Finished Yarns

This is a quick follow up to my previous post.  Here you can see all the yarns I've been working on the past couple of months.  These will all be listed on the sale page, both here and on our Facebook page.  PLEASE find and like us at Stay Fluffed Farm on Facebook

Some of these yarns are going to pair GREAT together if somebody wants to get companion skeins!

Catching up

Playing catch up after way to long of ignoring my blog.  Upside, I've been busy here.  I'll explain below.

This is a lovely gathering basket that was just handed down to me by my stepfather.  It used to belong to his great-aunt.  It's great for holding my yarns and I'm going to use it for display purposes when I go to shows.

This is some alpaca that I kind of forgot I had dyed up at least a couple years ago.  I do remember that I dyed it at the Blue Party at Hillcreek Fiber Studio in Columbia, MO.  it was put into a cochineal red for a short time and then into a black walnut yellow to get this orangy color. 

This is where I started in on my Cotswold X, dyed at the 2016 Blue party.  I dyed it with saxon blue and then put it into a blk walnut yellow exhaust. An exhaust bath is one where MOST of the color has already been taken out into a previous batch of fiber.  This worked great for what I wanted, which was a touch of added color.

These 2 pictures are another bit of alpaca that I had forgotten about.  it was dipped, probably at the same forgotten blue party, into a quick saxon blue.  so it's got a much lighter color than normal. 

Here's some regular saxon blue dyed Cotswold X, done in 2016.  I have a total of 3 skeins worth of this.  1 for myself and 2 for sale.

This is a hat that I made with some icing dyed red Shetland.  The wool is from our current ram, Niles.  This bit of yarn was leftover from a custom made hat and scarf project.  It ended up being a Christmas gift for my daughter's teacher.

Dying to crochet!

This yarn that is!  This is about 550 yards of Niles' fleece that has taken way longer than I thought it would.  Mainly due to life interruptions, but isn't that how it always goes?  That's one of my best reasons to spin, it relaxes me and I can enjoy spinning while I'm watching a good movie or show.  For those of you who don't know me as well, I LOVE movies!  But I digress.

I finally finished this up and am now ready to dye it.  The plan for this is to end up a red hat & scarf set as a special order for somebody.

 Here's a dry photo of the yarn pile.

 Getting into a soak helps the dye to take up evenly while I get the dye pot to simmering level,

  Here we are with some color.  as you can see from the water there is dye left.  When all the dye has been taken up by the yarn, the water will be left clear.  At this point, it was still tooooo pink for me, so more red went into the water.

 Here's a shot of the yarn as it's draining & cooling in the sink.  I wasn't quite sure at this point that I was going to be happy with the coloring.  But I decided to let it dry and see where we were.

  So after drying overnight the color wasn't bad, but there were some discolored spots.  So, back into the dye pot she went!  I let it soak a bit and then decided to add a bit of burgundy dye to even out & deepen the color a bit.  Here's hoping it works, as it's dripping in my sink at the moment.  Then back in front of the wood stove blower for the night.

As an aside, I love to dye & wash in the winter when the stove is going.  The nice hot blower gets yarn or fiber good & dry just overnight.  Plus keeps us nice & cozy!  Stay tuned as I get it dried & then worked up.

Spun up!

the left skein doesn't show the colors quite right but it is a lovely purple with tints from blue to dark pink.  It was dyed with saxon blue then dipped into cochineal for an overdye. Then loosely carded & spun into a funky chunky thick-thin set of singles.  This coordinates nicely with the combed cochineal to the right that was traditionally spun into a 2 ply.  These are for sale!

Come see us at . . .

Stay Fluffed Farm will be doing spinning demonstrations at the Macon County Flywheel on Saturday,  July 30!  We won't have any of the sheep but I'll be spinning & have several things available to look at from sheep to shawl.  There'll be many other great things to look at old & new, other demonstrations going on & plenty of vendors with good food!

We hope you'll say hi & be sure to let me know if you're reading my blog!

County Fair Results

So our county fair was last week.  Randolph County fair, you may have seen us! This was our first year showing our animals & we had a great time! 

 Our silkie rooster placed 3rd in a class of 8 in roosters 1 year & older. 

Our hen placed 3rd in a class of 9 in hens 1 year & older.  The judge was very detailed & helpful.  He gave us some good tips on what to improve in our stock. 

 Fluffy Girl made 3 projects for achievement night.  A poster of colors & markings for her Horseless Horse, which received blue.  A nice travel chicken cage for Chickens, also a blue. Then pictured is the recycled jeans hay bag for Sheep, which not only received blue but also best of show & was chosen to be displayed at the Missouri State Fair!

In 4h, they use a slightly different ribbon system.  A blue ribbon means that the member has done a job & learned to the best of their ability.  It rewards the honest effort of doing their best! They also award the animal shows this way.    A red ribbon is when a judge feels the member has not put their best efforts into their animal or project.  A white is the lowest & pretty well explains itself at this point. 

  Here's our Kenny, the Randolph County in-county reserve champion ram! He earned a nice blanket for this honor.  

Here's a picture of the shetland ewe championship class. The left is Minnie Pearl, our jr ewe lamb as reserve champion shetland ewe.  The right is Loretta, our yearling & champion shetland ewe. 

 This is a nice picture of Loretta & Fluffy Girl during their lead line class.  I made her skirt from sheep to shawl from Loretta's fleece this spring.  She will be added to the breeding group this fall. 

 All loaded & ready to go home! We had a great time at the fair!  They were very supportive of our different little sheep!  We brought home some nice prizes.  We tried to be good breed ambassadors & educate all the people interested in our guys!

Next up Missouri State Fair on August 13 for 4 of our sheep!  If you're there please find us & say hi! 

Lots to catch up with!

I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post! It's been busy around the farm.  I'll try to catch you up. 

First off, our breeding program has hit a bit of a snag. Upon closer inspection, more of the yearlings & weanlings than the 1 I thought have bad tails.  For a shetland this is very important! I've tried to include a couple pictures to show what I'm talking about.  In the picture below are some of the weanlings. The white ram lamb on the right is the 1 I knew had a bad tail.  First off, you can actually see it.  LOL. It's long and bushy or wooly! Notice how on the black & morrit (brown) lambs you can't really see their tails. This is good! 

 This picture is a close up of the morrit lamb.  Notice how his tail is pretty short, shaped like a club, and doesn't have wool on the end like the rest of his body.  This is how it should look.  I'm not saying this is a perfect tail, but correct.

Not all is lost! The bad tails will still make good fiber animals or the ewes will make fit a crossbred program. We're going to get through 4h shows over the next 2 months and then make solid decisions for their future! I've thought about starting a crossbred fiber flock. 

If you followed us on Instagram, you'll have seen our baby bunnies. Which the doe ate the next day.  :(  Now, she could have easily stayed on as a fiber animal.  However we have 2 other angoras the same color.  I had a friend who recently had a litter of French angora babies. She wanted one of my color & i wanted one of hers.  So we traded.  Win-win situation! Below is Josephine, which is a mouthful for such a little bunny.  Her nickname is Jo-Jo. Her name comes from the Empress Josephine & the character in Little Women. She's only 9 weeks old! 

We went to a natural dying party last Saturday at a local favorite! It was a girls day & an annual event for 2 friends & myself. It's called the Blue Party, featuring indigo, woad, & Saxon blue. They also have cochineal red & yellow made from the inner bark of the black walnut.

 Here's a bag of my fleece drying a bit, done in saxon blue. 

 Here are the shorts that i dyed using indigo for Fluffy Girl! They used to be white & that just wasn't going to work! LOL. 

All of the natural dying processes could fill numerous posts, but I'm not good enough with it to tell you.  LOL. If you are local and  interested, please check out Hillcreek Fiber Studeo! She is amazing! 

On to the fiber results! 

Saxon blue 

Cochineal red, which came out salmon pink! This is a great example of how different fibers take color differently. 

This is saxon blue followed by a yellow soak! This picture doesn't do this justice! It has such a variety of color in it from the deep saxon blue to almost a seagreen at the tips and the mix in between! It looks like a Caribbean explosion!

This is cochineal red followed by a dip into saxon blue.  It's a nice mix of mauve to purple to blue & i think it'll spin up nicely! 

Below is a picture of them drying. These will all be for sale as spun yarns.

Weekly update

So no good pictures from the last week.  The whole family has been running around with softball, 4h, and the other things life throws at you.  LOL. We've had a few games going on.  I'm glad I've only got 1 kid playing instead of 2 or 3. I have friends who live at the ballpark.  We had a 4h meeting & are busy getting ready for show season.

Saturday found Fluffy Girl & I at MU vet school for state poultry day.  A good seminar on eggs including safety & nutrition and other information was presented. We learned about USDA grading on chicken carcasses. The rest of the morning was spent with junior & senior judging of eggs, live chickens, & carcasses. Fluffy Girl being a first year, spent that time learning about judging those things.  They provided a nice lunch followed by a quiz bowl. Fluffy Girl did compete on a junior team with 2 friends.  They lost,  but we were proud that they even tried.  I think they were the youngest team.  She also lost a tooth right before their turn.  LOL.

We spent Sunday at a family reunion for Camo Dad's grandfather's family.  Fluffy Girl enjoyed playing with her cousins until we had to go home to rest a bit before softball practice.

We've spent a lot of time trying to keep cool in this Missouri heat & humidity. It's so true when they say "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." I spent some time in Oklahoma when I was younger.  The temperatures were similar, but Missouri is sooo much more humid!  I, personally love heat but sweating through your shirt when you haven't done anything is hard.

My big concern has been the rabbits.  Angora rabbits are cold weather animals & can heat stroke  easily. They're in open cages & are in the shade all day and have plenty of water available.  The sheep are actually pretty ok as long as they have shade & plenty of water.

The heat wave continues this week.  We have 3 whole evenings at home this week before our next game on Friday. Hopefully I can get some ongoing projects finished.  LOL.

I almost forgot my other big news!  Stay Fluffed Farm is on Instagram as of yesterday! Don't forget to follow us for instant updates! Here's the few pictures I do have.

 Mama cat, Ruby continues to hold hunting lessons.  This is the 2nd bird & 2 frogs that have been brought to my porch. I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't have to get rid of the leftovers.  LOL. 

 I cut the last of our heirloom lettuce.  It's so hot now that until fall lettuce tastes bitter.  

 Here's a good picture of the kids learning how to judge a class of post production hens. 

Productive Weekend

It was such a beautiful day on Saturday. There were the usual plentiful household chores that needed done so I decided to work outside.  LOL. I did actually get some laundry done.  Including the comforters & hung them on the line to fresh dry! My favorite! I also finished up some yarn that was spun & let it dry outside as well.  The left is the polwarth that i bought as a dyed roving. The right is some very special shetland for a personal project. The fleece is the only shearing I was able to get from a ewe named Beauty. I bought her as a bred ewe & she didn't stick.  Before i could breed her back last summer she fell sick from a bad infection. I nursed her for 3 days before she passed. She was my friendliest ewe with a great personality.  So with no lambs & only 1 fleece.  There's a part of it.

Then i did a little scissor shearing on Lynn who decided to act like a terror who had never been touched.  LOL. 

 Before, well barely started anyway. 

 after with a Dolly photo bomb. 

All three of these girls also needed a hoof trim.

 these are my trimmers. Thanks Mom for the great present!

 Here's Dolly sitting for her pedicure.

 Here's a good picture of Dolly's foot with 1 side trimmed & the other not. Sheep & goats need their feet trimmed on s regular basis similar to horses & people. Done properly this doesn't hurt them at all.  Generally speaking trimmings are done around 4 months. However many people keep a rock pile for their sheep or goats to walk on keeping their hooves worn down naturally.  As I don't have the fencing finished, I trim. 

 This is my thanks from Loretta for keeping her feet healthy.  She kicked just as I went to cut. I stabbed my own thumb. It bled way more than I thought it should & I ended up having to pause my trimming to clean & bandage it. 

Sunday brought another beautiful day.  I helped a friend with dog trimming they needed done. I came home and worked on Dolly's fleece shearing. 

 Here's a partial done picture. 

 I also worked on as cotswold cross fleece that was sheared in 2014. I've done a bit with this fleece & it gives a nice spin with some of the signature shine that cotswold has.  I've got it all skirted & seperated into locks. Now I will work on getting it all washed. I plan on offering some dyed & spun for sale. But I'm going to do 1 skein for myself to take to the Blue Party at Hillcreek Fiber Studeo in June & dye with a natural Saxon blue.