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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

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Welcome to Christmas Morning, for those who celebrate, I hope Santa was good to you and maybe brought you some fibery goodness. For those that don’t celebrate, I hope you are enjoying a nice day off and have time to felt.

I was stuck about what to blog about today. I haven’t made any presents or really anything much. I haven’t been feeling very Christmasy until the last few days when we got some snow. But then we had this surprise last Saturday.
 

Yes, they should not be born now but some of our sheep are able to breed all year and this Ewe and the Ram seem to have plans that were different than ours. Best laid plans and all that.

That was a good start and I bet the cuteness has hooked you to keep reading.

Chatting the other day about sketchbooks, some people said they don’t have one because they can’t draw. I can’t draw but I keep them anyway. I try to write things beside the pictures so I know what I was thinking later. I don’t always do it and later wonder what on earth I was trying to draw. Sometimes it sparks new ideas.

I thought I would share a few pages to encourage people. Sketchbooks are just for yourself, for ideas or inspiration not an art project in themselves.  I have seen some that are published, they are beautiful. Mine are not like that. I am sure you will recognize some of these ideas.

I use them to doodle shapes

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Do sketches. Can you tell I like sheep pictures?

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And work out how to do things.

 

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I like smallish flip pads. These are 6 inches by 9 inches. or 152mm by 229mm. I have some that are a bit smaller A5 size. I think that’s a standard everywhere but in North America. We always have to be different. 🙂 I like them because they fit easily in my basket or a bag. They are also cheap pads. $1.50 at the Dollar Store.

I will be doing some sketches for some Christmasy things for next year. I just need to remember to look at them in October so there is time to work on them.

They may not be pretty but I find them useful. I hope I have inspired you to give it a try. It doesn’t matter if you can draw, once you stop worrying about it, its fun.

Thanks for reading and commenting and joining us all year. You have all kept me going as we all work our way through these difficult times. All’s wool that end’s wool.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A new hat started and why it isn’t finished.

A new hat started and why it isn’t finished.

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This week I decided to try a new style of hat. As it’s the first one and I don’t know if it will work I am making it fairly plain.

To save time I started with a template I already had.  I traced around it so I would have the nice round part in the right size all ready to add the new part.

                          

 

This is the final shape.

                    

Next, I added some silk from silk hankies. The hankies are gray and pink.  I stretched the hankies out long so I could wrap them around. They are hard to see, you can see them sticking out the sides.

                 

After I wrapped the first side around, I added another hanky going the other way as well.

                 

Here is how it looks with the first side of wool wrapped around.

                

And lastly where I had to stop. On the outside of the hat, I added more of the gray and pink hankies. They are very hard to see, on the wet felt they pretty much disappear. I am hoping the pink and gray on the light gray wool will make it shine nicely. It is a very conservative hat but this is a government town so that would work ok.

And here are some of the reasons I haven’t got back to it yet.

The red light is a heat lamp. It has moved to another pen now. They just needed it the first night as it was very cold. These 2 moms and babies are not much trouble but these three below take a lot more work. It is not a great picture but to get a picture of them not moving, standing in front of one another or showing the camera their tails is quite difficult.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Spinning and a New Loom.

Some Spinning and a New Loom.

Comments 8 comments

Things are still very busy here with the bottle lambs. So there is not much time for felting.

I have managed to do some spinning. It all still needs plying.

This one I think will have to be plied with somthing else. I think that if I try to pull the yarn out of the middle as well as the outside it will get hopelessly tangled with all the curls.

Sunday I am picked up a new to me ( and Jan of the polar bear and bull frog). This is an upright tapestry loom. The loom has come all the way from Sudbury. It was transported down by a lady down to visit her daughter saving Jan or I from having to do the long drive up there. As you can see it is all in pieces in my van. I have to clear space for it. that will hopefully happen over the next moth or so as my husband builds his new space and I get to take over his old space. My plan is to make some fleece rugs. I think Jan is planning a Viking cloak.

 

Lambs

Lambs

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This is a short post today.  There is not much time for felting at the moment. We have started lambing here on the farm. We are a little early. Seems we missed a ram lamb and he was a very active little  fellow. Naturally with the weather being cold and wet we have some in the house.

Here is a brand new lamb, still all wet. Mom and baby were moved to a pen of ther own shortly after I took the picture.

These are the house lambs They are on bottles. This is ther first top in the living room. They have now moved to a Big pen in the basement.

And this is one that is getting warm sitting on my knee as I type this for you to read.

I am not sure how I am supposed to get ready to teach  Techniques for Intermediate Felters on Saturday. No rest for the weary as they say.

Well thats it from me , I have lambs to feed.

 

 

 

 

Finishing an Eco Piece

Finishing an Eco Piece

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Last year Cathy (Luvswool) and I did some eco dyeing.  https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/11/03/eco-printing/

They pieces have been hanging around and I was going through them again and decided I liked the heavy cotton one in particular.  It was time to finish it.  Of course, it wasn’t that easy to decide what to do.  At first I thought I’d stitch the flowers and leaves, but I’m not that great at embroidery. So it sat for awhile again.

I really liked the straggly edges. Besides, if I turned the edges over I’d lose some of the nice design. Here is part of the design.  You can see at the top the ragged edge.  The two long sides were not that way, but I spent some time in front of the TV pulling out strands so they would all look the same.

I chose some embroidery threads that reflected the colors of the imprints, but subtle enough not to fight the design.

I did three rows of stitching around the whole piece.

I had decided it would be a wall hanging so I attached a small dowel with loops on the back.

The next question is where would I hang it so it would really look good.  I have a lot of dark walls and some light gold.  It’s hard to see the gold here, but there was some contrast.

My kitchen is teal and generally sunny.

The living room is a deep bronze color.

The family room is deep moss.

We’ve had a lot of dark days here, so I know the photos aren’t the best.

What do you think?

 

Just a quick addition.  This past weekend I met with my siblings in Madison, WI for lunch.  My sister Car brought me a fleece from one of the twin boys born last year – Little Will.  Here’s a quick peek at the open bag which was quite heavy.

While we were having lunch Car’s Granddaughter Madison received pics of two new twins that were just born.  A little boy at 8lbs 12 oz and a girl at 9lbs 6 oz born to ewe Mary.

What a great way to celebrate the get together!

 

It’s That Time of Year

It’s That Time of Year

Comments 14 comments

Instead of doing another crochet post, I thought I’d share my sister Carol’s good news.

On March 19, I received an email with pics of the latest additions to her sheep family. Twin girls!  They were born at 5 a.m. to Secret Seven. One weighed 10 lbs 15 oz and the other weighed 11 lbs.

The Mom is Dorset & Corriedale.  She was  bred with an East Friesian & Lacaune dairy ram for these cute little lambs. Carol’s granddaughter, Madison, named them Joy and Snowflake, for now.

I had written about her new sheep acquisition last year here:

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/04/25/welcome-to-the-family/

Carol is expecting her East Friesan/Lacaune dairy ewe will deliver this week.  Her other two Corriedale & Dorest mix will deliver next month.  She has 9 older sheep and the two babies at the moment.  Three Corriedale & Dorset ewes, three Corriedale  & Dorset wethers and two East Friesian & Lucaune dairy ewes and a East Friesian & Lucaune dairy ram.  She’s hoping to get a Corriedale ram this year.

I hadn’t heard of the Friesian or Lacaune breeds. So, I looked them up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Friesian_sheep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacaune_(sheep)

Evidently, they are both known for their milk being used for gourmet cheeses.  So, my sister plans to milk two of them to make cheese.

While they will be busy with babies, they will also be shearing the sheep soon. Yes, I will be getting fleeces to play with!

 

 

 

 

Not Much Done but a Cute Surprise

Not Much Done but a Cute Surprise

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As the title says I really haven’t done much with fiber this last week. I did start my Free motion embroidery class this week but haven’t had much time to do more than watch the videos read the PDF and fight with the tension on my machine. I have it sorted now and I hope I can do some practising this weekend. Pictures of messed up tension are not very exiting so I wasn’t sure what I would tell you about and then we had a surprise late yesterday, on the coldest day in March. -23c I took these pictures at about 10:00 last night after chasing the 2 calves back in because you know there is not better time to “fall” out of the barnyard but late at night when its freezing out.

This is mom wanting to know what I was doing.

and then letting lamb have a drink. I like this one she looks like she is smiling.

And this is the best shot I got of the two of them. Mom had just stomped at me as she was fed up with me trying to get a decent shot of both of them.  Just as well my iPhone shut down right after that as it was too cold.  My son put a heat lamp in so lamb wouldn’t get to cold. The temperature is on the rise again to day and we will go up to +2c today. This is the first lamb of the season. this is early and not on the schedule. There shouldn’t be any until late April early May. Best laid plans as they say.

It’s lambing time

It’s lambing time

Comments 18 comments

Time has slipped past me again and I am not prepared for posting. So since I didn’t do a lambing post his spring I thought you might like to see one from a few years ago. How can you say no to cute lamb pictures.

It is lambing time and we are busy. This post is more pictures than anything else.

quad lambs These are the quadruplets I told you about last week. All of them ended up in he house as their mom didn’t have milk. This was the only shot I could get of all 4 of them. When I tried to get down and take a picture on their level all I could get was a nose shot of one of them.  They are fed with bottles 4 times a day. They went to a new home. A young couple that wanted to start a small flock.

Mom and tripletsThis is a nice set of triplets. One of the black ones is a girl so will probably stay as part of the flock.

mom and twins you looking at me   This lamb is one of 2. You can see the legs of the other one under mom.  He gave me a nice face shot. I love the speckles.

looking at my lambsThis mom was very interested in having her picture taken.

twins I know these look the same but they are not.

hi A future star!

This is the group pen of moms and babies.  They are in the individual pens for a couple of days so we can make sure they are bonded and mom has enough milk.  Then they go into a mixed pen of moms and babies.

group pen

We are about 1/3  of the way through lambing. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

 

Some life on the farm.

Some life on the farm.

Comments 20 comments

Today the turkeys arrived, we ordered 3 kinds to see how they grow for us. Some white ones and some bronze ones and some called artisan. The whites and the bronze came as week olds.

whites and bronzes 1 whites and bronzes 2

 

There are some videos below. they do not seem to be loading up here while I am editing. I am hoping they work once published. If not I will try tomorrow using the video camera instead of my iPhone. They are quick time movies so I am not sure the problem. If you know please let me know.

The artisan where only available as day olds.  Here they are in there travel box. they do not give them much room when traveling as it is safer if they can’t move around to much. I like their marking.  They are in a bigger box under a heat lamp in my studio, right next to a box of day old chickens that one of our loose birds hatched yesterday.

in the travel box

 

I gave the laying hens some new shavings in their nesting boxes. then spread the rest of the shaving bale around. They all run outside while I am doing it. It is very scary it seems.  They are chicken chickens of course.  Then curiosity takes over and they have to come in a check it out.

egg layers  

 

 

Every children’s book I have ever read about farms says roosters crow in the morning. I am here to tell you that is true but they also crow mid morning and at lunch and in the afternoon and evening. The only time they do not cow is at night.  At least I have never heard them because I am sleeping.

IMG_4051

It seems one of the young roosters though he could be in charge and found out he couldn’t. The up side of bird politics is I got some really nice feathers donated by the looser. I think they will look very nice on a hat.  The rooster is fine just short a few feathers. I can’t eve tell witch of the to young red ones it was.

feathers

One last video this is Star(ving) getting her bottle at dinner time. She has grown into a sturdy little lamb since you first met her. http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/thread/2818/daily-dose-fibre?page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Family

Welcome to the Family

Comments 25 comments

I had a big surprise last week when my youngest sister Carol sent me pictures of the newest members of her family — three ewes and four lambs!

It was an even bigger surprise to her that I use wool for felting.  In her defense, she lives in central Wisconsin and has a farm and she, her husband and son run a real estate business.  They are a little busy themselves.

It should have been no shock since she’s been an animal lover since she was a toddler.  She’s managed a dairy farm, a pig farm and has had horses and cows of her own. Carol also has five Border Collies and felt they needed more exercise.  Sheep would be great for them to herd. When she saw the sheep it was love at first site.

None of the sheep are purebreds. She thinks they are Corriedale/Dorset mixes. The ewes were pregnant when she brought them home.  Since then the oldest Mom, Secret 7,  had twin boys.  Carol’s granddaughter Madison named them Salt and Pepper.

 

Jpeg

Jpeg

The black Mom, Dusty, had a dark black boy named Little Will.

Jpeg

The youngest Mom, Amira,  had a teeny little brown lamb with tan on her face Madison named Rosie.  She was very weak and they had to milk Amira and bottle feed Rosie because she couldn’t get up and walk. But an hour later she was on her feet.  They will let Rosie and Amira out of the lambing pen as long as Rosie is doing well.  She is very tiny.

Rosie

The sheep have only been introduced to the two older Border Collies, Belle who is 2 and a half and Misty who is 1 and a half.  They just visit and fuss over the baby lambs.  Misty thinks all the babies belong to her.  She loves them.

The three pups are only 10 months old and will get introduced to the lambs when the lambs are at least half grown.  They want the sheep to feel safe and comfortable in their own space.  They  are going to build a special round pen for that so it will be easier to control both the dogs and sheep.

Carol is already planning on buying a Corriedale ram this fall. So, the excitement will continue.

I wish we weren’t so far apart, but I’ve been promised fleece next year. so, I’m sure a trip is in order.  Another new adventure!  In the mean time, I’m enjoying the pictures and updates.

Thanks to my nephew Bill and his daughter Madison for the pictures and to Carol for sharing this exciting experience with us.

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