A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

Finally!

Guess what I spent yesterday doing?

Yup! Dyeing yarn and fiber!!!!

It wasn’t easy. I was home alone with the baby and trying to work at the same time but he is getting big enough to self-entertain for longer periods as long as I’m in the next room. And since the weather is warm we were able to cook and eat lunch outside while I had the kitchen full of dye stuff.

I did find that I have to plan to do much smaller batches than I used to be able to do. Less than half of what I used to be able to do in a day when I was at peak production. However, it was still more than I’ve been able to do lately so that felt good.

Here are a couple of pics of what I did:

And I even managed to get them added to the site before breakfast this morning! I’m hoping to do it again in a few days . . . have to catch back up on all the other stuff around here first . . . if I take just one day off this place tends to fall apart . . .

I’ve also been working on my Tour challenge . . . well sort of . . .

I got a new batch of rovings carded over the past few days:

And I plied up the first bobbin worth into a slightly over-plied, very springy feeling yarn . . . and over the past two nights I knit it up into a hat:

Isn’t it cute? It’s not quite his color . . . but I’m very pleased with the way it turned out, especially since it was my first try at Navajo plying. Its kinda thick and very soft and springy feeling and I think it is going to keep some kids head quite warm this coming winter.

Okay, gotta run. We’re working on chaning our nap time (cutting back to 1) so he’s getting fussy . . .

Saturday was our son’s first birthday and we had a party! Lots of kids, balloons and treats and lots and lots of food! Everyone had fun - the kids loved the pool and the sandbox. The Birthday Boy may not have understood what a birthday is yet, but he certainly seemed to know it was his party!

Here he is enjoying (wearing) his first ever piece(s) of cake! He had so much fun smooshing it all around his highchair . . . I think he even ate a couple of bites!

I’ll do a bigger more detailed party post on his blog with lots more pictures later today (hopefully).

Speaking of today, Happy Fourth of July!

Today is my brother’s 32nd Birthday! Yikes, we are getting older! I’ll be calling him later today . . . he’s not a morning person

Also a bunch of our neighbors have organized a little neighborhood group which is throwing a bit of a block party for the kids just down the street from us later this morning . . . we plan to go after someone has his nap.

Fiber Content

I’m working on the business stuff again. I’ve gotten out a bunch of dyed fibers that hadn’t been posted yet and finished getting them organized yesterday. I took some photos and I plan to load them on to the site later today (during the afternoon nap?). Thursday I’ll be organizing some of the dyeing stuff and perhaps Friday or Saturday I’ll actually dye some yarn. The real trouble is I was hoping to have my MIL watch the baby 2 days a week but she is going away for the next few weeks to CALIFORNIA!!! Looks like the colorways I’ll be doing will be very small dye batches . . . one yarn, one colorway for a while since I don’t know quite how this is going to work.

Speaking of dyed fibers . . . I’ve started spinning the stuff for “Le Tour de Fleece” last night. I managed to spin up everything that I had carded so far . . . here is a photo of what it looks like on the bobbin as singles.

It is currently big chunks of solid colors in a repeating pattern of 5 different color blends. I’m going to attempt (for the first time) to Navajo ply them so that each color stays on its own and I wind up with a self-striping yarn. If all goes well (and I can find where I put the magazine with the directions) I hope to get to ply it tonight after the little guy is in bed . . .

Even if this is all the spinning I manage to do during the tour it will still feel like an accomplishment since it is far more than I’ve done in months and months.

Gotta run, time for breakfast and then his nap!