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.

Maker's market

I did my first show today at a local church.  It was outside & we had a beautiful day for it.

Here's a picture of my table.  I took a small selection that went sheep to shawl. I had the mindset that I may not sell anything, but at least I could spend the day spinning & informing people of my craft/art. I like to use the word craft in the old style of a trade craft, something that people learned & worked on their whole life.   I realize that my craft is very select in the people interested.  To my complete enjoyment i actually sold a few things.  Exactly what i thought I would, dryer balls & yarn.

I made some great contacts and met some great people. Several people took my card & I hope that they will read this or a future post!  If you took a card today please comment & let me know!  I would love some feedback on what you liked or what you would like to see.  I'm hoping to get my sale page up & running by tomorrow night. 

Intro To The Farm!

Welcome to Stay Fluffed Farm. We are a small farm in Missouri that raises registered Shetland sheep and silkie chickens.  We're home to a few other chickens, a few angora rabbits and our pets.  Fluffy Mamma, also known as me, enjoys processing & spinning wool into yarn & crocheting it into beautiful finished objects. Fluffy Girl is showing our sheep & silkies in her first year of 4H! Camo Dad, well . . . enough said.  LOL, just kidding!  Camo Dad helps out wherever needed.

I hope this blog helps open up our area of Missouri to the wonder of fiber arts & farm life,  even if we are a small farm. We garden & hunt to enrich our meals. We enjoy raising some of our own meat as well. We are blessed that family nearby owns a larger family farm that houses our horses as well as some dairy goats.

Later posts will take us further into the details but i would welcome ANY questions you, the reader, might have!