Thursday, March 21, 2013

Happy Mail Day

When the postman arrived today with a big priority mail box, I was quite excited because it contained the fleece I purchased a few days ago from Point of View Farm in Upstate New York. POV raises purebred registered heritage Finnsheep.  Of course, since I have a good portion of Finnish in my blood, I feel a kinship and just had to get one of their fleeces.  Upon opening the box, I found a beautiful, crimpy, fleece.  

This is a 2.29 lb. fleece, a very manageable size, heavily skirted, with barely any VM in it.  It comes from a ewe lamb and will be snow white after it is washed. 



I am sure many of my friends just can't understand what is so appealing about raw, sheepy smelling fleece, but my spinner friends . . . . . well, they totally understand.  It just doesn't get any better than a greasy, crimpy, freshly shorn lamb fleece.  

Point of View Farm's fleeces can be viewed here: 
Point of View Farm fleeces

That's all for today, busy weaving on my scarves and spinning Wensleydale from Myrtle Dow of Black Pines Sheep in Colorado.  

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Checking In

We've had unusually warm weather the past week and I have been enjoying every minute of it, although down along the beach, it has been socked in with fog.  We had 87 degrees on Thursday while other parts of the country have had snow.  I have been out gardening in the lovely weather, trying to complete the landscaping of our condo, getting it ready for some new tenants.  That task has kept me quite busy for the past couple of weeks.



I did manage to recently drag my table loom out of its hiding place in the closet and it sat there for several weeks.  Yesterday, I finally finished warping for two scarves and got a start on weaving.  This is 20/2 spun silk and I'm doing a fancy twill.  It's a little hard to see the pattern in some areas because I am using a plum weft and some of the warp is a variegated colorway with some plum.  I haven't woven for ages and it feels really good to be back on the loom.  I had forgotten how much I love creating cloth.  

On another note -- Miryha and I made the decision that we would not be vendors at Black Sheep Gathering this year so Blarney Yarn and Capistrano Fiber Arts will not have a booth.  We are, however, going to be there to enjoy the show as attendees.  We are looking forward to just slowly meandering around the marketplace -- rather than our mad dash from booth to booth during little breaks.  And we're looking forward to watching Judith M. judge the fleeces and watching Cynthia H. judge the fiber arts competition.  We are also looking forward to hanging out a bit with our friend,Karen Kahle, at her studio Primitive Spirit in Eugene. We plan on two days in Portland, too.  It was a hard decision but we decided to give ourselves permission to enjoy all that Black Sheep Gathering has to offer.  

Off to my tasks of the day.