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.

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!

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.  

Long time since . . .

Wow I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted. It's been a busy spring Aarons here! We did several farm things but I didn't get many of any pictures of most of it.

Last Saturday for our anniversary Camo Dad bought Nascar tickets for us! I was the one most excited. LOL. We watched Nascar growing up on rainy Sundays when we couldn't do outside farm stuff. I've always wanted to go in person so it was a wonderful surprise & gift!

It was a great race! 

 We had to more the lawn again.  I'm not that person who cares about how my yard looks honestly. I would almost rather fence it in & let the sheep out. LOL. So the farm girl in me hates to see all that nice grass go to waste.  My solution, rake it up for the critters.

I did manage to get some locally sourced fleeces skirted so I'm hoping to post those on the sale page soon! Here's a taste.

Here's a picture of that pretty roving I was working on last time.  All finished!  Now, what to make with it for Fluffy Girl?

Finally an updated picture of the 3 chicks hatched out by my cochin. 

So it's been a busy week & not busy at the same time, believe it or not. It rained pretty well everyday so when it wasn't raining it was to wet to get anything done outside.  

 I decided before the rains started to give up the roo'ing on Loretta.  I did some more research & decided she wasn't loose enough.  So i started scissor shearing her.  Here's a mostly done picture. She feels much better now! Unfortunately, due to the rain I haven't been able to do anymore shearing of any kind.  Before you shear you want your sheep absolutely dry so you don't end up with a musty fleece. 

Here's a couple shots of Kenny.  He's just so nice & nice looking. 

I spent Saturday with a friend at the Missouri Spin-In, held in Chilicothe.  I took a picture of my loot! I bought some bamboo & firestar to mix into some batts. We also took a class on continuous strand weaving where we made a cotton washcloth, also pictured.  I enjoyed it & i think I'm going to ask for a small loom for my birthday or Christmas. It was a struggle but i managed NOT to buy any more fiber! 

However I did get a start on spinning the fiber above that I purchased last year at the spin-in.  LOL. Yes, even raising my own sometimes you see a new breed & color that you just have to get!  This is a neat green & pink that I thought would make a pretty something for Fluffy Girl eventually.  It's wool from a Polworth sheep that I bought from T&H fiber works. 

  Before I could start that I finished up this skein of shetland that I had started. It's from a ewe that I lost last year & she was my favorite at the time. Her name was Beauty & I decided to use at least some of her fleece for a special project.  I'll tell you more another time.