the lanolin hard again and very difficult to get out. I only needed one wash with this fleece as it was already pretty clean....other fleeces might need more. Do not agitate the fiber in the water or it can felt.

washed locks

One benefit of working with a raw fleece are super soft hands from the lanolin!

I enjoyed this process a lot. I am really happy with the resulting fiber and can  not wait to process it. I will have another post on combing and spinning it.

It has been a fibery week indeed! I have been knee deep in processing my first fleece and test washing some fiber from another 2 fleeces! This is my first time and I plan on doing a blog post on the whole process later this week. Everyone has their own way of doing it and I am trying to find mine as I glean wisdom from those that have gone before!

Corriedale

Knitting has been in the back ground but I am making progress on my socks that I shared last week and I also decided to pick up the pace on my Josephine Shawl. I really want to be able to wear this now. So I'm trying for 5 lace repeats a day.....then it will be mindless stockinette for a while. I have a back log of things I need .....(want).... to cast on for but I am trying to restrain myself till I get this done.


The past weekend we deemed "Mothers Day" weekend! I started enjoying my weekend on Friday with our monthly Guild Meeting. We had around 35 people attend this months meeting and it was great to see so many familiar and new faces. We spent the day doing nothing but talking fiber and doing fibery things. There is nothing bad about that!


Then Saturday Emily and I headed to the "Studio" to spin and mentor others wanting to learn. I was able to get this months club from Three Waters Farm on the wheel and decided to do a navajo ply to keep those colors true. The fiber is targhee and it was my first time spinning it. I finished it up on Sunday and the colorway "Spring in my Heart" has truly stolen my heart! Not sure what it will be yet but am enjoying just petting it for now!




I hope everyone enjoyed their Mothers Day as much as I did mine! I woke up to breakfast and all sorts of wonderful gifts! My most favorite is a gorgeous necklace my children gave me! It has all their names and birthstones and I just love it! I am a very blessed Mama!


I will leave you with a photo of our newest addition.....a sweet girl named Chandler! Life is full of surprises and she is a happy one!