Some pics from the weekend.

So as I previously wrote, on Saturday a friend, my daughter and I all went to a local farm and picked up 10.5# of fleece, and then dropped it at the processor to be made into roving.

We picked up all told 4# of Southdown, and 6.5# of Tunis - both good for teaching a new spinner in my opinion. We held back a half pound of the Tunis so sunshyn689 could learn the whole process from start to finish.

Jerimiah from Twist of Fate was awesome, and gave us the tour allowing both Tessa and sunshyn689 to see how roving is made on a larger scale than our little drum carder. Tessa was delighted to see how it all was done and was awestruck by all the bags of fleece waiting to be washed, dried and picked and carded.

From my daughter's perspective, it's always been done in a tub in the sink or bath tub with a little dish soap with as hot of water as Mommy can stand and repeated until the water was clear. We then hang it out on a rail on our porch to dry, and later it is brought and flicked out by hand and then run through the drum carder to be made into a batt.

Those Bats get torn down into strips and then I spin them into yarn, so for Tess to see it all on an industrial capacity was pretty impressive - especially when she got to see the spinner. She was pretty stunned to see that it wasn't a spinning wheel making the yarn. I have to laugh as she see's yarn at places like AC Moore and is convinced that it's all made by people in their living room watching TV while they spin.

The carding machine they have is a smaller machine as mill machines go, but that's not a bad thing. It allows them to do batches as low as 2#, making my 4# (Pre wash weight) of Southdown a sure bet to make it through after it loses at least a fourth of it's weight to the wash bin... There was much more than just the machine you see to the right, but I forgot my camera so you get what I nicked from their website... that said, if you are looking for a really nice processor - these guys are awesome.

The wool was pretty well skirted so when it gets to the stage of sitting on that conveyor belt there should be very little vegetable matter that makes it into the roving.

I have to say I like how close the spinnery is to where I work too - as I have a couple more fleeces to drop off for processing and I'll be doing that this week after work. Probably on Tuesday or Wednesday - allowing the fleece to sit in the trunk all day to kill any thing that might be living with the fleece... like say - moths or anything else that they could have been exposed to during the past 6-8 months in my sun room with a busted screen window...

While I won't get the roving back until October, I've been saying for months that I was going to drop the fiber off to be made into roving and I've just not done it.

Will I keep some back to process and blend at home? Probably. But I've decided that at 6.00 a pound to be washed and carded, that I'm just ready to have it out of my house as I don't know when I'm going to get it all processed. Their price as listed on the website is a bit more than I'm being charged, and I'm not really sure but as my stash is all pretty much low grease wool then I don't feel too guilty for the discount.

Jeremiah is a sweetie too, and the time he spent explaining to Tessa was appreciated. He also gave us a brief tour and Tess got to see the Goats and Alpaca they have as well as a couple of Ewe's and Rams they have... and the poor guy was flustered when sunshyn689 asked why he wasn't shorn down low in the back. "That's his balls ma'am." I think she was pretty embarrassed/mortified too... but it was a very funny moment. I wish I'd have gotten pictures when we went to both the farm and spinnery, as the farm was something out of my brightest and most desired dreams... oh well some day.

Anyhow - after we got back sunshyn689 started on the scour of the Tunis we held back. I don't know if she's taken any pics of it yet, but I know it's not dry yet as we got a heck of a thunderstorm yesterday which soaked the heck out of everything - including the freshly washed fleece. Next Saturday morning we'll be running it through the drum carder and then spinning it up before dying it.

On other fronts - this weekend I got some merino I've been working on finished spinning up - it came out beautiful.

The photo's not so hot, but that's ok - the single twisted up nicely without over twist, it's going to be allowed to sit on the bobbin a week or so before I run it through the yarn winder so I can create a center pull ball to ply. After measuring it up, and skeining I'll put it in the bin for photo's and sale on Etsy... it's a rather lovely yarn if I say do say so my self.

So my previous post I mentioned the BFL I had hand washed, flicked, carded and spun - here's some pics from that. This was all done from 12am Saturday to 2am sunday.

Yes - again the photo quality isn't the greatest, but it was a last minute thought of "Hey I ought to take some pics of what I've been doing for my blog... especially as I've gotten requests for them recently in my other blog. I still have half the BFL fleece to finish up - it's still slightly damp as it was on my porch when the rain that drenched the Tunis drenched my BFL as well... Given that today is going to be a scorcher, I fully expect that I'll be able to card it up in the next couple of days. It should be dry by tonight.

At present I have some Mohair/Romney in the bin you see in the far left above... I've been flicking it out, and opening the locks as well as doing a first blend with the hand cards, and then will be putting it through at least once on the drum carder. That will be set aside to spin later this week too.

I promise more photo's to come and maybe even a video from this Saturday if sunshyn689 isn't too nervous about having herself be the guinea pig in a how to session. :-)

Oh for those of you HitchHiker fans - yes the wheel is still in my car, poor thing is in the trunk with 4# of Navajo Churro and 2# of Jacob. It will probably come out of the car smelling like a sheep farm. That ought to be fun at S&B on Wednesday ;-).

(BTW - Why use sunshyn689 as a guinea pig for photos and video? She's 1. Younger 2. Pretty & 3. I'd be the one holding the camera for all this LOL!)

BFL from ewwwwwww to ahhhhhhhhhhh and Raw Wool finds

As previously written, given the heat of the weekend, my plans have been predominately fiber related.

Friday I had some of the most amazing Blue Faced Leicester that needed to be scoured to remove the lanolin and any dirt. The fleece hinted at being snowy white and amazingly beautiful when spun up.
It was late, the kids were asleep and the fleece wasn't washing itself, so I got out the wash tub, and filled it with detergent and the hottest water my tap produced.

I was not disappointed - when clean (after about 5 soak/rinse combo's) it was snowy white, and I set it out to dry.

It was very late when we got to sleep - the kids woke at 2:30 and it was emotional trauma time as one of them had a nightmare screaming enough to wake the other and leave me with two frightened kids.

At 9am instead of being on the road, I was in the shower, but caught up pretty fast so we could pick up sunshyn689 and get over to the farm. I have to say I love my GPS, as we might have gotten lost if not for it.

We selected a Tunis and a Southdown fleece, and then as the fiber mill is only 2 miles away and we bought 10 pounds of fleece we dropped all but a small amount off for the processor to turn into roving for dying and spinning... and it's really nice to have a connection with a local fiber source. Plus - those fleeces were well skirted so I know we didn't buy bags of rocks or dung.

We have to wait until October for them to get back, but we held back a small amount for sunshyn689 to learn on... and when we got back to her house she pulled out a dish tub and started scouring her first batch of wool. I have to say I'm tickled pink at how well she's picking it all up, but she's not a stupid woman, so that makes it a lot better. I'll bring my drum carder and a diz next weekend to her house and on Saturday morning we'll finish processing that fleece. We'll decide once we have made roving if we're going to go straight to spinning or if she'll want to dye it first. My first thought is to just spin it and move on from there.

Last night I pulled what was dry off my porch and sat for an hour flicking it out (which means I opened the locks to make it fluffy for carding and had a couple of medium boxes full of fluff ready to be put through the drum carder. Lesson the first however was no matter how clean you think you got your wool, it's still going to drop small bits of dirt and vegetable matter. Doing it on the couch without a drop cloth produces an awful mess on your once clean shirt and shorts.

The BFL that I cleaned the night before and spent time flicking out before running through my drum carder turned out amazing, and I'm really excited about plying it with something... not sure what right now, so I'll be taking it off the bobbin and balling it so the singles can go a little stale before I ply it. I'm not sure what I'll ply it with right now...

My Jumbo flyer for my wheel is broken again, so plans today had me going to "In Sheeps Clothing" but they were closed today, and then back to the inlaws for strawberry shortcake. Lemme tell you that 40MPG is awesome and my new car has 205 miles on it now. We drove about the Litchfield hills before picking the kids back up at the inlaws. Tonight I sat with some Mohair and Romney and hand blended in preparation for working on the drum carder again. Getting the kids to bed much earlier has been a godsend for me in getting anything fibery done. Yay for that!

Stinky Fiber for a Saturday Morning

So I stepped into a heck of a deal on Monday on raw fleeces (already skirted though which is good, although I'll be doing another good once over before scouring.) sunshyn689 and I are going in the morning to look at them tomorrow and see what's in good condition and will require the least amount of work to get vegetable matter (Hay/straw) out and they've supposedly already been skirted to remove anything gross. As it's going to be 95 here tomorrow I figure I can spend part of the afternoon scouring what I pick up and then set the washed fleeces out to dry on my porch overnight - by Sunday they should be good and dry and ready to be carded to be spun...

It's going to be hot all weekend, and this will be a great time to get caught up on my fleece that I need to get processed. I'm thinking that I might pick up some staples for my staple gun, some window screen and a bunch of 1*2's to make some drying frames with... as well as latex gloves for use when washing the fleeces... ya never know until you see the fleeces out of the bag how well they were skirted for dung etc until you can lay them out on a tarp and do a good once over...

• Lincoln 8 lbs. 7” staple grey
• Lincoln 5 lbs. 4” staple light grey
• Lincoln lamb 9 lbs. 12” staple dark grey
• Lincoln 7 lbs. 7” staple silver grey
• Border Leicester 8 lbs. 8” staple white
• Romney Cross 6 lbs. 4” staple white
• Romney cross 7 lbs 4” staple white
• Romney cross 7 lbs. 5” staple white
• Southdown 4 lbs 1.5 “ staple white
• Montadale 5 lbs 3” staple white
• Tunis cross 6 lbs. 2.5 “ staple white
• Tunis 7 lbs 3.5” staple white
• Romney 8 lbs. 4.5 “ staple white
• Romney 7 lbs. 5” staple white
• Cheviot 4 lbs 4” staple white
• Oxford 7 lbs. 3.5 “ staple white
• Romney 9 lbs 5” staple white

Will I buy all these? Um No. But this is what I have to select from tomorrow. Pretty cool eh? Ok - you there reading this will probably not comment, and ya know that's ok. To me - it's pretty cool - the farm is so close to me and I like the idea of developing a relationship with a local shepard. Ok - NOW GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER, NOT THAT KIND OF A RELATIONSHIP.

Sheesh folks.

On my wheel right now I have some lovely Merino that I hand dyed in shades of red. It's spinning up pretty nicely but it appears to be more pink than red :-) we'll see how it plies up when I get to that stage. I've been pre-drafting the roving into nice spinnable slivers, and getting in some spinning time each night after the kids have gone to bed. It's a definite change for the better and I find I'm more relaxed and sleep better after getting in an hour or so of
spinning a night.

Tonight after the kids went to sleep I scoured up a pound of BFL - oh so lovely and the staple is really nice and long. I also washed a half pound of Ramboullet... nice but after doing the BFL I'm a bit spoiled... where one has such a nice long staple the other is velvety soft. I'm now going to head back down stairs, get a shipping label that's overdue onto a box to go out tomorrow morning and then get the rest of my red finished spinning so I can ply it later.

how to freak out your cube neighbors.

So as last night was the first S&B I've been to since my step dad's heart attack happened, I had my HitchHiker Mini in my car still this morning. He came in to work with me today, and I took a brief break to empty a half dozen bobbins using my ball winder that happened to just fall into my purse on my way out the door this morning as I left for work.

This is the results - all waiting plying except the one in the bottom left corner - that's a failed experiment in plying Alpaca, and it's soft, but man I do not advise using the Kate on a HitchHiker Mini for the purposes of plying. Seriously... it's nice stuff, but that other alpaca you see there, it's going to be plied with some Silk I think. Something complimentary that I've been working on with a drop spindle I think. Something with dark but complimentary colors.

I do now have several empty bobbins though - which will give me a chance to get to more of the roving for that lovely purple and green colorway in the bottom right of the yarn ball pyramid. Do I know the yardage or ouncage on any of these yet? Nope. Won't do that until the end, and I still have all of the below shown roving to spin as well.

Isn't it all so pretty? Almost done and I have 3/4 a bobbin full still on the Mini. I'll be plying this colorway against itself, unles I find something in my fiber bin that sings to me to blend the shades together.

What will I do with these? Well when finished they'll end up in my Etsy shop or as gifts to my knitting friends... as usual.

BTW - regarding the previous post, my little guy is doing well. Thanks to all who contacted me off blog to check on him :-) He joined me for lunch yesterday and charmed every one in his path. I'm so in for it...

Scared witless

Not really a fibery update this week guys. My baby did something on Friday and then Sunday that really has frightened me beyond words. His lips turned blue in his sleep.

In trying to discover what caused it I've concluded that modern medicine is just barbaric.

My poor little man's been a pin cushion, been jammed in a Plexiglas frame that bolts shut on the sides, while he sits on a saddle to get chest X-rays, had an EKG run, and still has to have an EEG run that they can't get scheduled until mid June at Yale New Haven. I'm exhausted from it all, he's beyond words of done with it all. They don't know yet why he is going cyanotic when he sleeps.

It hasn't been something they've been able to observe... outside of a possible arrhythmia - there's a chance it was a series of small seizures - but they just don't know. It first started happening on Friday - and was noted by my husband at nap time.

Sunday I had 4 incidents of it while we were in the car, and I decided that I'd call my HMO's Nurse line. They suggested getting him into the Children's hospital that night, no later. Home on Sunday night, we went to his pediatrician early monday, and I spent the day in and out of medical facilities, and again the childrens hospital in Hartford.

They sent him home, his little arm covered in paper tape and gauze that he immedietly tried to pull off, that covered the site where they drew multiple HUGE vials of blood from him off, and he spends time rubbing the bruise on his leg from where they jammed him into the X-ray frame so they could get a chest X-ray

His heart and lungs look good on the x-ray and for the EKG and Blood tests - they came up normal.

So that one more test is left and the local hospitals aren't deemed prepared enough to deal with little ones, so they are scheduling at Yale New Haven for an EEG for him. (CCMC doesn't have someone who can do this until July.) This will require that he's sedated, and I'll likely need to take another day off from work like I did Monday.

I don't regret it at all, but I'm exhausted and just want to know what caused this so we don't have the ghost of the issue haunting us.

I told Gaelon I need a spa day - but I'm thinking I need a weekend where I can spin, and not be worried about kids, or anything else inbetween massages, pedicures and little things to help de-stress me.

Have I mentioned I was interviewing for a new job at Initech too? It's a wonderful job in Quality Assurance, an audit and compliance position. While dealing with my son's issues, and my mom and step dad's ill health I have been trying to decide if I want this job that I've been agressively recruited for. Critical analysis regarding my career is eclipsed by thinking about one beautiful little blonde haired boy.

So what's wrong with my baby? What made my him go cyanotic and scare the poop out of his Mommy and Daddy?

Well like the Doc said - it's just not known and they are leaning towards saying it's a virus right now.

I looked at him last night in his sleep and said "Garret you aren't MS Windows, there are no bugs allowed."


On the work front - I accepted the position. I start my new job on the 2nd of June.

Silk nice, icecube on my bum not.

Ok, so in the face of all that's going on right now with my step dad being ill and having recently lost my step mom - which brings the loss of my dad to the forefront of my mind and heart, I decided that if the kids won't let me get time on the wheel I'd haul out a drop spindle. After all, with a drop spindle there is no chance of little fingers getting caught in whirring parts.

So I've been working on a lovely silk colorway that I think is in need of spinning up in a ply with some Alpaca. The Alpaca only has me peeved with trying to ply it with more alpaca and I think that's got a lot to do with the fact that I'm using the onboard kate and my HitchHiker to do the plying, so my need for a real tensioned kate is coming back into play.

*sigh* I was going to get one at the CT Sheep and Wool festival - really, but for whatever reason it didn't happen.

I need to keep an eye out for one, maybe if we get to go to Coggeshall farm in RI this weekend I'll find something I like.

So - regarding the title? My three year old daughter is an ice chewer. She just crawled into bed and dropped a piece of ice down the back of my pajamas giving me a rude awakening. Then she runs off giggling maniacally.

I want to know who taught her that trick. I truly think they deserve a special thank you of their own. Don't you?

Well wishes sought

My step dad had a heart attack last night. Not a strong man to begin with, this is a very bad bit of news. There may be a trip to Las Vegas for me soon, and it's not to gamble...

I have a rough game plan if I need to go out for the funeral, and a very liberal boss who will undoubtedly be understanding. My complications will be of the financial and toddler kind. Yep - my 14 month old is still nursing, and it's not like I could leave him behind. It's hard enough thinking about leaving my three year old and husband, but man airfare isn't cheap and we've cut down our trips out as it is - I saw gas on the pump this morning for 3.99 a gallon. OUCH.

Now if he happens to miraculously recover (ha - don't laugh, he's managed it before, he's awful ornery and love my mom too much to just check out on her despite frail health) then I'll be taking my three year old to the fiber fest at the Coggeshall farm in Rhode Island next Saturday. She has a love for spinning, and I think that getting her turned on to non oil dependent (other than the petrol to get there to learn more) activities and fabrics and means of living is a good thing.

We'll have to see what the week brings before we make solid plans.

I'm too productive out of the office.

Today is my work from home day... those days usually start earlier, and end later than a work in the office day, and I am usually saner by the end of it as well.

Already today I've gotten 2 reports and one major document finished, and that was in the first hour of the day. It's a rainy grey day and I'll be slipping folding laundry into listenening to teleconferences. I get asked "How do you do it all Annie?" and well there's a glimpse... like most working mom's I've learned to multi-task at a level I personally thought unatainable before having kids.

Seriously, I've also gotten a couple of loads of laundry started and have a batch of wool I'll be cleaning today so I can card it and then dye it. (Crossing my fingers on the wool scouring as it's rainy, it won't happen if the weather stays so gross.)

I've also got yarn to ply, measure and photograph for the Etsy store, as well as new labels to make up for the existing yarn I have in stock. ahhhhhh I love my little color printer. It makes life so much more fun - printed out coloring pages for my daughter, photocopies of documents for me, etc...

When my SIL moved I interited her big old plastic bins that she had kept dog food in. These are going to be re-purposed to hold wool. These are tasks that don't have to get done today, but will hopefully be done by end of weekend. I am going to finish out my office/studio and get it back in shape where I'm happy with it. This means that I'll have several rubbermaid bins that will be re-purposed as well.

Yep. Work from home days are nice. I made hot ham n cheese sandwiches for lunch for my hubby and I, nuked some kids meals for the tots and on top of it all I'm also not using gas in my car. Yep. Definately nice.

Why would people be so thoughtless?

Where - MD Sheep and Wool Festival
When - Last weekend while I was in NH (see previous post)
What - Theft, Vandalism, Animal's let out of pens

Read here, and lets all watch out for eachother this festival season ok?

Kids and Dog

So outside of my spinning, I also have two other loves in my life. My family and my dog. The kids go without saying, and I've described them as my soul on my sleeve. They really are my world, and are the reason I'm a grown up these days...

The dog?

What can be said about Daisy... This little stinker of nearly two years ago

is now this little stinker (Picture taken tonight as I ran out for iced coffee at Dunkins)

She's still doing the weight fluctuation thing, and I broke down and went to the Butcher to get trimmings. Adding extra fat to her diet has been extremely beneficial, and she's starting to get a better sheen to her coat, and is just happier. She's never going to be a rolypoly dog, it's just not in her make up, but I can at least get a little extra flesh on her bones and an insulatory layer. The fatty trimmings aren't going to ever be a staple in her diet, but I can hopefully get an insulatory layer built up under her skin, as she was so lean that this winter was hard on her. No sweater would have helped.

We're going to go back to dog training classes later this spring, and she needs to be better about not having accidents in her crate. She's good about peeing, but not always great about her bowels... I had taken her out of dog daycare in January as we just couldn't justify the expense any longer - the money just wasn't there, but I wish we could put her back in.

I might make a decent living, but my kids needs come first over my dog playing all day with other dogs. We have 'Guiness' the kodiak bear disguised as a dog, down stairs to play with, as well as my MIL and SIL's dogs to play with on weekends - something I'm hoping to do more of now that the winter is over. She is playing more with Tessa instead of just jumping on her, but she's still got house training issues... she isn't good at the communicating her needs thing, and I don't know really how to change that, so I'll be dependent on the trainer for help with that. It's back to the Brittany Dog boards I guess...

Anyhow - I hope to get some better pictures of her soon, but I thought I'd share the pic I have here for now. She really is a sweet dog, and like my kids - each day she reveals more about who she is and how much fun she is to have around.

She's the sweetest thing though, and a real pleasure to spend time with. As she and the kids get older they all get to interact more.

I was contacted a couple of months back by someone who got their puppy from the same litter as Daisy's... wanting to know if we'd gotten papers to register her. None of Audrey and Arrow's pups were papered, as Audrey wasn't. What do you expect for a dog that is specifically not a show dog. She's a pet, she might be bird trained in the future, but that would mean I'd need to have her actually going out birding, and as we've not been in touch with our friend Brian that much lately (He's a police officer the next town over, and has voiced an interest in taking Daisy Birding if she were trained) I've not seen the point in looking into that aspect of her training.

Daisy doesn't care that she doesn't have papers either. She just wants to have that next meaty bone or sirloin trimming ;-) We're participating in a DNA study about Brittany dogs, which should be interesting.

On to the weekend, and my non spinning time...

Are these the cutest kids in the world? Seriously - I know I'm their mom, but still... and man Garret DOES NOT LIKE his monkey suit... can't blame him.