What Housework?

Let's get this party started

Unlike most years, we're hitting the holidays hard and fast this year.

I actually think I like it.

Most of our shopping is done (out of economic necessity, not good planning). I started my Christmas knitting last month, only to find that no one in the family will leave my side long enough for me to sneak in any work on their gifts. So I've started making these:

Korknisser! Are these not the most adorable things you ever saw? (I say this as a Christmas cynic who thinks Bad Santa was hysterically funny and who considers National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation high art.) But when you have to keep hiding your real knitting from gift recipients, these little guys can keep you busy for 20 minutes or so. The pattern is here in Ravelry, here on the web in Norwegian, and translated to English here. I changed up the hat decreases for a little variety. I think stripes might be next, but I'll have to drink more wine first. For the corks, I mean.

Since I can hardly find a quiet moment for gift knitting, I have been working on my own project. Remember this stuff?

It was something like 26 batts of fiber I carded and then dyed. I carded it again to blend it into this:

...which I then spun into a 2-ply bulky yarn:

I immediately knit the sleeves and then waited for inspiration for the design. I wanted a really basic sweater for the express purpose of keeping me warm at work, and since the blend contains a bunch of local alpaca and a bit of silk, in addition to a lot of Blue-Faced Leicester, warmth is practically guaranteed.

With help from Ann Budd and Elizabeth Zimmerman, I came up with a round-yoke neck with knit-purl patterning. With this yarn, however, the purls were invisible; it looked like someone had made a lot of mistakes rather than a cunning Norwegian design. So I ripped it out.

Next, I went with a seamless raglan and cowl/turtleneck. Finished!

Cute, right?

Not so fast.

As it turns out, I can't stand alpaca near my chin and neck. I got so itchy just trying it on I knew I'd have to make some adjustments. (And you can't see it too well, but these garter stitch raglan decreases did not work at all -- too stretchy.)

So the finished sweater soon looked like this:

Sigh.

I went back to it and turned it into an Elizabeth Zimmerman seamless saddle-shoulder (with a little fudging around the armpits, as I was too lazy to rip out those last few rows). I need to get a good picture, but the out-of-focus one gives you the basic idea:

Plain. Effective. Comfortable. The sleeves are extra long to cover my wrists, key when typing all day in sub-zero temps. The length, while pretty long in comparison to my other sweaters, looks a bit short. I think the longer lengths and tunics currently in style make this look practically cropped in comparison.

Warm? Yes. Itchy? No, as long as it's not touching my chin area (an area that is getting lower every year...).

In fact, I wore it today on our expedition to ... get a Christmas tree. You heard me.

Tree cutting is an annual event that causes great stress at our house, usually some time after Dec. 12. Today we had an opportunity, sunny weather, and the inclination to at least tag a tree. But we decided to save another trip and just bring the damn thing home.

Two hours later, it's up and lit and, yes, decorated. Crazy. I make fun of people who put their trees up in November.

And yet, it feels pretty good. One less stressor in the limited number of weekends remaining before Christmas.

So that's where I am. Four Christmas projects and two baby projects under way, and ready to knit. Now that the tree is up, I've just opened up a whole Saturday afternoon and evening to knitting, as long as I can get away from Those People. My family. It's all good.

All I have left to share is the shop update at A Piece of Vermont Yarn & Fiber. I currently have these colorways available in merino/bamboo/nylon fingering:

I only have two colorways available in Long Trail (wool/nylon sock yarn):

Crisp:

and Blush:

And for spinners, two pairs of superwash sock yarn batts. Blue-Faced Leicester and nylon carded together for Hansel and Gretel:

and Autumn Leaves:

Here's to a smooth holiday season for all of us, from a newly converted early bird.

Sheesh.

Who wants a cat?

Just kidding, we're keeping him. But Milo, he is truly a possessed semi-feral animal.

The pictures above show him in the morning. He comes in for breakfast after a night spent terrorizing the local small animals. He expects affection done just right; pet him the wrong way and he eats your arm.

Each day, I go upstairs to shower and make the bed, and within seconds, he races up there, alternately running around under the sheets and then hiding under the bed, the better to attack my ankles. After a few minutes of making the bed with one hand, and using my other as a defensive shield on my legs, I get cranky. I wait for Milo to attack my forearm and then I walk out into the hallway, shake my arm vigorously until he lets go and drops off, and then race back into the bedroom and lock the door.

My hands look like I get a daily manicure from Edward Scissorhands.

Anyway. Life is busy. There are some things to report, such as that my older stepson proposed to his girlfriend last Sunday. (He bought the ring in July, but has been waiting to ask her father for her hand. Let's just say they do things a bit more formally in Oklahoma than in Vermont!) Both of them are still in college, but again, in OK this does not seem wildly impulsive. In Vermont, I knew exactly one person who got engaged while still a student. He also just started a full-time firefighting/EMT position at the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City, even though he has half a semester to finish out at OSU. Should be interesting. He's a hard worker, and at worst he'll have to take one more class next semester, on his dime. The wedding will be in Oklahoma next summer (!) but he wants to have a huge second reception back in Vermont. At our house.

Okie-doke...

Back in the relatively uneventful life of Jessie, there has been some knitting.

I made some Fleece Stuffed Mittens for my daughter from the Robin Hansen book, using unspun wool/angora rabbit for the thrums and two strands of my Long Trail sock yarn for the mitten. Delicious.

You see two mittens but I actually knit four in total because I had to rip each one out once. I'm so tired of thrums. And, it turns out, my 10yo LOVES them, except not to actually wear in public, let alone school, because they are very bulky. Nice. See if I ever knit her four mittens again.

I also knit something more enjoyable: Ishbel. (Note the yucky incandescent-light photos; short days have come to Vermont.)

Ah, you say, "But Jessie, you are not a knitter of lace. You have a pathological fear of yarn-overs."

No, I'm not. And yes, I do. But this was far too easy and fun to be lace. I don't know what it was but I loved it. Knit with my bamboo blend sock yarn in the "Martha's Gown" colorway.

I didn't get a good picture of it, and you'll notice that my points on the edges ended up fading away and even curling a little. I'm not sure if it was the fiber content or my blocking procedure. (Note: If the only rug in your home is on the floor next to your husband's side of the bed, make sure you don't leave any stray pins around. Men can be so whiny.)

I still haven't done anything but the sleeves on my handspun sweater. The yarn, in case it's been too long for anyone to remember, is this:

I think I want a pullover, but I can't decide on the yoke. Round yoke? Raglan? Turtleneck? Hoodie? I just don't know. But it's so cold in my office, I need to make up my mind soon. There's a Downy commercial on TV these days where a woman steps off the elevator at work wrapped in a down comforter. That's what it looks like at my office; two people actually bundle up in blankets at their desks.

However, I'm already planning Christmas knitting (not for the 10yo, oddly enough). The bright side of our personal economic crisis (which is, I'm happy to say, easing up a bit, 10 months or so after it started) is that we've done quite a bit of Christmas shopping, as odd as it sounds. Rather than have the big all-out shop-a-thon in December, we're picking up one or two things a week as the grocery money allows. It's not going to be a normal over-the-top Christmas (which I hate anyway; my husband's the crazy one), but I'm thinking we may be able to avoid the mall altogether this year. One can only hope.

Okay, as I am going on and on, let me say there's been a lot of this:

Pumpkin pie made with the only little pumpkins I managed to get out of our garden. I had to buy more this week and today I'll make a pie and put the rest of the filling in the freezer for this winter. So delicious. We're still rocking the freezer full of our own meat and frozen veggies and fruits. Nothing beats the flavor.

Also, I had a shop update last night, which many of you already know from A Piece of Vermont Yarn & Fiber's mailing list. If you want to receive extremely infrequent updates, sign up here.

Bamboo Blend sock yarn, two skeins of each:

Late October:

Gingerbread:

Mountain Laurel:

Olive a Sudden:

Merino/Tussah silk 80/20 blend top. Remaining colorways are

Truth or Dare, 4 ounces:

 

Wildest Dreams, 8 ounces:

Okay, I think I've gone on long enough this morning. The house is a mess and the chickens want out of the coop.

Have a good weekend.

R.I.P. Fudd

We'll miss him.

Even once you get used to the idea of raising animals for food, sometimes it's hard to let one go. In this case, Fudd was a boar we originally borrowed to breed Sassy.

We liked Fudd's personality and huge ears, and he went on to father Sassy's first litter of piglets this spring. We decided to adopt him.

At first he was an eager and patient father.

But late in the winter he hurt his back leg and never fully recovered. And then, as the piglets got bigger, he got more aggressive and (sometimes inadvertently, sometimes not) slashed them with his tusks.

A few weeks ago, when Sassy came back into heat, it became clear that with a gimpy back leg, he would not be able to get the job done. That ticked both of them off, and there was much grunting, squealing, and cursing coming from their pen.

We tried moving him into his own pen where he wouldn't hurt the other pigs, but then he got lonely and depressed. And last weekend, at a moment when he really wanted to get to Sassy, he broke down a door, causing my brother-in-law to become a rodeo clown in short order and jump to safety.

So what do you do with an 800-pound boar who is too big and old to provide good pork, can't father any more piglets, eats a lot, takes up a pen needed for other pigs,  is injured, and is getting aggressive?

Sigh. The deed was done last night while I was sitting at the spinning wheel, but unfortunately the window was open and I heard the shot.

Fudd, you were Some Pig.

Moving on to brighter topics...

I made a hat.

It's not easy to find people to model a wool ear-flap hat when it's 82 degrees and muggy out. I did force my husband to do a Holly Hobbie shot for me. Do you see any resemblance? (Well, she might have a mustache, who can tell?)

It is the Norwegian Star Earflap Hat by Tiennie at Tiennie Knits. And I did it in O-Wool on size 6 needles (though 7s are called for). I eliminated the garter stitch band above the ear flaps because I thought it made the flaps look like afterthoughts. (As usual, you can see my knit/purl tension discrepancy in the ear flaps, knit flat.)

I liked this pattern and have already started a second version of it, this time with my handspun BFL. I tried a variety of artsy shots, in an attempt to capture the yarn and the beautiful late summer weather (I take back everything rotten I said about Mother nature in June and July). Not sure any of the pictures really succeed, but the yarn is awesome.

Obviously, the next hat will lack the snowflake pattern. (One thing about the first hat: I should have held the white yarn in my dominant hand; the way I did it, the white stitches sit "behind" the maroon and the individual stitches are hard to see. I noticed it a few rows into the pattern, but I knew my nephew wouldn't care so I didn't bother ripping it out.)

I have done a few rows on my latest socks but I have to tell you, it's pretty satisfying to get away from size 0 needles and finish a hat in a matter of a few days.

I've also been spinning my sweater yarn.

I can't remember if this will become my third or fourth skein. I know one thing: With the alpaca content, each skein feels like I have a strand of lead in there. This is going to be one warm sweater.

Although my mood has not been stellar lately (lack of exercise for 5 weeks = perpetual PMS, but I've gotten back into workout mode and I no longer want to kill anyone, not even my husband), the weather has been outstanding. We have enough sweet corn to feed an army. Every couple of days I pick a dozen or two ears, husk them, blanch them, slice the kernels off the cobs, freeze meal-size baggies, and give the cobs and husks to the pigs.

So far I have 17 bags in the freezer, which is not nearly enough to see us through until next summer. I'll keep picking.

The big tomatoes have all split and rotted, but the little ones are delicious. Fudd's original owner gave us eggplant seedlings, and Monday night we had homemade eggplant parmigiana with them and our tomatoes. Yum, yum. What I love about our veggies is I bring them in, using my t-shirt as a basket, and throw them on the counter and they make a lovely little still life:

How can you not want to eat these?

We also spent a chunk of change on having our apple trees pruned and treated (sorry, but they needed it). The Macs are coming already.

Yield is going to be low this year because the trees got pruned within an inch of their life this winter, but the apples look good (and taste good, although the Macs are a bit tart at the moment).

Even though the weather is warm during the day, the nights are cold. Sophie got a severe haircut (because we let her get all matted), so she requires near-constant cuddling to keep from shivering.

It's certainly put me in the mood to knit and spin and my latest dream is to design and make an Aran vest (hoodie?) using a double strand of the Bristol Real Vermonter yarn I dyed for myself but haven't used yet. Remember this?

My increased knitting time is reflected in my reduced blog-reading time. Well, I may not have read your blog lately, but if you are going to the VT Sheep and Wool festival Saturday, I'll be wandering around fondling wool. I plan to see at least a few of you there!

(Hey, don't be too sad for Fudd. He had a good life compared to the average pig and enjoyed plenty of sunshine, mud, good food, comfortable sleeping quarters, back scratches, and--until late winter--rambunctious sex. And his death was quick. We won't forget him.)

Attrition

Well, didn't the overconfident little farmer wannabes take a fall this week! We had a turkey tragedy.

Last week, Trixie hatched out 5 poults and we gave her the 6 we had hatched in the incubator. She was frantic to get them outside and we stupidly let her. One disappeared. And then there were 10.

She was doing fine with them, but kept sleeping out in the woods rather than near the house (probably to avoid Milo!). But my husband and brother-in-law dug a couple dozen post holes for the new, improved goat yard they are building. Sunday morning, we found that 3 of them had fallen into the holes and, unable to get out, had died. And then there were 7.

Meanwhile, the survivors were standing around in the cold, wet grass while their mother tried to rescue the victims in the holes. One died. And then there were 6.

The boys brought the survivors into the house and we put them under a heat lamp while we set up proper housing for Trixie and the poults. One of them just couldn't warm up. And then there were 5.

We made Trixie a nice setup right in the turkey barn, with a board across the door to keep the poults from getting outside but allowing the other birds to come and go. We brought the babies back to their distraught mother and she stepped on one's head.

And now there are 4.

Well camouflaged, aren't they?

Everyone left seems to be doing fine at this point. We are sadder but wiser now and, as with so much around here, have learned from the experience. I feel responsible for the loss of most of the other poults, but such is life on the homestead. You can't dwell on it.

Spring is full of contrasts, especially that of birth and death. Although this week is cold and windy, the weekend was a lot nicer than the forecast predicted. Here's Dave under the cherry tree:

Tulips and grape hyacinths:

My younger stepson home for the summer (do all guys just love tractors?):

The new, fortified goat fence in progress (the permanent part, which will now be electrified so we won't have quite so many daring escapes):

I have been busy in the shop. I shipped off my order to yarn4socks.com and have been concentrating on fiber. Some of you asked about my new Pat Green Triple Picker and what it does. Oh, I'll tell you. Here we have a couple of pounds of scoured Romney fleece from a local farm:

There's some VM, and while it looks quite fluffy, those locks are a bit too intact to put through the drum carder. You put on your leather gloves, feed the locks into the Triple Picker, and within a few minutes you have this:

A lot of the VM has fallen out, and the volume of the fleece has more than quadrupled. It's like a cloud of Romney! Now we can card.

Someone mentioned that they'd like some local fiber pulled into roving instead of sold as batts. I thought that would be fun because it opens up the option of space dyeing and keeping the colors separate. The good news is I tried it. From batts to roving:

It's lovely. The bad news is I discovered that pulling batts into roving takes approximately FOREVER. I will dye this stuff up but the price is going to reflect the labor involved in handling a raw fleece at every stage, from scouring to drying to picking to carding, to re-carding, to pulling into roving, to dyeing, to rinsing, to drying, to packaging, photographing, and uploading. On the bright side, there are not very many sources for non-mill-processed fiber from known sources.

Speaking of mill-processed fiber from an unknown source (weren't we?), I have updated A Piece of Vermont Yarn and Fiber with bamboo/merino top. Before I shop you the new stuff, look what I did with mine. I had meant to spin enough for a Clapotis, but after one skein I realized the colorway was a bit too My Little Pony for me. My daughter loved it. So, here's how it went:

Finished in two days, it's the Shrug This from One Skein Wonders. Like others on Ravelry, I question how this could ever have been intended for an adult. My gauge is smaller than what is called for, but even so... Anyway, it was a quick knit and my daughter (don't you love the summer bob, even uncombed?) modeled it and then wore it to school today. Now she wants a poncho from the same merino/bamboo.

And so we come to the shop update. I posted the following 60/40 merino/bamboo bumps to A Piece of Vermont Yarn and Fiber today:

Spring Fling, Mist, Three-Day Weekend, Mossy Stones, and Farmer's Market:

ETA: FARMER'S MARKET IS SOLD. YOWZA THAT WAS FAST.

Farmer's Market (the last one, above) comes with a special quantity discount. There are four bumps of that colorway totalling over 16 ounces, and if you buy all four at once, each one is $1.50 off, plus you get automatic free shipping for orders $60 or over. I know how tough it is to buy bigger amounts of fiber or yarn without breaking the bank, but this stuff would make a fantastic summer sweater or shawl. Of course, the discount will only work as long as all four bumps are still available.

And I just have to share the surprise that came in the mail for me yesterday:

That's real Oklahoma alpaca blended with silk. Gorgeous and buttery and I can't wait to do something with it. It was part of a thank-you gift from Susan, a.k.a. Red Dirt Knitter, to whom I recently introduced the magic that is real maple syrup. (I think she likes it.) Thank you, Susan!!!!

So, I have a little time before my daughter gets home to go for a run. I'm up to four (slow) miles a couple of times a week and I can still walk and take the stairs, which is nice. Standing up after long periods of sitting requires a bit more time than it otherwise would, but I can do it without yelling almost every time.

We're throwing a big Memorial Day barbecue/potluck on Sunday night. If I don't get another post in by the weekend, have a good one.

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:

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.

"How long are you going to leave that thing up?"

Trooper, nagging me about the Christmas wreath. Since it snowed last night, I think I'll leave it up a little longer.

Trooper had a fun day yesterday, escaping 3 times before we figured out the fence had come loose in one spot. We let her explore the yard and the porch and generally hang out with us for a while.

Several times she climbed the turkey ramp and got on the roof of the goat/turkey house (here shown last summer):
. I didn't have my camera but it didn't matter; when she got on the highest peak of the turkey's section (there on the right, 20 feet off the ground) I had my hands over my eyes. You should have seen the look on the peahen's face when she flew up there and discovered a goat up in the trees.

But goats are good climbers, and she got down fine. They are also social. Trooper wandered over to the pig/cow barn, where my brother-in-law was mucking out the cows' pen.

Also, in case you didn't know: Goats are funny.

I have to show you how the batts from my last post spun up:

It's only 160 yards, but I love it! As for the quick shopper who bought the other batts, she isn't even a spinner yet. But from the sounds of it, this fiber might be the inspiration she's been waiting for to take some lessons. A convert. I am pleased.

I was in the shop yesterday, dyeing up some silk/merino DK and also doing a little spring cleaning. In response to some requests, I did finally create a new category at A Piece of Vermont called Jessie's Specials, dedicated to yarns that had some dyeing problems or that I just don't carry anymore. 20 percent off! I should mention also, since it's not very prominent on the site, that there is free shipping for orders over $60 (calculated automatically at checkout). If I ever get a decent amount of product up there, you can take advantage of it.

While poking around for my mistake yarns, I found some superwash merino top that I always meant to sell but never took pictures of. (I'm like that.)

Then I looked at a big pile of Border Leicester locks I had recently washed. (They're Sophie's and she wants them back.)

Look how lovely:

Border Leicester dyes beautifully, and it seemed to me these two could somehow become something very special together. Stay tuned for those batts...

Thanks for all the great feedback on our trip to the Spinnery. No  matter where you are, I would like to make a suggestion in only one word: PILGRIMAGE. And now I must get ready for a 4:00 closing at the bank. A Piece of Vermont is getting some funding today!