Spinning

Spinning in the Park 2015

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Spinning the Alpaca

Ok, yesterday was soooo beautiful.  I thought it would be April before I could take my spinning wheel to the park to spin.  I just couldn’t wait to spin some of that luscious Alpaca that I got back from the mill.   And I have to apologize, I forgot in the excitement of getting out to the park, to bring my camera, sigh, so this picture I took after I got home.  I’ll go again and remember to take my camera when we have another nice 60’s day, but it looks like it won’t be this warm for another couple of weeks according to the 10 day forecast.

I like my Baynes wheel, it spins nicely, but the thing that drives me crazy is that sometimes the spool will fall off because the post will get a little loose and not hold the spool in place.  Gonna have to work on that.  I always say that someday when I get rich and good looking (:p) I want one of these custom made hand carved wheels.  (Yeah right :P)  A girl can dream can’t she :).

It’s Alpaca!!!

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Alpaca Roving I’m so excited!!!  I sent the Alpaca fleeces off to the Aroostook Fiber Works mill in Maine last month and it was done by the end of Feb.  I was able to send the rest of the money for the processing on the 3rd of this month and I now have 6 1/2 lbs of Alpaca roving :), a few of the 4 oz bumps are in the picture to the left.  It’s beautiful and very soft.  My daughter purchased the 2 fleeces from Savannah Breeze Alpacas  as my Christmas gift and I love it!!!  (The link is to Savannah Breeze Alpacas’ Ravelry page as she no longer has the farm but still has some fleeces for sale.)

Guess I know what I will be doing with spare time now :P.  I’ll put a picture up after I start spinning this luxurious fiber.

It is warming up outside, in the 40’s this week and maybe into the 50’s by the end of the week, I love Spring!!!  When it warms up to the lower 70’s I’ll be off to the park to spin :).

It’s a Mystery!! And Snow and a Polypay Fleece :)

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lots of snow

Ok I have been very lax on keeping up with stuff going on and I’m going to start with the first thing which was the snow, so here goes.  Yes that last winter storm a few weeks ago gave us a foot of snow.  Pretty coming down but such a mess to drive in for a while.  It melted off the roads and a little on the ground when we had a few days of nice warm up temps in the 20’s and a couple of days in the 30’s,  woot woot.  But it’s been cold again with -temps and today is snowing again.  They say we will get 3 to 6 inches by midnight.  sigh, is it Spring yet?  It is suppose to be back in the teens and 20’s next week, looking forward to that for sure.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

2nd thing that has happened, I went to visit my friend who raises sheep, and she gave me another fleece, how cool is that?  Polypay is a fine fleece and next to the skin soft.  When it warms up a bit, and I can take it outside and be comfortable, I will skirt it and get it ready to send to the fibermill in MO to turn into roving to spin, will probably be a month or so before that happens 🙂  How blessed can a girl be :).

 

Mysterious deliver of this beautiful DMC Merino Woolly yarn

Last thing I wanted to talk about is the Mystery.  I have not ordered any yarn online lately, last thing was last year,  some alpaca for a scarf I was knitting for a friend.  But mysteriously this package with a pattern kit of 11 skeins of DMC Merino wool, called Woolly, and the pattern for two color stranded pillows, arrived at my door step this morning from the DMC company.  I’m like “what?”  I didn’t order anything and I wondered if I maybe won something from a contest, but I didn’t remember entering anything like that.  There was no bill of laden or a congratulations you won something, just the yarn and the pattern wrapped in a beautiful pink paper with the DMC sticker and bubble wrap.  I’m the curious type so I called the DMC company to see if they can figure out why I received this package, I didn’t want to be billed for something I didn’t order.   She checked for a bit while I was on the line with her, but couldn’t figure it out so I gave her the tracking number to see if that would  help, she was going to call me back with information.  I haven’t heard yet.  I will let you know if I hear anything.  I’m VERY curious about this. 😛   The yarn is beautiful and very soft and looks to be a sport weight (it comes in a 50 gram ball with 136 yards per ball and  it’s superwash!!.  I’m thinking it would make wonderful hats and scarves for future projects  :).

*UPDATE*   She called me back and offered to give me a shipping label to return it, but I told her I wasn’t going to send it back until I found out why it came, incase a friend had ordered it and had it sent to me, that would be like buying something and giving it back with no refund.  She had thought maybe they had sent it by error, but I told her since they didnt find me in their system (because I have never ordered on line from their company) that they would not have my name and shipping address in their system and could not have accidentally shipped it to me.  She said she would keep checking.  Anyone want to own up to sending it to me?  😛

Alpaca Fleeeces!!!!

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Alpaca Fleeces!!

Alpaca Fleeces!!

 

I went with my daughter yesterday to get my Christmas present.  She had asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her a fleece :).  She said really?  HAHA, oh yeah!!!!  So she said she would buy me one, of course that meant that I had to go with her to pick it out :).  An acquaintance of mine, through Ravelry (a wonderful place for fiber enthusiasts, knitters, crocheters, etc), had an Alpaca farm that she and her husband had recently sold and they then moved into the town right next to mine ;).  I had been talking to her about buying one of the fleeces she still had after the sale of her Alpaca farm.  When my daughter offered to buy me one of the fleeces I was OH YEAH!!  So off we went to look at the many fleeces she had.   I picked a light fawn blanket that is sooooo soft, an older cria (Alpaca baby) if I remember correctly.  My daughter fell in love with a brown fleece so of course we had to get that too, so I came away with 2 fleeces :), a total of about 8 lbs of Alpaca fleece.  I’m excited to send them off to have processed into roving to spin and then knit.   Both fleeces are soft but I can hardly stop touching the fawn fleece, it’s like a buttery cloud in my hands. WOOT WOOT, how lucky am I to have a daughter willing to spend money on a fleece for my Christmas present :).

Spring! & Spinning at the Park

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Blueberry Bush

Blueberry Bush

 

I have been going to put a little garden on my patio for several years now.  Last year I finally broke down and bought 2 large pots and 3 small rectangular potting boxes (you can see part of them in the picture on the left)  and didn’t get the soil for planting, lol.  This year I bought the soil and mulch and started, inside, two squash plants (a zucchini and a yellow squash).  They are officially growing and planted out in the pots.  For Mother’s Day I received a potted blueberry bush – which I had wanted for a couple of years but it wasn’t in my budget, it is shown in the picture at the left.  I have planted spinach in the rectangular boxes and am very excited about having some fresh veggies this summer ;).

I forgot to take my camera out today when I went to the park to spin but you can see the park here from another year.  I try to get out to the park once or twice in the spring to spin.   After being cooped up inside most of the winter, it was wonderful spinning in the shade of the lovely large trees and  was beautiful and with all the green grass and the leaves on the trees, and the temperature was absolutely perfect, such a wonderful peaceful thing to do. 🙂

Meet Boo

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click picture for larger image

 

 My parakeet passed away this week.  He was 13 years old and I had had him for about 3 years.  He wasn’t really friendly but did seem to enjoy my company and I enjoyed his wonderful little songs. My son and his spouse decided that I needed another little friend. So they showed up last night with Boo (Cockatiel) and cage and toys and food in hand. He’s about a year old.  He’s not real friendly yet, but he should accept me and will be nice company.  He’s very pretty, he’s a yellow with a modled grey on his back and wings.  Thank you Tim and Ev.

 

 

Polypay Ewe roving almost full single spool

 

I have been spinning, and knitting (2 comfort shawls for some sweet ladies in my ward that lost a husband and mother) so I have been keeping busy.  You can see how the roving to yarn is coming along 🙂 

We have been cold and snowy, though that is what the Farmer’s Almanac predicted, I was hoping it was wrong :P.   Is it spring yet? 

 

 

 

Yes, the Scarf is Finished :)

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1st Fleece to Scarf Done

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Ok, this Little Lace Cat’s Paw Scarf took longer than a week, but it is finished (I just knit on it when I had time, that is why I don’t make promises :P).  I took it to Church with me today, but the teen (my friend’s daughter) this scarf was knit for and her family weren’t there.  I can give this to her next week.  I was a bit surprised that the scarf wasn’t quite as soft as I had thought it would be for a lambs fleece, then it hit me, this is a cross bred lamb.  The rams are Suffolk and the ewes are polypay (the lambs are raised for meat), the polypay is a fine fleece and the suffolk  is considered a medium fleece.   So it only stands to reason that the cross bred lamb’s fleece would be a little coarser than a full polypay lambs fleece would be.  It’s still not too scratchy and should serve her as a nice warm scarf here in the midwest, where our winters get pretty nasty sometimes.

 

Polypay Ewe Roving – Spinning

.I have begun spinning the polypay ewe’s roving, which is what made me wonder why the lambs roving was coarser.  It’s soft and very easy to spin with very little vm (vegetable matter for non spinners) in it and no noils :).  Tho’ I have to admit, I severely skirted this fleece because of the way the roving came back on the lambs fleece (still full of vm and noils from not having skirted as well and not seperating the shorter fiber of the neck and legs out from the prime saddle part of the fleece).  Live and learn, and I think I did :P.  This when spun, will become a blue scarf for my friend that gave me this fleece. 🙂  I have two patterns picked out, but haven’t commited to which one yet, still have plenty of time to make my final choice.  Will post the picture and link to the pattern when I have made that final choice.

1st Skein of the Polypay Lambs Roving is……… Done :)

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1st skein polypay lamb roving

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I finally finished this polypay skein!!!   It’s been a while since I started it.  I should have finished it long ago, but I was busy (and maybe a little lazy too).  The picture on the left is just wound from the spool to the pvp pipe niddy noddy.  There are some really pretty wooden niddy noddys but this one suffices :).  It is a 2 yard wrap so if my math is correct I spun 258 yards which should be plenty for the scarf I will be knitting.  It is a sport weight (about 18 wraps per inch).  The picture on the right is after I used the red (Crimson) Jacquard acid dye.  She chose the red dye and I have chosen to knit my Little Lace Cat’s Paw Scarf pattern because the teen I am knitting this for loves cats.  I think she will like the pattern. 🙂

 Soon I will start spinning the next skein  from the Ewe Polypay fleece my friend gave me, and will make a scarf for her to thank her for the fleece.   That way they will have one, fleece to finished scarf, from both fleeces :).  I will post a picture of the finished scarf when I have it done, hopefully this week, but as I always tell my children, no promises, only that I will try.

Bison Scarf Finished :)

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Bison little lace scarf

A friend of mine has a friend with a Bison herd (American Buffalo).  She asked me if I could make something nice for her friend from the down that her bison shed every spring, and I agreed to do so.  She collected the down and sent me about 7 ozs or so, which included the weight of the mud and dirt, and I sent it off to a fiber mill to be dehaired and processed into roving or fluff so I could spin it and knit a scarf for her.  I have used this fiber mill before and they do a lovely job of processing, and anyone familiar with the fiber mills know there is always a wait because they are very busy.   Unfortunately a misunderstanding occurred in understanding the processing I had requested and they blended and spun it into yarn.  Because bison is such a short fiber the mill blends with with another fine fiber (merino) for spinning it into yarn.  The yarn is beautiful, so their work is still impeccable, but my friend’s friend wanted pure bison fiber for the scarf.  The box I got back had a beautiful skein of sport weight blended bison yarn (I would have spun it a little lighter into a heavy sock weight), some left over roving (which is very soft and wonderful) and the hair that came from the dehairing.  Tho I know there is weight lost during the washing process, I didn’t realize how much was lost in the dehairing process as I’ve never had a fiber that required it before so that was a learning process for me, but it was still enough for a nice scarf a little less long than I had intended.  I got the finished scarf, used my Little Lace Cast’s Paw scarf pattern, off in the mail on Tuesday and she should get the scarf and left over fibers today. 🙂  I hope she will be pleased with the results even if it wasn’t quite what she had wanted.  There is always next year.  Oh the fiber mill was very apologetic, they had just hired a new employee who was still learning what to do with the orders.  All is forgiven, their work is very nice.

Hmmm, the depths of deep space seems to have eaten my last post which was about football season and my beloved Cowboys, maybe WordPress doesn’t like the Cowboys, hmmm, gonna sneak it back in here anyway.  😛  GO COWBOYS!!!

Late Spring Spinning in the Park

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Spinning in the Park

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Well, last week was just beautiful, cool, a bit breezy and perfect!!  So I chose to spend a little time in the park, close to where I live, spinning :).  A man and 3 women stopped to say hello and ask about what I was doing.  I really should do this more often this summer, especially before it gets “toooo hot”  ;).  As you can tell I am spinning this teal super-wash merino on my Baynes Spinning Wheel. 🙂
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I am almost done with the 2nd skein of yarn, I have been lazy with my time and should have finished this already.  My goal is to finish it tomorrow and get it in the mail on Tuesday, so my friend will have it by the end of the week.  When I get a picture of how she is doing with the shawl, I will post it. 🙂
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Thor

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Thor is doing so much better on his meds.  I have been able to go down on his steroid (it is slowly being  decreased to the lowest it can be and still have it keep his diarrhea at bay.)  He’s happy and playful and not grinding his teeth, so I can tell he is feeling much better. 🙂   He’s an awesome little companion.