My Local Yarn Shop

Setting up for the Bluegrass Yarn and Fiber Crawl has been a good exercise in Getting Stuff Done, but also a bit of a morale boost.  Things are so different now without setting up at the big fiber festivals.  Those events created a business structure that I apparently really needed.

Lately I sometimes catch myself wondering if maybe it's all over and it's time to retire...but I have a flock of sheep that will stay here until the ends of their lives.  They can keep paying into their pensions...if their shepherdess would just do her part.  

I don't know what the sheep really understand about their lives here.  In my anthropomorphic brain I want to think they know that their wool products and pictures and inspiration keep the hay stack tall and grain bins full.  That that is their job.  I'm betting some of the retirees like Krista and Short Round understand things are different here.

Not doing my part to use that wool and their inspiration to help support them feels almost disrespectful.  Like not standing up for a friend or family member.  

In the 'olden days', when I'd get home from a show each night I'd always report in.  I'd tell them which fleeces sold or who's roving was popular that day and who got asked about or came walking into the booth made into a sweater or shawl.  It was nice to be able to do that last Saturday after our first Fiber Crawl day.  We'd all had fun and done a good job.  No one wore a sweater ;-D

Surely I can pull this back together.  I still have some good ideas...and obviously lots of wool.  Let's wash some wool and pull out the hand cards and combs or roving and spin some pretty yarn and knit hats and mittens and scarves and sweaters from our favorite sheep.  

Let's make felted sheep and wreaths.  Get out the drawing pad and create some new rug patterns and learn how to dye bright colors and make rugs and pillows and wall hangings and tote bags.  And send each other some handwritten note cards.  

This will also be known as quit messing about cleaning the house and mowing grass and working in the gardens and show up more for your more fun job that somehow always gets pushed to the bottom of the list. 

If you'd like to come out to the farm this afternoon/evening, we will be open from 4:00 to 8:00 today*.  Bring your wheel or current project and a box of vanilla wafers for the sheep if you'd like.  We can sit and spin or play with wool or just relax and watch the sheep.  If you'd like to mow grass or clean the house, that's always an option too ;-D.  We'll have wine and cheese starting around 5:00.

It was pretty toasty yesterday and the porch was very pleasant.  It's also covered in case we get rain.  The barn is also a fun dry spot and there's nothing like listening to rain on a barn roof, especially after it's been so dry.  We have plenty of chairs and room to spread out.

We also have plenty of good company on the porch.

Pottery from Flat Creek Wool and Pottery.

Morgandell Reds brought over some beautiful California Red batts.

Beautiful yarn from Tring Farm.

Lamb Camp Legacy yarn, I (heart) Kentucky Wool bags, note cards from here.

Washed wool.

Plenty of roving - in the Wool House and also set up in the barn.

The new Lamb Camp Old Friends yarn.

Look at these fancy wool balls made from Pinto's fleece!  You don't have to have a fancy fleece to pay into your pension.  All wool can have a job and if you are using these balls for dryer balls, I'm pretty sure Pinto will add some extra bounce :-D.

Folk art farm cards

I've pulled out six more skeins of Lamb Camp Bottle Lamb yarn.

Two walls full of fleeces.  

If you are looking for your first start to finish fleece, a specific breed for Shave 'Em to Save 'Em, or a favorite sheep you've followed for years, let me help you pick one out.  You can even meet the sheep who raised the fleece.

Do you have questions about how to wash or process your fleece or what to make?  Just ask.  I love to talk wool :-).  

Honestly, I love to talk sheep and wool and farming and spinning and knitting and weaving and I'm happy to share what I've learned along the way and I love to learn what you have as well.  Come out this evening and grab and glass of wine and some cheese and pull up a chair.  

We are also open for the Crawl this Saturday from 11:00 to 4:00.  Really, we can be open anytime.  Just email me to make an appointment.  Maybe in the future I'll start having an actual open schedule.  Let's get busy!

It's A Party!

Our Hug a Sheep Day farm party will be a virtual party this year.  As long as I can get the tech stuff figured out, I think it's actually going to be pretty fun :-).  The sheep's schedule is grazing and socializing in the early morning, napping for the rest of the morning, a cookie party at 11:00, more napping, another cookie party at 2:00 and then hiding while Maisie has to gets to dress up in a Halloween costume at 3:00.

For the rest of us, there will also be a fleece "show and sell" at 1:00.  We still have several Punkin's Patch fleeces needing a good home before winter and I picked up the Rocky and Jared bred fleeces from Tring Farm the other day and there are some really pretty ones that would like to be adopted as well.  I thought it might be fun to set them all out on the porch and take a little peek :-).

Against even my own best judgement, we are going to dress Maisie in her costume live at 3:00.  We aren't going to do a test run ahead of time...mostly because I haven't even made it yet.  There is no telling what will happen, but I'm sure it will be hilarious, no matter which Maisie shows up this year.  We are probably tempting fate on this one.  I hope I don't need to add a trip to the ER to the schedule :-o.

Everything will be happening live on Instagram.  I think I'll be able to share a link to Facebook after each "event" is over, but if you want to watch it live, you'll have to use Instagram.  I'm hoping I can post them all over here as well, but I've got to get that all figured out.  

I'm estimating each event will last 10-30 minutes. Feel free to join in at any time and come and go as you please :-).

Two Table Tuesday

Like Tongue Out Tuesday, but with tables...and, yeah, it's just barely still Tuesday.  It's a fun title though, so I'll type fast :-).  

When you live in a small house and a small wool house, space is always at a premium.  I've been stacking balancing stuff on the back beam of my big loom for years.  It occurred to me that it would be very useful if I could turn that into an actual table.

The "table" rests on the back beam and hooks onto a loop of mop cord (another weaving tool that's not getting used as much as it should around here :-/) attached to the bar at the top.  When I want to use the loom, I just need to unhook the back loops and remove the board.  Pretty clever if I say so myself :-).

The weaving sheep look very interested in the yarn cones.  I need to do a post showing the before and after yarn the next time I'm skeining and washing.  Everyone who's seen the unwashed yarn compared to the finished yarn is amazed.  It is pretty wild.

The other new pretty darn clever table is in the spare bedroom at the not quite as woolly house.  I wanted a way to spread out and package orders without having to carry all the shipping supplies into the dining room, making a huge mess.

Putting a board on some hinges off the shelf was pretty do-able, but setting legs underneath it was problematic and I wasn't super jazzed about having chains holding up each side.  In the process of propping up the table to set the hinges, Tim noticed the quilt rack was the exact height to support the table.  

And when I'm done I just slide all my shipping supplies back on the shelf, remover the quilt rack and drop the board.  How about that!

It's two minutes until Wednesday, so I'm going to table this and go to bed :-D.