Spinning Practice

I've been trying to spin more to get more practice at it, and I found this lovely alpaca fiber in my stash that I had forgotten about.  I wish I had a "before" picture.

I separated the colors...the blue and the tan, each mixed with some white.  I would like to try to ply them (spin them together, to make a 2-ply yarn) and see what I end up with! I'm hoping for a really pretty stripey yarn.  It was a lot of fun to spin, and seemed to be very easy compared to the last wool I spun.

This is the wool yarn I spun before I spun the alpaca.  It was harder to draft evenly, and you can see the unevenness in the singles (each strand before it is plied is a single).  I still like it...it has character. :-)

Happy Birthday Devin!

 Devin is 12 today!   We had a small family party for him over the weekend.  The kids decorated. They made a great banner!

They blew up balloons too.

And Devin requested finger foods for his birthday meal.  We had a veggie tray, fruit tray, and cheese/pepperoni/cracker tray, plus pigs in a blanket.  It was a great choice for a birthday meal!

He wanted strawberry shortcake for dessert.  We made a pound cake with this recipe we happened to find on Youtube.  It is THE BEST pound cake I've ever eaten in my entire life!  You know it's going to be good when it has so much butter, sugar, and heavy cream!   I cannot get over how good it is...if you like pound cake, you'll have to try that recipe!

Grandpop got some snuggles in with Elmer.  And check out that lovely face Kylee is making.  :-)

Devin got a new bike!  This one will hopefully be big enough to last him for several years.  He was excited about it, and rode it around the yard even though it was really cold out!

Next year he'll be a teenager!!  I can't believe how fast time is flying by!

Knitting by the Sea 2015

A few weeks ago, I attended my first ever knitting retreat.  I was very honored to be able to teach a needle felting class there, as well.  

The retreat was held at Hampton Inn & Suites in Corolla, NC.  The hotel was great.

My sister attended the retreat with me, but we weren't the only family members there.  Our Aunt Linda is a member of Tidewater Knitting Guild, which hosted the retreat.  She's in the background below, I think pretending to not notice our silly sister-selfie.

Saturday morning I taught my Needle Felting 101 class.  I made kits for each class member, and brought a sample of some of the felted things I've created.

It was so much fun getting a chance to teach needle felting! 

Later that day, the vendors set up so the retreat members could do some shopping.  I was also there vending, so my sister helped me set up the Purl & June table.

It was fun having a helper there, and it made vending so much easier!   

Sunday morning I woke up pretty early and managed to get a few pictures of the sunrise.  It was so beautiful.

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Then Becky and I took a class on thrummed knitting, which is when you knit with little bits of roving, which make for a very warm finished product!  It was pretty easy to pick up, and I really enjoyed the demo.

It was a very fun weekend, and I would love to go to another retreat!  The weekend was filled with family and fiber...can't think of a better way to spend  weekend!

Kylee had some snuggle time with the dogs.  Mutual love!

 Devin and Kylee spent some time with the sheep. Devin will be showing a lamb for 4-H this year, so he's going to start working with his lamb early.

We spent a good part of the weekend stripping our porch posts.  They had layers of nasty peeling paint.


We are using a a combination of scrapers, a sander, and a heat gun.  It's slow going, so David just picked up a chemical stripper (not that kind) so hopefully it'll go faster.
























It's going to look so much better after they're painted!

Another thing I'd like to do to improve curb appeal is replace the hideous porch light!  I hate that thing!

Lambing Wrap Up

Barley, my final ewe to lamb, lambed last night at 9pm. She had two big, beautiful natural colored lambs...a ewe and a ram lamb.  They were up and nursing and really strong from the get-go.  She's doing fabulously, and is being a great mom.

It was a great lambing season, however short it was.  I ended up with 7 lambs out of 4 ewes, with a total of 4 ewes and 3 rams.

Dixie: single Southdown ram lamb
Bean: white ewe lamb, natural colored ewe lamb
Darla: ram lamb, ewe lamb
Barley: natural colored ewe lamb, natural colored ram lamb

House Progress

Several weeks ago, we had some water damage in the house, caused by a burst pipe.  We finally started making progress getting repairs done.

The contractors came yesterday and tore out the damaged drywall.

And one day later...

They're coming back today for mudding and taping!

Sad, Sad Day

The pig seemed like she was improving so much, but this afternoon she took a turn for the worse.  Every now and then, she seemed to have a small seizure episode, but this afternoon she was having them one after the other. She'd seize up for about 30 seconds, then she would be ok for a minute or two. Then it would start all over again.  She was exhausted and miserable, and I decided it was time to euthanize her.  She was miserable, and I didn't want to prolong the misery waiting to see if it would stop or if there was something I could do to treat her.

So, David humanely euthanized her and we buried her in the back yard.  I had gotten really attached to that little pig, so it was really hard to make that decision, but there's no doubt in my mind it was the right one.  I think she had more issues than I first realized.