Jake

King of all he surveys

Border Leicester: Gotta Love It.

Awwww,  just look at those eyes, those ears and that patrician nose.....what's not to love!  

 These are some locks from a fleece that I bought at the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival.  You can see how glossy they are. BL takes dye beautifully.


Here is a pic of some tailspun BL that I spun it on my Aura. It is a super soft yarn when spun from the lock. A carded prep might yield a scratchy yarn like many of the longwool breeds.

Knitting with Art Yarn and Sales

I had a sale in my Etsy shop and sold out of yarn (I've since added a few things). Wow. I think something like 42 hanks of yarn are out the door. I'm excited 'cause it gives me a clean slate to start the new year.

Drying before shipping

As I was packing the last order of yarn and etc. up it occurred to me that I ought to share a tip for knitting with art yarn. I spin a goodly amount of yarn with coils/ beehives, beads and lumps and bumps. When you come to an embellishment in yarn that you want to show in your finished item, always use the opposite stitch than what is written. In other words, if the pattern says knit, purl instead and vice versa.  This will push the embellishment to the front of your work for later admiration.

All packed up

Fiber Storage

I have often wondered what people would think if they saw they amount of fiber that I have around the house.  Too much perhaps but regardless, storage is a HUGE problem. It would break my heart to lose any fiber to creatures (moths, mice...........). I have read everything that I could find about the best way to store fiber. 

Some recommend a pillow case for raw (i.e. unwashed) fiber and some folks leave the fiber in the large plastic bag that it is usually sold in.  Some add cedar or lavender. Whatever the case I do think most would say that fiber is really best stored after is has been washed. 

I'll freely admit that I don't wash all my fiber as soon as I get it home.  Usually, I'll wash about 8 ounces right away so I can enjoy my purchase immediately. The remainder has to be stored. Up until very recently, I left the fiber in the original bag and put that into one of those giant plastic totes until I was ready to use it. Thanks to a wonderful  forum on Ravelry (Fiber Prep Group), I have discovered the bucket.

They cost about three dollars at Home Depot or Lowe's and are free if you can find a restaurant that will give them away.  I have scads of white roving that needs a home; these things can hold about five pounds.

I doubt any critter can get in to one these buckets and I can store them in the cellar or even the garage. I suspect that the lanolin in the raw fiber might harden a little if left outside (it gets wicked cold here in New England) perhaps making wool harder to get clean. Only Spring will tell.

How to Stop that Bobbin Rattle

Oooh, there is nothing worse than sitting down for some quiet spinning and having a bobbin rattling away.  When I bought the Country Craftsman, it came with one bobbin and I needed another. I located more bobbins (Detta's Spindle); I think Detta knows a woodworker who makes them for her store.


Well, the bobbin that I bought  is fine but it isn't a perfect fit.  It rattled horribly and after suffering with the noise for a week or two, I finally sat down to figure out how to stop the incessant racket. 

The solution that I came up with is simple. I stop the noise by wrapping a little length of yarn or a little fiber on the flyer shaft between the bobbin and the flyer. The fiber allows the bobbin  
to turn easily while providing a cushion between the two offending parts.  It slides off when I'm done and takes all of two seconds to do. No more rattle!

 Some luscious Border Leicester on the bobbin.

Yarn Farming

I just finished reading Adventures in Yarn Farming by @Barbara Parry. You may recognize her name;  she has another book out about dyeing fiber. I was pleased to find the book as the author is also a neighbor, well, sort of.  Ms. Parry has a farm in western Massachusetts in one of my favorite parts of the state around Shelburne. Not only a book written by a neighbor but written about my favorite topic, fiber.

As a wanna-be shepherd, I so enjoyed the book. She set it up as a tour of the farm and her work through a year. I was reminded about the huge ice storm we had here in '08 through pictures and a great description of the way the storm changed the landscape.  The author is as descriptive about other topics and enough so that I was left in awe of the 24 hour/ 365 day in and out calender that she has to keep.

She keeps two of my favorite sheep breeds, Border Leicester and Cormo along with other critters; a llama or two and some goats.  The are tons of super photos in the book and  as an added bonus, there are several really cute knitting patterns and some good instructions for dyeing fiber.

I'd highly recommend this book for anyone seriously thinking about getting their own flock and certainly for the fiber enthusiast.  Here is a link to Ms. Parry's website:
http://www.foxfirefiber.com/index.html.

I'd love to visit her farm one day..........................

Turkeys

There has been a flock of turkeys hanging around our neighborhood all summer. We have surprised one in our backyard several times (they really can fly!) and last evening, here is what we saw.....