At this is the time of year, as we begin to turn our thoughts to do things for others it will bless us with peace as we feel the Savior’s love in our actions. You will find the video of “The Christ Child” here.
(Sorry my photographic skills need work, I couldn’t get it straight or any bigger :P)
I have 5 hats ready to go for my Hats for Warmth project to send to my local homeless shelter, and since you will notice the temps today, I will get that in the mail tomorrow!! Now to start knitting more hats. I like to have 5 or more hats to send out.
My son and his spouse went to a fiber show, several hrs away, two weeks ago, and while they were there they bought me 2 Haunui spinning roving, which is a new sheep breed to me. This sheep breed is only found in New Zealand and I have been eyeing this fiber for a while. There is a fiber artist with a small business here in the USA, Twine, that imports the fiber and carries it. He also carries the Majacraft spinning wheels. It’s a new website and he doesn’t have much up on it yet, but I will be following it for more fiber batts and drooling over the spinning wheels :P. He’s doing the fiber fair circuit at the moment so I’m sure it will be after the holidays before he has his website setup completed and will probably depend on what stock he has left after the holiday shows. I have to say this wool is soft like Merino and the one he blended with alpaca and silk is very soft!!!
I’m rushing to get the hats out to the shelter because our cold weather has hit a little early this year. Fortunately it’s just today and will warm back up to the lower 20’s and teens in the day, but this minus temperature is our Jan and colder Feb weather. The first temp is the ambient temp, the lower one next to it is the feels like temp, the next number is the dew point and the percentage next to that is the humidity.
I will be blocking the baby blanket, that I finished a couple of weeks ago and sharing a picture of it and a new baby sweater I started, in a few days. I also need to start the color work Christmas tree balls. I have put it off because I’m not a color work person and lol, it gives me a little anxiety. I know, once I start them, it will be fine. sigh
Stay warm everyone!!!
We are having a snow storm, first big snow of the winter, and boy is it!! I woke up at 3:30 AM to get a shot of the snow and there was a deer there, so I captured that in my picture, so cute. The next picture is the storm alert, so we have about 10 to 12 more hrs to go of this snow storm, at least the wind isn’t terrible. The last picture I took a few hrs ago of the snowfall so far. I’d love snow more if it was warm :P. This storm is across many states, so if any of you out there are in this storm take care and stay warm. 🙂
*Update* as of 10:30pm we have 12 inches of snow, some towns got 14 inches. All said and done we ended up with about 14 inches. Is it spring yet?
Who knew chemistry could be fun :P.
My son has been busy knitting on his flatbed knitting machine. He is having so much fun creating these hats from his fingering alpaca yarn!
I love fall (except that it means winter is coming) for all the colors of the trees. These are two of the trees on my son’s farm. Maples, so pretty. I took these a couple of weeks ago, the leaves have all fallen now. So after Christmas I will be going, “Is it Spring yet?”
This was the Halloween celebration at the farm this past Saturday :). The first two pictures are some of his decorations, then there are several pictures of the alpacas wearing costumes, lol, some of them had trouble leaving them on! You can see the male behind the fence with a bow tie and little Apollo also has a tie on, some of the females were wearing hats. Libby the llama said, nope! They will be decked out at Christmas too :).
The next to the last picture is some sport weight hand spun I turned into a hat for my friend that gave me the smaller wheel that I use at the farm during alpaca days to show spinning to the people who come out to enjoy the alpacas as a thank you. It’s a paid for pattern, Husband Request Hat on Ravelry. I changed it a little so I made it a little longer and knit 4 purl 2 so it’s a little more stretchy, but I wasn’t sure of his head measurements and I am not a fan of the hats that fit skin tight so I thought this was the best way to go. Hope it fits him :P.
The last picture is the new hat I’m working on with the Hats for Warmth project I work on for our local homeless shelter. This will be hat number 5 this year, one more after this and I will send them off to the shelter. I am using a #6 16″ circular needle and I Love This Yarn in the print color #red tweed. It’s not really a tweed, it’s a darker red with black speckles on it, LOL, but it is pretty. I am enjoying knitting it.
We had a birth this morning! A little boy (we were hoping for a little girl) but he is so cute and will be a rose grey like his mom, he’s so little! My son is watching to make sure he could latch on to nurse and the little one did, the colostrum is important. He will be weighed this evening and they will pick out a name for him so he can be registered. I told my son he should name the little one Ozzy Osborn, but he said, he doesn’t look like an Ozzy, and I thought, what does an Ozzy alpaca look like? LOL. Anyway a name will be forthcoming. He’s doing well so far, he was about an hr old in the right bottom picture. My son put one of his whippet’s sweaters on him because it started raining, so he wouldn’t get cold. The mom wasn’t real happy but she allowed it.
This was days 11, 12 and 13. the middle picture is day 13 where I spun the last of the roving for this fiber and also the two bobbins or singles are finished. Tomorrow I will ply these two singles together to get a 2 ply yarn :), and wash it and let it dry, and I will begin on Sunday with my next spin.
Picture #1 (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them), I put my bulky flyer and bobbin on my Kromski Polonaise spinning wheel so I can make sure the bobbin doesn’t run out of space as I ply these 2 bobbins of singles. You can see the difference of the bulky bobbin in the first picture against the regular size bobbins in the last picture. If you look hard you can also see the flyer difference in the 1st picture versus the 2nd picture. My regular bobbins in the last picture are different weights, two of them are 57 grams, and one is 53 grams, I use a magic marker and put the weight of each bobbin on the end. I weigh them after spinning and subtract the weight of the bobbin to get the spun singles weight. The fiber on one weighed 48 grams and the other weighed 49 grams. Pretty close. If I have left over singles on one, which I imagine I will, I will Navajo ply it (aka Andean plying) or practice chain plying and have a tiny skein to remember my spin :). I will put a picture up of my finished skein on Tuesday, so you don’t miss my Monday Funny post :P. I will be gifting this skien to my ophthalmologist (eye doctor) on Wednesday.
Yesterday was a beautiful day in the 70’s with very little humidity. Today was in the low 80’s but the dew pt was 71% and humidity 82% so it was a little muggy feeling. We have thunder storms coming in tomorrow through next Wed. Tuesday through Thursday will be in the lower 90’s, not sure how much the rain will affect the “feels like” temps, but I’m sure it will not be fun!
Stay safe and enjoy your gardening and/or crafting out there!
Oh dear, I watch shark week to remember why I don’t swim in the ocean, now I have one more reason to not swim in the ocean, salt water crocs in the water at the beaches where it’s warm enough for them to survive, sigh. This one thinks he’s hidden in a wave, sorry dude that’s a fail, lol.
Bought a bag of barbecue chips (Old Dutch brand) and this is one I found in the bag. Love the little reminders we sometimes get at odd times and in strange ways. We are never forgotten.
LDSVenus-knits 