It's been a busy week. I am finally feeling stronger and the weather has been warming up and that means hiking and spending more time outdoors. I got one of my mittens done and it fits perfect. I was worried between the extra yarn from the color work and then the lining. But it really fits like a glove.....sorry I had to go there!!


I was able to cast on the second mitten mid hike yesterday. The kids and I took a trip to Promiseland State Park and hiked Conservation Island. We brought a picnic lunch and the kids explored on the beach of the lake and Mom sat and knit. It was almost 60 degrees and I enjoyed feeling the sun when it peeked out. Spring is on the air and we are all so ready!!

I had a lot of fun getting started making batts with Apricot the alpaca. I could not resist getting some on the wheel right away and I was not disappointed!
I pulled apart the batts and made little nests of fiber which spun up like butter! I am in the process of sampling to see if I want a 2 or a 3 ply yarn.




Our guild met this past Friday and one of our members who is a master spinner gave a program on spinning singles. I brought along a braid of Shetland in the fall leaves colorway from Three Waters Farm. I tried to spin consistent with a slow treadle and my hands moving faster. Trying not to let too much twist into the fiber. I was a little worried when it cam off the bobbin as it looked over twisted. but after a warm bath and a little thwaking it balanced out and became a very soft and beautiful yarn. I am leaning towards knitting a shawl with this.




Here are a few photos from our last hike. Apparently I am raising monkeys.....so yes this is my circus and yes....those are my monkeys


I'm joining Ginny for this weeks Yarn Along.....Happy knitting my friends!

 Two weeks ago the flu swept through here and took us down in a mighty swoop. Now the kids bounced back fairly quickly. But with my immune system still so weak I have not been able to get my health back to normal yet. You know you are really sick when you can't even knit on a plain sock to pass the time.It was brutal.
The past few days I was able to get knitting again and I finished my Waiting for Rain Shawl. To say I am happy with it is an understatement! This is my new favorite shawl and one I will be wearing a lot. It is just the right size and I love the color combo. It was a very fun knit and I highly recommend it!



Yesterday I cast on a pair of colorwork mittens. I only knit here and there but one mitten is almost done! I still need to knit the liner but I might be addicted to colorwork mittens so fun and fast!


We had some warmer weather this past weekend with some hints of spring in it! The kids and I are heading out hiking again on a daily basis. I am hoping it helps to bring my energy level back up! It was not a bad winter here but we are all very ready for Spring to arrive!


Being so sick there was no spinning this week but we did wash Apricot's fleece and we plan on getting it on the drum carder this week. It is going to make some super soft lovely alpaca yarn!



I'm joining Ginny over at the Yarn Along and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone is up to this week! Happy Knitting!!

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!!

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!!

We headed out on Friday after deciding last minute to spend the weekend in Maryland attending the Sheep and Wool festival. I've been to Rhinebeck for the last 3  years but this was our first time at Maryland. I had 2 fellow fiber lovers with me.....Christopher and Hannah Grace were just as excited as I was to meet some new fibery friends!




The weekend was simply gorgeous.....the weather was perfect and the Festival was amazing! Our plan was to get what was on our list on Saturday and then on Sunday just wander and enjoy with out any agenda.

First up was the fleece sale. I wanted a cormo and stood in line with some wonderful people as waited for the sale to start and chatted about fleeces. I love fiber festivals......everyone you meet is friendly and loves to talk fiber! Nothing can be bad about that!! After wandering through the piles of fleeces I found one that spoke to me and ended up with a lovely cormo cross. Saw some famous faces in the sea of others looking at fleeces and nearly took out Laura from "The knitgirlls" with my stroller!  I can not wait to start processing this one! I will be documenting it on the blog here as I learn the in's and out's of processing. And please if you have any great sources that you love pass them along! I'm so looking forward to the experience!

fleece sale

my cormo cross

this was our favorite sheep.....we kept coming back to him. He loved being petted!

rainbow sheep are the best

weaving a bookmark

We meandered through quite a few sheep barns meeting fibery friends as we went. And then headed over to the Family Activities tent for Christopher to take a class and make a tapestry book mark. While he was busy there Hannah Grace and I hit Solitude Wool and bought some squishy corriedale wool yarn for a future fair isle sweater vest I want to make. I can not say how much I love this company! All fiber is grown and processed in the US. I also snatched a bag of tunis fiber to spin. I was really trying to find fibers I have not worked with before for spinning. Clun Forest  was on my list! I also let Hannah Grace pick out some yarn for a new hat and mittens. She got a skein of mulitcolored Tunis! The lady at the booth was so informative and we talked spinning for a while and she offered me a bit of a Karakul fleece that she had purchased for a sample spin. What a sweet lady and so generous to offer me a way to try a breed I never even heard of before.









We watched the border collies  and their amazing herding skills for a while. After while we were just resting I got to meet an instagram friend! I only know her through instagram and knew she would be there and told her to look for Hannah Grace's wild hair......and that is exactly how she found me! She saw Hannah Grace peeking through the fence watching the dogs! We sat and chatted like old friends and it was so neat to meet her in real life!!

Hannah Grace had a captive audience and entertained the sheep with her drawings of them and some stories as well.

Sunday was another perfect day! Christopher had another class, this one was needle felting and he made a sea horse! He really liked this class. He also got a chance to sit at a floor loom and learn how to use it. He told me he really wants a floor loom now.....hmmmmm.....another fiber craft to delve into! We watched some of the show judging today and saw some more bunnies.




 Christopher picked out these buttons from Jenny the Potter for my fair isle sweater I will be making. I think he did a good job! I also hit into the whirled for a braid of Rambouillet......keeping with my plan of wanting breeds I have not spun. Another must have was a bag of battlings from Hobbledehoy fiber! I did also find a cute mini Turkish spindle for Emily.


We were able to cheer on some friends from our fiber guild as they competed in the sheep to shawl event. They ended up taking a third place and won the spinning award so that was exciting!


We really enjoyed the weekend and I can see this becoming a yearly event for us! Now to go rest and decide what to dive into first!