Last Lamb of the Season

She finally fell apart.  I'm talking about Mischief, who lives up to the name. One of our ewe lambs from last year who managed to get accidently bred.  We've been waiting weeks to see our new arrival.  And he is a handsome ram lamb.  Well done.

We also traded for a unique ram lamb with a fellow Romney breeder.  He has colorful markings which we hope he will eventually pass onto his progeny.

I did spin the fiber for the spin a long previously mentioned and made a crazy yarn. It was a lot of fun and made me stretch my comfort zone.

It has been a  very busy couple of months.  Between the lambing, skirting fleeces, processing  wool for the etsy store I haven't had much time to spin.  I hope to recitfy that shortly.  My stash of fiber earmarked to be spun into yarn is getting dangerously high. Until next time.

Spin a Long

I've joined my first spin a long and I just received my package!  The Gorgeously Gothic Spin-A-Long is from Dawning Dreams of etsy.com.  Here's some pics.

I have one month to spin the yarn and submit pictures.  Should be a lot of fun.

Skirting Fleeces Finally

I finally had some time to start looking at the fleeces we sheared at the end of December.  I had to setup the skirting table in the basement since the weather is not even slightly warm.  Lighting is an issue, but I brought in several additional lights to help out.
There is something soothing about skirting fleeces.  You get to see the end result of a year's work and see how well you did.  I have to say this years fleeces are looking nothing less than stunning.  Unfortunately, it takes me about an hour a fleece so this will take weeks to complete.  Here are a couple of pics of the fleeces I got my hands on. Remember, it's basement lighting so the fleeces are more yellow than they appear in regular light.

Trinity's fleece skirted

593's fleece skirted

January PHAT FIBER Box Arrived!

I received my January Phat Fiber box in the mail yesterday.  Arrived much sooner than I expected.  So exciting.  I couldn't wait to open it to see what was inside.

All kinds of yummy fibers, yarns, patterns, stitch markers, and even tea.  What a treat! I love the whole concept. This was the first month I contributed to the box and I'm planning on contributing every month this year. Getting a box is a big incentive for contributing.  It's wonderful to see what other fiber addicts, I mean, artists are making and what kind of fibers they're using.

Playing with locks

I've been busy washing fleeces, dyeing and sorting.  Deciding what colorways to use in new rovings and I found a Cotswold lamb fleece in my stash that spoke to me.  I've dyed it in two different colorways and love the way they turned out.

I'll be listing these as locks on my Etsy site for those who want to create art or novelty yarn.  I think I hear my drumcarder calling me.  Catch ya later.

A Busy Start to a New Year

Well, It has been a while - no postings during 2009! I hope to do much better this year. 
Right before Christmas we had the big snow - 20 plus inches - the sheep and goats didn't leave the barn for a week.

The snow melted just in time for shearing day on the 29th.  We sheared everyone except our oldest girl. So now I have several dozen gorgeous fleeces sitting in my basement clamoring for attention.  I hope to start on them soon.

Our New Year began with lambs! So far we have had lambs on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th.  I think we are done for several weeks before more lambing starts. It's so much easier for the lambs to find mom's milk when they don't have a large fleece. Its easier to check the ewe's progess during labor too when they aren't hiding under a fleece. Here are some pictures of our newest wool on the hoof.

I've been spending my indoor time trying new spinning techniques.  I love trying new ideas and creating unusual yarn.  Here are some pics of my latest beauties!

I've also been washing and dyeing fleece to restock my etsy store. My newest venture - I joined PhatFiber and will be contributing to their boxes!  I'm very excited about this.  It's a group of very creative artists and they are very inspiring.  I hope to contribute every month this year.  I'll end as I started - it's going to be a very busy and fun year!