What Housework?

I know why you're here

It's not for the knitting or the spinning. It's this:

I wish I had better pictures of these fast-growing little piggies but I haven't done very well with the camera. The above picture is a couple days old and these are even older (see how fat they're getting already?):

The thing is, these guys move like lightning and I have to use a slow shutter speed because there's not enough light in the barn. In lieu of adorable baby pig pictures, however, I did get some good ones of the older three. It was barn-cleaning day on Sunday and pigs absolutely love to burrow in fresh hay. Here, my brother in law is tossing forkfuls onto two of them. They run around and roll in it and snort and come for more when he stops.

There. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, there's more to report. Such as this on Sunday evening:

No, I don't mean the tractor, which saw a lot of use this weekend. And I don't mean the acre or so my husband tilled for my 30' x 40' garden (the man is a maniac on a John Deere). I mean that black dot way out beyond the pond. Here's a closer shot:

Yeah, that's a black bear. On our property. This was my first bear sighting, since last year I only heard the one that overturned furniture on our porch and bent our bird feeder pole. Maybe it's the same one.

I've got a bit of a shop update. There are four imperfect skeins of Crazy Love in Colonial Superwash:

That violet blotch appears once or twice in each skein. Still, at 20 percent off, maybe it's worth it to you. Four skeins could make a good-sized shawl...

I also put up some Blue-Faced Leicester in what I think are very cool colorways.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes:

Peace Train (my favorite):

   

Scarborough Fair:

Long Ago and Far Away:

I spun up a tiny bit of this last one and got this. I Andean plied it and apparently the midpoint was in the middle of the black, so it knit up with a sort of gradient look, which was not actually what I was trying for. But it's neat. (And sooooo soft.)

Now, a couple of weeks ago, I spun up some merino/bamboo top. I finally figured out what to use it for: Katja from Knitty, for my nephew's new baby daughter. I'm not sure it's going to fit, as a lot of people on Ravelry said it was kind of wide and mine came out the same. But I'm hoping the colors are going to distract everyone:

I will be putting up more merino/bamboo top next week, and I am most certainly going to re-post these pictures, for advertising. This stuff is incredibly soft and silky.

I haven't blogged in a while because suddenly it's spring in Vermont and we've been doing a lot of outside work. It's been so refreshing (and exhausting) to be able to get outside and hang out with the animals.

The sheep and goats got a new electric fence and lots more pasture:

I have started brushing the goats with the horse slicker I use on the dog. They are becoming frighteningly addicted to getting a good grooming.

My friend Jenn, the newish knitter, just finished a Classy Slip-Up from the Knit Socks! book. I believe she used Plymouth Happy Feet yarn in a clever colorway such as 8. Or maybe 9. I forget.

I believe this is only her second pair of socks and she has quickly mastered the Kitchener stitch, although she has to have a paper bag to breathe into the whole time she's doing it. I was working in the shop (playing with my new toy, below) while she was grafting, and I think Sassy did less heavy breathing when she was giving birth to the piglets.

Look what I got:

It's not actually a Milo warning, although it could be:

It's actually my Pat Green Triple Picker, which makes short work of raw fleece to prep it for carding. That, or it's a medieval torture device.

I had some plans to offer some custom dyed Romney and other local fiber this week, but the Romney turned out to have too much VM for me to sell. On the bright side, I'm in the middle of blending up pure silk with Vermont alpaca, which is going to make batts so delicious I can't stand it. I'm carding the alpaca right now and it's so soft I feel like going to sleep while I'm carding. Just wait. More Panda Superwash is coming, too.

Well, I think I've gone on long enough here today. I've covered everything but the gratuitous cat photos. Here:

Piglets!!!

Last night around 8:00, Sassy went into labor. I haven't mentioned her pregnancy much because (a) we didn't keep track of when she actually was bred and didn't have a confirmed due date and (b) I wanted to be sure everything went well before sharing the news. Also, (c) Sassy has grown so unbelievably fat I didn't want to embarrass her:

Everything went well. Here's the first little piggy, unsuccessfully looking for a teat:

The midwives (my husband, daughter, and brother-in-law) looking on:

We weren't sure how much to interfere, but sometimes the gilt or sow can roll on or step on (or even rip apart!) the just-born piglets while she's delivering another one. So the boys moved the piglets out of her way each time she got up and moved around. They were surprisingly lively and wandered all over the pen shortly after being born.

My husband helping Sassy with her rhythmic breathing:

Fudd, the dad, paced nervously in the waiting room:

It took quite a long time between the first two piglets and the next two, but eventually there were four, in color-matched pairs:

Our older piggies seemed a bit curious about all the barn traffic that late at night:

And Fudd got up for a snack but went back to bed:

There was almost an hour where Sassy seemed to be having contractions but no piglets. I took more pictures of the first four but then had to bring my daughter (who was falling asleep seated on an upturned bucket in the pen) up to bed.

A few minutes after I got into the house, my husband called to say two more piglets had been born and it was over. The last one, he said, couldn't get the mucous out of its mouth and throat and would have died if they hadn't been there to help.

I got this picture this morning, although you can barely tell there are 6 piglets here:

Dad is exhausted:

We were very pleased with how smoothly everything went. There is still a chance Sassy could accidentally roll on the piglets but my husband said now that labor was over she was being very careful to tiptoe around them when she got up. Cross your fingers.

There's been a lot of stuff going on, farm-wise, lately. Both of our hen turkeys have been laying eggs, although only Trixie is actually sitting  on hers. My husband took four eggs from each of them and has them in an incubator in the house. We may be lousy with turkey poults in another few weeks.

My husband and BIL devoted the weekend to setting fenceposts for the cows' pasture. You may be able to see a bluebird box on a post to the right of the fence. The boys had to move this, with a nest and four bluebird eggs inside, while putting up the new fence. Mother Bluebird flew around during the process but settled back down when it was over.

Dave the Peacock supervises:

Daisy:

An actual flower picture proving that spring is coming to Vermont:

Although things are turning green very slowly, the weather has been absolutely perfect all week: high 70s to low 80s, breezy, and sunny. We so deserve this.

Lilac buds:

Ed and Lars:

And, Milo, doing what he does while off-duty:

While I'm blogging, I'll throw in a couple pictures of my handspun April socks, made with my BL Sophie/merino yarn. I'm doing the second cuff now but here's the first:

These are the Diagonal Cross Rib socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks book.

I am doing these on 0s, thanks to my loose knitting, but they are a bit snug. I could have used 1s like the pattern calls for. However, I like a rather close fitting sock, so I'm quite happy so far.

Yesterday morning, one of the cows got out and ran laps around the barn until my husband got home and settled her down. (I now call him the Cow Whisperer.) Then once we got her in the barn, we found someone had left Sassy and Fudd's gate open. Fudd never woke up, but Sassy had waddled over to the hay and was sleeping against a round bale. Then that afternoon, all the turkeys crossed the road and in my efforts to herd them I tripped over a branch and ripped my leg all open.

And most annoying of all, I was trying on a dress I bought online. It was way too small, and the stupid spandex thing with built-in bra top was so tight I kind of got stuck in it. In my effort to get it off, I think I may have torn something important in my shoulder. Fashion can be deadly.

Today is much better.

The Lemonade Hat

You know that really annoying saying that when life hands you lemons you should make lemonade? Well, I made some.

What started out as a lovely pile of Real Vermonter "Addison" roving (wool/mohair/alpaca)

and was intended to be spun up as sock yarn, turned into lemons when I Navajo-plied it and got 106 yards of a bulky yarn. Soft and squishy, but bulky:

After being angry with it for two months, I finally did the right thing: got on Ravelry and did a pattern search. I came up with the Garter Ribbed Hat by Christa Giles (Ravelry link) and did it up quick.

Yes, that's a ponytail hole in the back.

My garter stitch cuff is not exactly what is called for in the pattern. Let's pretend that I did that on purpose to conserve yarn (which worked, by the way) and not because I misread the pattern.

Best of all, it doesn't itch, even though the Real Vermont has mohair in it.

I'm happy to say I've just updated the shop with three more bumps of this roving. ETA: That first one just sold.

However, it's the LAST THREE TWO EVER of the Addison blend, so if you like it, act fast. I don't have any plans to have any more roving commercially processed. I will start offering blended batts as soon as my new picker arrives, but this is the end of the Real Vermonter roving. Seriously.

Something I have noticed about my handspun lately:

Do you see something these all have in common? I don't even like blue that much. Why is everything blue? It's purely coincidence that I've gravitated toward this color, although lately I do feel a real attraction for blues and greens together. It's the Pisces in me. Anyway, yesterday and today I did something to fight my instinct to go blue again. I spun this:

Do you love it or what?

I totally love it. It's spun from a merino/bamboo blend which, not coincidentally, I am now carrying at A Piece of Vermont. I actually spun this skein in the hopes that I could start selling some of my own handspun, but I'm afraid either I'm too slow a spinner or other spinners are way undervaluing their time. I wouldn't let this go for less than $70 and I don't expect too many people to be lining up for a 218-yard skein of yarn at those prices. Spinning takes a long time, that's all there is to it.

But if you want the top, check it out:


ETA: "Sweetness" above is SOLD

One more bit of advertising. New Colonial Superwash:

Now, I've totally neglected to take any photos of my April socks, but since only half of one cuff is done, you're not missing much. It's....blue. But very pretty. You'll see.

Life on the farm is going well. After so many months of winter it's like an explosion of activity.

Dave the Peacock is wreaking town havoc with his constant trips across the road. Since it's mating season and the peahen is over here, I don't know why he can't stay home.

Every morning, our house is full of my brothers-in-law and their grown sons, several of whom work for my husband. It's the local contractor coffee klatsch and lately it has expanded to include breakfast. Around 7:00, the sun streams in across the kitchen and makes for great food photos. Our own eggs feature prominently on the menu (love that yolk color!), as does French toast with butter and real maple syrup. Yum.

My next project, other than finishing up Ms. Marigold and Sunkist and my husband's seamless hybrid sweater and my April socks, is to spin up some of that new merino/bamboo for a Clapotis. On Ravelry, something like 5,633 people have posted their Clapotis. It's a popular pattern and it's been done to death. But I love it and I miss the one I made and lost.

Spring has arrived in Vermont. Will I make time to knit and spin?

Sock yarn, at last

The specs: This is around 6.5 ounces of hand-dyed and hand-blended fiber, about 25 or 30 percent commercially processed superwash merino, and 70 or 75 percent Sophie, our Border Leicester:

It went from this:

and this:

dyed and carded into this:

To singles:

To the final product. I know this is a recap, but I am so taken with the whole process, I figured I'd go over it one more time. I love my sheep!

I ended up with about 549 yards in a yarn that yields almost 1300 yards per pound. This would make it, technically, betweena  DK and fingering weight. But it looks so fine! Depending on how I wind it, I get between 15 and 17 wpi, which I think makes it very thin. If I have to go down below a size 0 needle, I'm going to be an unhappy knitter.

As for the "hand" of the yarn, it's quite smooth but not at all elastic. I'll put some ribbing in my sock to hopefully solve some of that problem. Casting on soon...

Farm stuff: Here's a disorienting picture of roosting birds, as seen from below. Chip between two hens, and Roy the turkey on a higher roost. Take a moment to get your bearings. Every night I walk under them to close up the turkey house, and I pray they don't poop on my head. So far, so good.

We went for a walk last night. Not as relaxing as it might sound.

The goats and sheep have just one fenced area at the moment and there's nothing new for them to eat. So they were beyond thrilled to get sprung for a while and acted like the occasional measly tufts of semi-green growth were an absolute feast.

First, the goats made a beeline for the chicken coop and raided the feed bag. All three of them were in there:

Once I dragged them out and we went a-grazing, my daughter practiced a bit of softball catching (this is important later in this story) and the goats and sheep ate for all they were worth.

Not surprisingly, the animals didn't care to go home to bed. What followed was chaos I can only hope the neighbors didn't see. In between trying to lure, coax, and shove goats and sheep alike back into their pen, I had to deal with the yellow Lab going in and arguing with the goats about whose pen it was. Meanwhile, I had given my daughter permission to "chuck eggs," disposing of the chicken eggs we found in one of the turkey's nests, since we didn't know their age.

She piled almost a dozen raw eggs in her softball glove and started throwing them out into the field. In my frantic herding efforts I hardly noticed when her cheers of delight after each toss turned to hysterical screams. Apparently, J.J. decided it would be fun to ram her. Repeatedly. I'm not sure whether she cried more from the sheep attack, or the fact that in her panic she smashed the eggs in her new glove.

There were tears.

Anyway, I updated A Piece of Vermont yesterday. (If you got the email, or if you hate blogs that hawk yarn and fiber, bail now.) The skein of Tie-Dye, made by my daughter, sold nearly instantly, but I thought it was so cute I have to share it:

There is Colonial Superwash:

Merino/silk:

And superwash Merino top (with samples):

If that second-to-last one ("Ice") looks a little understated, it's because my daughter dyed that, too, and lost interest partway through. It does make a nice soft gray-blue when spun, but I can overdye it or blend it if no one takes it.

She has not one but two friends coming over after school and my pantry is now down to 3 limp carrots, a box of stale cereal, and a jar of jalapenos. Time to go shopping...

Ump

This was priceless. My daughter and her dad used the sheep fence as the backdrop for practicing softball and J.J. couldn't resist investigating.

It was especially funny because J.J. insisted on standing in the umpire's position. Then every time a pitch came, he'd wince, not realizing there was a fence protecting him.

We actually had sunshine that afternoon/evening, and it helped me get some decent poultry pictures. Here's Calvin the Young Horny Rooster in action. First, he makes a "pip, pip" sound to alert a hen that he's found a worm or other treat.

Once he has her attention, he waits for her to turn her back on him.

Then he makes his move:

But she got away, this time.

"Hey, Baby, I thought we had something special. Where'd you go?"

Actually, Calvin's lucky to get any you-know-what at all. Because big bad Chip is head rooster around here:

He's barely bigger than a pigeon, but he does not tolerate Calvin moving in on his girls. I wonder if that will change when Calvin gets older and more aggressive.

Here's Daisy. She turns FIVE next month:

The peahen:

The turkeys, Lars in front, and in charge:

Last year, Roy was the boss bird, but Lars beat him almost to death and now he is second, or third, in command and hardly dares display when Lars and Ed are around:

But when he's alone, he looks quite impressive:

Some of the hens. One of the three barred rocks:

Our Easter Egger (Araucana), an impostor who lays white eggs instead of the blue or green she's supposed to:

And our New Hampshire (or is it Rhode Island?) red:

Sophie the Border Leicester:

And J.J. again:

Two days ago I got a mystery package that turned out to be from Bulldog Knits. I had forgotten I had won her blog birthday contest a few months ago, and I guess my story of complete humiliation was pretty good, because she sent me all this:

Spooky stitch markers, a birthday-cake measuring tape, glow-in-the-dark sheep, a sheep notepad, a tin of Oregon mints, and a pair of Brittany needles. What a fun surprise!

Meanwhile I continue to spin on my sock yarn, the Sophie/superwash merino blend. I finished the singles two days ago:

I've got almost half plied and it looks pretty fine to me. I mentioned in the last post that I have to knit my Colonial Superwash yarn on size 0s. That's because I'm a super-loose knitter, not because the gauge is so fine. I hope I can get away with 0s on this stuff!

Now I'm off to the shop to finish a little bit of dyeing. If all goes well, you'll be seeing yarn and fiber at A Piece of Vermont before the end of the week.

(And hallelujah, did you hear the angels sing at 7:55 p.m. EST yesterday? At that moment, I had 0 unread posts in my blogroll for the first time in months. I wonder if that will ever happen again.)

March socks

A boring blog post is one that contains knitting and spinning and a shop update, but no pictures of Milo. Prepare to be bored.

I finally finished my March socks. On April 3rd.

Note the heel, as suggested by Elizabeth Zimmerman:

Here's my take on the Colonial Superwash yarn, which, as you will see, has been restocked at A Piece of Vermont: I love it.

This is only my second pair of socks using this yarn, because typically I don't knit socks very often. The last pair (the Anastasias) I did on size 1s and the fabric was a bit wimpy. I dropped down to 0s for these (sob), and I love the way it knitted up. I haven't washed these yet, but the Anastasias softened up beautifully with machine washing so I imagine these will, too. I'm all over the purple and green combo, and although I've really become enamored of the toe-up, short-row heel sock, these do fit my high arches well because of the heel flap. This is a very comfortable pair of socks.

My April socks, which are already behind schedule, were just a pile o' fiber a few days ago. As planned, I blended dyed superwash merino and Sophie's Border Leicester wool into layered  batts (skein of yarn for scale):

That right there is just over 6 ounces, while the skein of yarn is 4. Fluffy! I tore off strips of roving

and started spinning:

Or, for a photo taken by the window:

I know one thing: This is wonderful spinning. It's about 30 percent merino to 70 percent BL, I think, and I can't begin to describe the smoothness of the spinning. The question is: Will it make good sock yarn? It's not especially elastic, so that may be a problem. We'll see. When carding, I alternated layers of merino and BL, all of which were dyed differently, mostly blue but also a layer of green and one of dark pink. I'm hoping the finished yarn, if I 2-ply it, will have subtle color shifts throughout. I can't wait to see.

I made two more batts, but those were already on request and have been sold to Sherri.

So, I updated the shop with lots of Colonial Superwash sock yarn. (By the way, if you are on Ravelry, I finally got in and edited my yarns, something that  Kim at Knits with a Silent K had kindly been doing until I got my invite lo these many months ago. Until now, I haven't had Colonial Superwash entered, so people have had to use the wool/nylon superwash that was there, but it's not the same yarn. Sorry about that.)

Here's what's left of the new stuff:

You're My Blue Sky

Honey Love

Cream of Mushroom

Water Sprite

Still Waters

One colorway (not shown) is sold out already. If you want to get early notice, sign up for the mailing list at the bottom of any page at A Piece of Vermont.

I also have some silk/merino DK ready to go, and I'll have some bumps of merino superwash top going up next week.

In shop news, good stuff: I got my new water extractor so I'll be able to spin out my yarns and fibers in the shop rather than in the house, and it won't felt my spinning fiber the way our front loader does. (Yes, on the spin cycle, it repeatedly stops and changes direction to "fluff" clothes. Remember the silk top disaster?) On the tech side, I can't get a wireless connection so far from the house, so I have to run a cable, or at least make my husband do it for me in his spare time. Which he doesn't have.

Spring is coming, and looking through my archives I see that pictures used to be a lot colorful in the warm weather. I'm looking forward to more of those.

Fortune cookie fun

It finally came to me what happened here. Either something was lost in translation, or the writer of this fortune confused the Golden Rule with golden sh*wers. (Gross. Sorry.)

Anyway.

How 'bout those March socks? I'm sure you've all been sleepless with anticipation. Well, they're not done:

They weren't done on March 31, either, but that's they day I almost finished the second one and decided to try on the first one. It was too short. (It's been a while since my last pair of top-down socks.) My first thought was to give them away so I wouldn't have to knit on them any more, but I really want them.

So I ripped out both toes and added some length. While I was at it, I adjusted the toe shaping. Toward the end, I decreased every round rather than every other to get a more rounded shape. The other is ready for its purple toe now.  Maybe today.

I've been super busy in the shop. There's an update on its way soon, hopefully tomorrow. I've got merino/silk yarn, to die for:

A crapload of Colonial Superwash:

And hopefully, I'll have blended up what you see there on the table (in the SUNLIGHT):

That's a coil of merino top on several batts of Sophie's Border Leicester fleece I dyed up. It's soooo pretty:

Whatever this turns into, half will be for sale (yes, Sherri, you get first crack at it, as promised) and half is going to become the yarn for my April socks. The last two times I've hoped to spin sock yarn, it's turned out too thick. It's not because I can't spin finer; I finally realized it's because I knit so loose that I dread spinning something so fine I have to use really small needles. This time I'm not going to worry. If I have to, I'll 3-ply it.

I also have some merino roving to dye up but that won't go up until next week. I just ordered a bunch of new fiber, including some merino/bamboo top, which I'm dying to try and which could become my next Clapotis, because I really want one out of handspun, and I lost my last one. I also bought some pure silk and something else (which I can't remember at the moment), which I want to use in some more custom blends. I have some light-colored alpaca coming in from my friends at the alpaca farm, and I see great things happening with all those fibers.

I will be busy today, since a guy from the local computer store* is coming to test the shop and see if I can get a wireless connection from the house--because I will have a new computer out there by next week! Then all my photography, packaging, and shipping can happen right from the shop and I won't always be lugging stuff back and forth to and from the house. As my friend Jenn says, "Work smarter, not harder."

*I am a big fan of buying local, having concluded that a slightly higher price usually is a good tradeoff for personal service and higher customer satisfaction. I noticed that a certain computer mfr was having a big sale online. So I built the system I wanted online, got a price, and called my local store. They are coming within $100 of the major manufacturer for an almost-identical system (and that's assuming there was no shipping charge from the online place) and they're already going out of their way to make sure I'm all set up and good to go. And they know my name. And when I have a problem I don't have to wait on hold for hours and speak to someone on another continent. Buy local. Saving pennies for crappy customer service is totally not worth it.

Since I'm on my high horse, I might as well throw in some other animal pictures. Polly and Gert:

The four little piggies:

Love the curly ears on this one:

And, of course, Milo causing trouble:

We are in full mud season in this part of Vermont but today we will get a break before the next two days of rain/snow: sunny and 52F. Now that's springtime, for us.