2008 Black Sheep Gathering

Here are some photos from the Black Sheep Gathering from this last weekend. Jen and I went and played with Sheila and Michael. It was a lovely weekend. Thanks for such a lovely weekend Sheila, Jen, and Michael.

Alive - Oh Yes!

What happened? I stopped carrying my camera with me, and without photos it's not as fun to blog. I will slip that little camera back in my bag soon.



We are all doing well. I'm working a lot lately but hopefully that will lighten up some soon.



The Madrona Fiber Festival is coming up next month. I will see what mischief I can find to photograph for you.

Tri-Polly Crackerbite

Wayne and I went to my parents for Thanksgiving and had a lovely visit and a wonderful meal with them and my sister, Sandy. Mom made this lovely Thanksgiving flower arraignment for us. She is sure talented.
I'm working in the garage/bird room area of our home until we get my office area setup. The birds really enjoy the extra visiting time, and of course sharing snacks with me.

Jojo loves crackers
Falco loves crackers
Kiwi loves crackers.

Looks like they all agree that every thing's better when you sit with a Ritz!

The baby shrubs got planted. Sorry to leave you hanging on that photo. Wayne really worked his tail off and got them planted right away. They are looking great.
The other big project that Wayne has been working on is completed as well. The trailer has new axles and is ready to travel once again. She sits a bit taller than before, since we put the springs over the axle rather than under it. It will give us more clearance for those 4 wheeling moments with the trailer. The axles are stronger than the other one's that bent.

Autumn Project

The photos speak for themseves. We're not done yet, but it's a good start!

There has been a big lull in knitting, as I have taken up playing World of Warcraft for a while. This won't work well for those expecting knitted items this Christmas. The game is very captivating, even if I am only a level 20 Shauman. I have been gathering wool in the game, and someone turned my character into a sheep for a short while - does that count?

Diamond Fantasy Shawl Finished

I finished knitting the Diamond Fantasy Shawl today. Here are some photos of it being blocked. I threw it on for a quick photo tonight so you can see how it fits. I apologize for choosing to wear green under green, since it doesn't show the lovely pattern as well like that. I've gotten a close up of the pattern while it was blocking so you can see it clearly.

I love this pattern and the Olive Tones colorway yarn I chose to knit with. I've linked to them before, but here's Sivia Harding's Diamond Fantasy site, Lisa Souza's Yarn, and Sheila Ernst circular needles. The combination was a real hit with me. I did 11 repeats on the shawl pattern, which is one extra from what it calls for.

Beauty of a Bead

Sheila Ernst created and sent me a fabulous glass bead. I was making stitch markers this weekend and found some green glass beads I had collected for that "someday" when I would see how they wanted to be made into a necklace. Check it out!

The past week has been busy with working on the Diamond Fantasy Shawl in my spare time. I was able to work from home a few days last week, but I went in to work a couple days as well. The ankle is fine, the boot is wonderful when I have to walk around a lot - it really helps. The doctor says I can have it off when I'm sitting still or resting, and that is a real blessing indeed.

I got my Hanne Falkenberg, Plisse kit last week! It's the pine green color. It will wait to be cast on for a little while as I have several project to finish up if I can first.

Keeping me Busy

I took it easy this weekend and got to moving on the Sivia Harding, Diamond Fantasy Shawl in a big way. Yes, that IS Lisa Souza yarn. It's her Olive Tones colorway in Sock-Merino! Can you believe I've got 8-1/2 repeats of the pattern done with just one skein?! Okay, yes it does pack 560 yards into one skein, but I am still amazed.

I have another skein that I will start in on soon. I want to make a really large size shawl, so I'll probably go beyond the 10 repeat recommendation for the shawl size.

Here's a photo of my nurse, on duty.

Busted

A week ago I was showing Wayne's and my farm land to Tina, and during the tour I slipped and fell, twisting my left ankle. Later that weekend, I went to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival and hobbled around and had a wonderful time. I was taking Tylenol and thinking it would get better soon. Well a week later it was still swelling a lot and throbbed with pain, so I heeded Wayne's advice and went to the doctor. It turns out I fractured my ankle.

I will be getting another xray in a couple weeks to see how the healing is progressing. Meanwhile I am wearing a walking boot so my ankle is not able to flex when I walk. I notice it feels a lot better when I elevate it and don't walk around so much, so I think I'll do that at least for this weekend. I got clearance to work from home next week as well, so I can stay off of it for the most part a while longer.

It's a very good thing I bought that Kromski Polonaise wheel from Tina a while ago. It's a single treadle wheel that my right foot can happily spin on it's own.

I was invited to the Ravelry website and have setup my user name there as "Barbs" since Mom sometimes calls me that, I figured it was fitting. It's short and easy to remember for anyone looking for me. If you are a knitter, crocheter, or spinner - (I think any of the fiber arts would do well there), think about joining. I've found a lot of great ideas since I joined yesterday. There is a waiting list to join since they are just getting the site setup, but they say all fiber artists are welcome. I signed up in July and just now got my invite, so be patient if you add your name to the list. It's interesting as it's a place to keep track of your projects, stash of yarn or needles, and to research how others have done working on the same pattern(s) that you are thinking about working on. I am planning on knitting the Hanne Falkenburg sweater called Plisse, and I was very interested in seeing "real" women, rather than models, wearing it. I also wanted to hear how they liked using the pattern. While I had found some information on the web, I found a lot of great information in Ravelry about this pattern.

I've pulled out the Diamond Fantasy Shawl I started last year and have begun to knit on it again. I sure love this pattern. I was beading the edges, but have decided to stop and just knit without the beads for the remainder of the shawl. I think it will look nice with just having the beads on the bottom anyway. Those are Sheila Ernst glass circulars in the shawl. I can't wait to get it done and try out the new blocking wires I got from OFFF!

Fingerless Mitts

I finished the fingerless mittens I mentioned in my last post. These were just done out of my head (not following a pattern) and are very simple, but I love them. The yarn is from Fly Dyed yarn in the colorway called, "Seattle". It's too bad I needed a hand to take the photo since you can't tell, but I did have both of them on at the same time. I found that the fingerless part worked well for taking photos.

On OFFF

My friends, Sam, Jen, Tina, Lori, Sheila, and I went to the 2007 Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (OFFF) last weekend. Tina and I left on Thursday and spent the evening at my parents. We went to my brother and sister in law's home and Tina got to milk their cow, Lilly. It was a memorable and fun evening. The next day I gave Tina a tour of Wayne's and my property and we headed out for Oregon.

The show was great, with more vendors and people there than I remember before. There were also Yak and Camels there to see. How fun to get up close to these lovely creatures. As you can see the camel was a big baby.

I didn't do a lot of shopping this year, and that felt good. What I came home with makes me really happy and will be very fun to work with. I got some wool from the Soft Wool lady, in shades of grey and blue. Some mohair/shetland fiber in aqua, blue, and green colors that looks like glass found it's way into my arms. It will go lovely with the new Sheila Ernst button I came home with. A pair of glass circular needles - size 4 in Ruby color came home with me. I am hooked on those needles. I got a set of blocking wires from Handworks Northwest. They have a very nice tip on the ends of the wires that is smooth and shouldn't snag my knitting when I use them. Now to get some shawls or something done to test them out with! Oh, and one skein of Pat Fly's yarn in the colorway called Seattle. That will become fingerless mitts for me.

Saturday evening Sheila and I played with the camp stove and dye pot in the dark and she dyed up some of her handspun yarn. It turned out beautiful! She's a very talented lady.

I almost made it home without buying a fleece this year. I went to the parking lot fleece sale, but nothing caught my eye there. So I went back to the sheep barn to watch the judging and on the way out I noticed a large bag of silver grey fleece. I asked the lady if she had gotten it at the parking lot sale, and she said, "no, this bag is for sale". Of course since it had already called to me, the rest is history. The Romeldale fleece is from a 3 year old fellow, named Romeo, who lives on The Little Orchard Farm in Bow, WA. I don't know the weight of the fleece, but I'm guessing 8 to 10 pounds skirted. His owner said he got new clippers and was trying them out on Romeo, so there were a lot of 2nd cuts. Knowing that up front and they gave me a great price on the coated fleece, it was an awesome deal. Tina and I pulled out the fleece and went through it pulling out 2nd cuts and those nasty bits that you really don't want to spin. It looked really good, and since Superior Fibers was at OFFF, I just dropped it by their booth and they will call me when it's ready to be picked up. How handy is that?! They are in Edmonds WA, so it's close by and they do a great job.

I'm spinning away on the Romney and hopefully will have it all spun for the sweater by the time the Romeldale is ready to be picked up. Below is a photo of Romeo - without his fleece obviously. I didn't think to take a photo of the fleece before it got sent out. I'm excited to see how it comes back. There were quite a few lighter and darker parts, so it should be a nice heathery yarn when it is spun up.

Babies, Buddies, Berries, and Birdies

Aren't the babies cute! They grow so fast and soon will be large steers roaming the pasture, but for now they bounce around and try and suck your fingers. It's not so cute when they are full grown and running and bucking around you (they do that when they feel like having fun and you are walking through their pasture).

Sandy went for a walk with Wayne and I to see how the fence line is coming. We found a beautiful feather out in the woods, I think it's from a Steller's Jay. The fence line is coming along nicely thanks to Dad's help with the bulldozer and tractor.

There are quite a few blackberries along the fence, and they are mighty tasty berries. The red seed pods that were mixed in with them just made too pretty a combination not to photograph. There's snowberry bushes with lots of white berries to admire on the place too.

Laptop is Home!

We had to send off the computer for repair and she came home today! How nice to have her working and being able to properly check email and whatnot again.

I've been busy knitting with some short skeins of yarn that Lisa Souza calls HEAT (Heals, Embellishments, and Toes). I just combined a couple of these skeins and made these socks. The pair match, although I just took the photo of this one sock. The sock in the background is the Bird of Paradise socks that I knit a while ago. I think the main colorway in this new pair is Painted Desert. The tops, heals, and toes are denimn color.

I've been busy spinning the brown Romney for my next sweater. I think I will make it a 2 ply after all. I like the way it's turning out, although it was very active coming off the bobbin, once washed it all settled down and hangs like it should in the skein. I was surprised how much it relaxed with a little washing. I think Missy was surprised that she looked so fetching in the new doo!

Fair Days

Here are some photos from the Monroe (Evergreen State) Fair. Tina and I did some demonstration spinning in the sheep barn on Saturday evening. It was a lot of fun with lots of people being very excited to get to see how yarn is made. Tina and I had a tough time not fondling the prize fleeces, but we managed to keep our hands to ourselves. Check out my new wheel! Yep, Tina sold me her Kromski Polonaise! Isn't it beautiful? Tina added some 18k gold leaf paint to the spokes and around the wheel. It really shines and spins like a dream.













The spin-in was today at the fair, and there was a great turn out. My new friend, "Rammy" filled in for me a little today. He's a got a microwave heating pad in his tummy. He sits up really nice and he will keep me toasty warm when I get a chill.

The sheep at the fair were as beautiful as ever. Tina and I had a great time Saturday evening listening to them at supper time and watching them. They were throwing their buckets around when other sheep were receiving their supper. A couple of them were climbing up and looking over at the other sheep to see what they had, and EVERY sheep was talking. It was a very noisy night until the last sheep got his/her hay and was content.

Fair and Fungus

Whatever we call ourselves (we haven't quite figured that out - could be the Bothell Bee's but not all of us are Bothellites) we managed to do all right with the fair ribbons this year. I think we got about all the colors they had between three of us. Thanks my friends for putting your work out there for someone you don't really know to judge. It takes courage, and the ability to not take one's work too seriously. There are other entries I haven't posted photos of, but I thought this wall o'ribbons was a nice photo. The spinning department in the Pacific Northwest is alive and well. There are some great spinners in this region, and the competition is very close. There are red ribbons given to spinners with over 95 out of 100 points, due to the closeness of this competition.

Speaking of fun, Wayne and I went to the farm land we own and worked on getting some brush cleared so we could see what we had under all that brush. It was rough going by hand, but my Dad got the bulldozer running and cleared some trails through the brush. Here's a couple photos. I really enjoyed the fungus on the old log that we found. I think it is just beautiful.





















The birds planted some sun flower seeds and started their own garden in the back yard.



















Oh, in upcoming news! I will be demo spinning at the fair this weekend, so you should see more sheepy photos soon. I also think I may be getting another spinning wheel very soon. You'll have to cross your fingers that I can work it out. I'm very excited about it!

Google This

Have you tried this? I guess it's made the rounds on the Internet, but it was new to me and fun.

Google the phrase "(Your name) looks like" and find the best one from the first page of results. Don't forget to put it in quotes, otherwise it won't work.

Mine came up with: Barb looks like she swallowed a bug.
Okay the first one was "Barb looks like something out of a medieval torture chamber" . I thought they saw me in something I'd washed in hot water unintentionally!, but then I realized there was a "The" in front of Barb.

Let me know what you find when you try it!