Looking out the window I finally see the sun shining after days of grey and snow......yes snow......and rain. The rest of the week looks sunny and in the 60's.......could it be that spring is really here? We have burned more wood in March and April then we did in December this year.......crazy weather.

Lot's of fibery fun was happening this past week. I made progress on my daughters shrug. I am more then half way now and have the pattern memorized.  Just keeping my fingers crossed that it fits. Since she is in Canada I am using her sister as a model so all should be good..

I finished a skein of Apricot the Alpaca. It ended up 380 yards of fingering weight. I've decided to spin up the rest in natural and will be doing a 2 color shawl. The yarn is soft and squishy with a light halo......really lovely.


 I pulled out the triangle loom that I borrowed from my Guild. And got totally enthralled with the rhythm of weaving. I am using handpsun and the colors are making me think of autumn and how much I will enjoy having this shawl to throw around my shoulders this fall.


  Thanks to my new friend Nicky I also pulled out the dye pots this week and began a new adventure. I will be sharing a post about my experience later this week but here is a look at my end results. I used a natural dye extract, Logwood and a few different methods and had so much fun with it. I involved the kids in the process and am calling it science for our schooling this week!!


I am still reading Knitlandia and loving it. So fun to hear about all the fibery places she has been! Joining Ginny for the Yarn Along. Happy Knitting!!!

I'm at that point where I am trying to find balance in my crafting. A rhythm maybe that allows me to be productive yet spontaneous. For many weeks I have had a few projects that I needed to start. Casting on a shrug that my daughter needs. Continuing to spin for my #acrossthepondsalkal which I will have to explain in another post. Starting the wedding shawl for my daughter, also another post. I have been avoiding some dabbling in others and finding myself on Ravelry day dreaming of other cast ons and things to make.

Wedding Shawl Yarn

 Enough! It's not that the projects are not enjoyable, they really all are. I think I was just a little over whelmed and not at all organized. Yesterday I decided on a plan. I cast on for the shrug, caked up the wedding shawl yarn and decided to spin one batt a day. I also decided on a few goals. Flexible goals. And now that I have a simple plan things are moving forward!


 The shrug is a pretty one that my daughter picked out. Matrimonio Bolero and it's free on Ravelry she says and so I head over to the site and it's in another language, in lace weight and we have fingering, and she wants long sleeves not short. OK this might have been why I was putting it off. I hate math.....really hate it. But there is an English translation and I figured it all out. Turns out it is a fairly easy knit and I am almost done with one sleeve. The yarn is Voolenvine's in the Succulents colorway and I picked it up at her trunk show a couple weeks ago. where I actually got to meet her. I love her podcast and she was just as sweet in person!


On the wheel is the Apricot the Alpaca. I have finished blending up big squishy batts and now it is on to spinning all of them! It is such a fun spin and I am loving watching how the colors are coming together.


The book you see peeking out from under my knitting is Angora A handbook for Spinners. I linked to this book yesterday in my post about our rabbits. You can check that out here if you are interested in how we harvest our angora fiber. This book is just so informative and I have been reading and gleaning new insight into angora fiber every time I pick it up.

I am looking forward to moving ahead in my projects now and trying to reach my goals. I say trying as I know in our busy household things things hardly go as planned. And that my friend is just as I like it!

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

We have been busy these past few weeks as our little herd of angoras were showing signs of molting and that meant it was time to harvest some fiber!

One of Elaina's Holland Lops

 A little history of our rabbit experience before we get into todays story. When my now 20 year old daughter was 11 she started raising Holland Lop bunnies. We were not lucky enough to have a 4H group near us so I actually got her the courses that 4H puts out and we went through them and she raised and showed very successfully on her own for quite a few years. She even had a few angoras at one time but I was not spinning at the time. She made enough money to keep her little rabbitry going and had a lot of fun doing it. She eventually moved away from the rabbits as she got interested in horses and that took over her life.

Mr. Happy Jackals the day we brought him home

 So there have been no bunnies for a few years. Now last year my son who is 12 accompanied me to many fiber festivals. He loves to weave and he also loves the animals. There were many cute bunnies at these festivals. So of course we brought home one. He is a sweet bunny with gorgeous crimpy locks and while I let Christopher think this was his bunny I knew it was mine! Or at least his fiber was mine! Mr. Happy Jackals as he is known by.....has not dissapointed us and over the past year has produced amazing fiber while also continuing to steal everyone's heart.

And right before a plucking session

Mr. Happy Jackals is a german and satin mix

 Then as luck would have it we were able to adopt a group of Angora's from a family wanting to find them good homes. So we ended up with a german and 3 satin angora's. And then last fall I brought home my newest and  sweetest boy Asch who is a English angora. So we pretty much have a representation of most of the popular angora breeds now.

Snow Flake our German Angora

Cinna Bun a satin angora

  This past week it was time to harvest their fiber. Most angora's molt their coats. If you talk to different people they will tell you it's best to shear.....it's best to hand scissor......it's best to pluck. But one ladies advice has stayed with me. She said to do what is right for the rabbit and you. Some of them have coats that lend to hand plucking, some to scissoring and some to clipping. Do what makes you and the rabbit comfortable. So we have experimented with different ways of getting that fiber off over the past year.

Hand Plucking

Here you can see where the fiber has been plucked

Freshly plucked locks lined up and ready for spinning

Ember sporting her new coat of fleece

  I tend to hand pluck the backs and sides of my rabbits. As a hand spinner this is the prime way of getting the best fiber for spinning. I pluck and lay the locks in a box aligning them as I go so I can spin straight from the box when I am ready. Angora fiber is very clean and does not need any washing before spinning. I will then scissor some of the longer locks around the neck and bottom. And I finish with shaving the underside and any matting. They look pretty funny when I'm done but we put cute little fleece coats on them and in a week the new coat is already coming in.

Hand  plucking Snow Flake

This is what works for me. Everyone you talk to is different and will tell you what works for them. I am also a newer Angora owner and am learning as I go. I love the rhythm of hand plucking and our rabbits seem to as well. It does not hurt them as the hair is molting and loose. They love getting rid of that extra coat and I think they feel good after a session of plucking.

Asch my English Angora after a blowing session

To keep their coats tangle free we blow them with an animal dryer once a week. This is good for their skin and their coats. By doing this we have not had to comb ours at all. I think it also depends on the angora. Some are just bred to have less matting. We have found these weekly grooming sessions work well for us.

Since we have had the angoras I have been experimenting with their fiber. Spinning 100% angora and also making blends. It is an amazing fiber and a lot of fun to work with. If you are interested in hand spinning angora I highly recommend Angora A Hand Book for Spinners by Erica Lynne. It is out of print but I found mine used on Amazon.

If you are interested my son and I will be opening an Etsy shop very soon. We will be selling our fibers and other fiber related items. There will even be my hand spun blends. It is in the works and I will let you know when we are up and running. I want a shop that caters to the hand spinner and we are keeping that as our focus.

I hope you enjoyed peeking into our rabbit hutch. Which by the way will be growing soon as my son has developed a breeding plan and Mr. Happy Jackals will be a Daddy very soon!! We will keep you posted!!

I had a productive week in some ways and in others I feel like there was not enough time. I think I just did not do a good job of balancing my to do list. I have a post almost ready to go about our Angora rabbits but I just did not have the time I needed to get it done. I hope to put it up tomorrow!

But there was knitting and playing with fiber!! Of course there was! But we won't talk about the housework that needs to get done......no let's not go there!

I finished my Snowfling Mittens!! Such a fun pattern! And thanks to my 5 year old for the great shot of me with my mittens!


I also cast off on the test knit I was doing for Susan Ashcroft. Everyone should knit this pattern! It is such a relaxing knit and the end result looks like far more work then it actually is! I used my handspun for it but it would be a great pattern for any type of yarn. It is the perfect size and it has been cold enough for me to actually wear it this week! (what happened to Spring???) It's called the Little Big Wrap.


Don't even ask me what I am reading........at the moment I am knee deep in cataloguing our spinning guilds library of resources. When I offered to take over the library I never realized the benefit of having these amazing books and DVD's stored at my house!!! 6 bins of them!! Maybe next week I will start sharing if I can chose one to start with!

I hope everyone that celebrates Easter had a lovely Holiday. Ours was a bit quiet and simple but sometimes those can be the best ones. Our chickens gave us a nice Easter surprise and starting laying and there were great big Easter hugs for our 4 legged friends.



There was a bit of spinning on the wheel this week but I am saving that for another post of it's own! I finally have a plan for Apricot the Alpaca's fleece and I want to share that this week!! But here is a sneak peek at what I have been doing.........


 Joining Ginny over at Small Things for the yarn along this week. Happy knitting!

Most of my time this week has been focused on a test knit for designer Susan Ashcroft aka stitchnerd on Ravelry. The pattern is Little Big Wrap and is set to be released in April. Not only has it been a delightful and relaxing knit but also a stash buster as I am using early handspun from my over flowing shelf of handspun skeins.



  Early handspun really means it was early on or actually with these skeins, in the first year of my spinning "career". Not sure career is the right word......no it's not .......but at the moment I can't think of another one.  So if you look at these early skeins and the skeins I am making now there is a big difference. Earlier skeins are not very consistent and tend to be a bit lumpy in spots. I am still proud of my earlier handspun. We all must start and learn and progress. And with spinning it is all about the practice. So when I look at these skeins I see how far I have come. All that to say these "early" skeins can still look amazing in a knitted project. I am finding that the knitting or weaving can make your handspun shine. And isn't that why we spin anyway. At least for me......I spin so I can create beautiful things and this pattern is really making my heart sing. It is designed to show off a beautiful skein of yarn, hand spun or commercial. I am excited to get this finished today and blocked. We might just have a few more colder days that I can actually get to use it!


I also finished my latest spin. I ended up with almost 900 yards of this lovely and soft fingering weight. I shared the fiber and the process in last weeks Yarn Along and here are a few finished photos.







I finally cast on for my March socks! Let's see if I can finish them before the end of the month! I'm just doing the Hermiones pattern on my toe up 2 at a time.

Mr. Happy Jackals

We are busy this week in the Rabbitry! I will be doing a post on how we harvest fiber from our angoras later this week. So if you are interested come back and check it out. I also did a post on the sheep shearing we went to last week and you can find that here.

So many of you are reading Knitlandia so I had to pick it up and start. I am really enjoying it!! Joining the Yarn Along over at Small Things today. Happy knitting everyone!

This past Tuesday Christopher and I headed out to a lovely farm in New Paltz NY. White Barn Sheep and Wool is a beautiful farm and fiber shop run by Paula. It was shearing day and we were invited to jump in and help and learn all we could about the process.


Paula has a herd of about 40 sheep. She has Cormo sheep and a cross of Cormo and California Red. This cross produces a fleece that is slightly coarser then the Cormo but still with loads of crimp. The red faced sheep are the cross's.






After the warmer weather  we have been having the sheep seemed happy to be rid of their heavy coats and after shearing they ran out to the pasture to sun themselves.






Just watching the shearing process was amazing. It is quite a skill and the shearer made it look easy. The sheep seem to just relax when they are placed on their backs and there is very little protest from them during the process.

After a sheep was sheared we took the fleece to the other side of the barn where tarps were laid out for skirting. Skirting means taking and removing all the really dirty bits and pieces of the fleece that are not usable. Mostly around the neck and rear area. Then the fleece is rolled up and bagged for sending off to the mill. It will then be made into roving and yarn which Paula sells in her shop.



 One benefit of working with the fleeces was the lanolin. I love the feel of the lanolin on my hands and although they were dirty they were super soft and moisturized! I also loved picking the fleeces up off the shearing floor. They still had the amazing warmth of the sheep radiating out of them!

Many people came by to help and young and old alike jumped in and took part in the process. Christopher helped to move sheep......carry fleeces and by the end of the day could skirt a fleece with the best of them.


As we were skirting I came across one of the cormo cross fleeces that just really spoke to me. That sounds silly but in a way it was true. It had beautiful crimp and not a lot of vegetable matter. I scooped up that fleece and put it to the side because of course I was bringing that one home! I love that I met the girl it came off of and was part of the process from the beginning. I now have 6 lbs. of fleece to process!



Paula is so knowledgeable and is more then willing to share what she knows with others. She has created a community of fiber enthusiasts and a place where others can learn and grow in fiber arts. I am planning a trip back very soon.

I will leave you with a little video of the shearing.........