a small sample before washing

the same small sample after washing

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I can not even tell you how excited I am to have received this Polypay lamb fleece from a friend that I visit with every month.  She and her husband have a farm where they raise corn and sheep (Polypay and Suffolk) the sheep are raised for meat rather than fiber.  I asked her a couple of years ago if when they sheared if I could buy a lamb fleece from her.  Not much more was said.  When I went to Church this morning she had a tub with a Polypay lamb fleece in it and said she told her shearer to keep back a fleece for her friend and what it was for and he even skirted it.  The shearer told her he would do the Polypay for spinning because it was a softer fleece.  I am very grateful because the shearer takes the fleeces for his time and skill to shear her flock, since my friend and her husband don’t sell the fleece but they have to have the sheep sheared, it saves them the money of having to pay someone to shear for them so their Ewes can lamb and then again when they go to market.  I am sooooo excited!!!! 

I couldn’t keep my hands off of it after I got home.  I had to take a small sample and bring inside to play with.  I live in a small apt so I left the fleece in my trunk until I can either bring it in and scour it (when it’s warmer as it will need to dry outside) or find a small mill that will take a 2  lb fleece to make into roving.  I have never started with a fresh fleece or carded my own before, the lamb is not quite a year old and the fiber is about 2  1/2 inches long.  It has a bit of lanolin in it, which looks dirty but is quite soft.  The lambs fleece is soft and I have a before and after picture above of the small sample I brought inside.  When I put it in the hot soapy water to get the lanolin out (which it did rather quickly), I put my hand in the hot water to push it under and the second time I couldn’t see the small fiber in there and thought, oh my gosh what happened?  It cleaned quickly and is so white I couldn’t see it against the bottom of the bathroom sink.  Also it is as soft as a cloud in the water so I could hardly feel it in there.  I was trying to be VERY careful so I didn’t felt it.   You can see the crimpiness in the before picture and tho’ you can’t see the crimpiness in the after picture, as I play with it I can feel the elasticity in it.  I will make her a scarf with some of it. Life is good :).  I proimse to get a picture of the whole fleece sometime next week. :)

We also had more snow since the last picture I posted, about the same amount and then again on Friday, but not a lot.  This next week is suppose to be a bit warmer than this last week and I’m excited about that because I am semi retiring.  My last day at work is Tuesday 1/31.  The rest of the week will be spent (after sleeping in :P), deep cleaning my apt, you know shampooing carpets etc.  I know it’s not spring yet, but I still have the “spring is in the air” feeling :).   A friend asked me what I would do with my time and all I could see was pictures of me at the spinning wheel and behind some knitting needles clacking along :).  I do intend to spend some time doing Genealogy now that I will have some time to do that, I have a feeling that will be my new addiction.  :P

3rd skein of cria for shawl

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The 3rd skein is done and I’m about 1/2 way through knitting with it.  I will have the shawl finished this week and blocked and ready to give by this next week end. ;)  It’s been a pleasure spinning and knitting with this cria.

I have one more comfort shawl to knit and then my next project will be dying some superwash merino wool and spinning it.  :)

Christmas Cactus already budding

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I can not believe that my Christmas Cactus already has buds on it.  It’s a bit early this year, tho everything has been a bit early preparing for winter.  You wouldn’t know it with the wonderfully warm weather we have had this last week.  Tho it shows it will cool back down next week.  I’ll take the warm weather while it’s here because I know soon it will be all too cold, and snowy and icy.  sigh

And yes, today is my birthday.  I keep hoping it will go away each year, but it just comes anyway.  Guess I’m just stuck having it every year, cos you can’t seem to sneak around it. :P.

General Conference was last week end and what a wonderfully uplifting week end it was.  I love that peace that accompanies General Conference.  I also had to have my car repaired last week end, the cv axle went out and I was fortunate that my daughter knew someone who could fix it for about 1/2 the price of a car place.  It’s running well and I’m able to get around which is exactly what I need!!!  I also have a 3 day week end which I am enjoying immensely!!Have a great week end all!!

LDSVenus

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Up front  just so you know, I am not a winter person.  Snow is awesome if you are looking out a big picture window at it in a nice heated room, and you don’t have to get out in it.  Warm snow would be terrific. 

My ferret and my bird shed and molted in preperation for winter in early August this year, about a month earlier than normal, during a heat wave.  We have been having cooler than normal temps in September and today, while I was walking to where I park my car for work, I saw geese flying over head,  headed south.  And altho’ I love watching and listening to the geese, it’s a bit earlier than normal as well.  So I’m getting ready for an early winter!  I wouldn’t mind winter so much if it wasn’t so, you know – COLD.  Guess I will be thinking about how nice it would be to live in Hawaii in a month or two :P.

My son gave me some of the fiber off of his goat.  All goat’s soft under fiber is called cashmere except for the Angora goat which gives mohair instead.  His goat has a lot of guard hairs which have to be picked out, so I have it at work and during my lunch break, since it only takes me about 10 to 15 min to eat, I sit there with tweezers and pick out guard hair and vm (vegetable matter) from the soft fiber.  The more guard hair I get out the softer it is.  It’s pretty dirty tho, so as soon as I get the picking done, I will need to wash it before I spin it.  I think this will be a long, on going project. 

 ***Just wanted to make mention that there is an actual cashmere goat that produces very nice cashmere fiber, but as I said before all goats produce cashmere (again except for the angora goat) tho not as abundantly and not the same quality as the actual cashmere goat does, but it’s all soft :).****

2nd Skein Done

.I got the 2nd skein of the cria done.  I love spinning that, it is soooo soft!!!  On the right is a picture of the size so far.  I have just started the 2nd skein (which because of a problem when I was plying is a little less yardage than the first skein).  I should have enough for a 3rd skein and I’m gonna need it, not sure how much the

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click picture for larger view

Finally Finished and Blocked!

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Well, it is finished, blocked and given!!  As you can tell it is a diagonal pattern.  I orginally wanted to do vertical however that is just not the way it worked out.  I still have to figure out the correct number to cast on (had a little extra on one side and when I discovered it I was a bit too far to want to frog and begin again) and to cut the width down.  So give me a few days as I work this out and then I will post the pattern in My Free Knitting Patterns page for you to enjoy.  This Alpaca yarn drapes very nicely as a shawl and I’m sure it will be well loved.  I’m sad that it is a discontinued yarn tho, as it was lovely to work with and very soft.  I can now get back to spinning that wonderfully soft cria (baby Alpaca).

Well my children almost got to either come visit me in the hospital in the critial unit or to the morgue to identify me yesterday.  I was on my way to my daughter’s new house to get some steak and hambergers that were left over from her birthday party on Friday evening and as I was driving on a major street at 3o mph, a driver from a cross street didn’t stop at his stop sign and he was going about 40 to 50 mph.  I saw him out of he corner of my eye and knew he would not be stoping so I slammed on my brakes (fortunately there was no one behind me) and he came barreling out across the street and I missed hitting him by about 6 inches.  Hope it scared him as much as it did me.  I drive an older small sub compact car and the engine would have been sitting in my lap as I would have broadsided him.  Thank goodness for quick reactions and promptings from the Spirit alerting me to the other car.

PIF!!!! (click picture to enlarge)

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I got home from work today and there was a box for me.  WOOHOO! it was the PIF (pay it forward) from my knitting/spinning  friend at LS Fiber Adventures.

Don’t you love getting unexpected packages?  It came at a perfect time as this has been a hard week.  I opened it up and there was all this loveliness!  She knitted me the most beautiful lace scarf with beautiful shades of turquoise (my favorite color!)  I’m sure she spun the yarn as well.  It will be well loved! :)  There is some beautiful Bluefaced Leicester roving to spin – I’ve never spun this kind of wool it will be a fun adventure and spinning hand painted multi color roving is way fun because you never know what you will end up with.  There is a CD with gospel music that will be a wonderful addition to my Sunday music, I love hymns and gospel music ;).  There was a fun pair of Easter socks (they will be very fun to wear!)  There are two very cute  journals, as a latter-day saint I do keep a journal, tho not as diligently as I should, this is a great reminder to keep up with it and when my present journal is full, these will take it’s place.  And last but hardly least there is some very yummy eatable goodies – wonderfully delicious wafers rolled around a vanilla creme :) and Cadbury mini eggs.  I feel like it’s Christmas!!!

2nd Spool of Cria

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I’m finally spinning my 2nd spool of Alpaca Cria.  This is the softest stuff!!  It’s so wonderful to spin!!!  Knitting it will be wonderful too :).  This will be my 2nd skein of yarn and I might need one more, then I can make the shawl I have in mind for this wonderfully soft fiber.

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spinning BFL/Romney

I got a friend of mine at my church interested in spinning with a spindle I made her, and she has gone whole hog, buying whole fleeces and carding them herself.  I thought wow, I love to spin, but I’m not into getting a whole fleece, washing it, and carding it- yet! :)  She kindly gave me some of a BFL/Romney fleece (already carded of course) that she had purchased.  It’s a very springy and surprisingly soft fiber.  Not as soft as the Alpaca, but it will make a nice pair of socks or a scarf :).  She has 7 whole fleeces on order for next spring.  :)

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I did go see Harry Potter 1 & 1/2 weeks ago.  It was wonderful, and well worth the 2 hr wait in line (yes my daughter and I were one of the first in line so we could get good seats.  Didn’t want a crick in my neck from having to sit way up front like I loved to do as a kid – can’t even imagine why I wanted to do that ;).  I think they chose a good place to break the movie and I’m anticipating the next and final installment of the movie series.  Nice thing is I don’t have to wait 2 years, it will be shown this coming June, so only a 7 month wait. :)  If you haven’t gone to see this yet, I encourage you to do so.  If you haven’t seen any of them yet, I suggest you rent them in order, and then go see this one (it won’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve seen the others, like starting a book near the end and then wondering what in the world it’s all about.)  Wonderful visual effects.

I will be a permanent employee as of 12/1.  I’m very excited and it relieves a lot of “uncertainty stress”.  I will still have to watch my finances until my son’s funeral is paid off, but it will be a permanent income source now instead of wondering how long will this one last and not losing pay on my paycheck for the holidays the company gives.

I hope you all got out today and voted.   I did.  My son and I tease that we cancel each other out.  But that is alright, it’s our civic duty to vote, what an awful state we would be in if we didn’t have that right and opportunity!!  Guess we will see in the morning who will be in control of the House and Senate and our state.

lsfiberadventure has posted a picture, of the PIF I sent, on her blog. :)  You can see it here.   PIF’s are fun to do, they take time and a little bit of money :P, but they are fun.  I think the most fun is waiting to see if they will like what you sent, and well, yes – the excitement of getting your own PIF package in the mail ;).

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I got all the things for my PIF ready and sent them off a week ago last Saturday.  My PIF recipient has received it.  If she posts a picture of the things I sent I will post a link for you.  I sent her some really pretty fiber to spin, a cute old fashion Easter toy with candy in it, a pen with a soft plastic sheep’s head on the top, two hand knit dish cloths, a bag that I machine embroidered “I love to knit with handspun” on, two yummy special chocolate candy bars and the knitting book “One Skein -30 quick project to knit and crochet”.  As usual the PIF was fun to put together.  I may do it again next year.  The nice thing about them is you have a whole year to put things together for your (up to 3) recipients.

I broke down and went to the Dr on Saturday because my breathing has been uncomfortable, lots of dry coughing, and I’ve been so tired I haven’t even worked very much on the comfort shawl I need to finish.  He listened and said yes, you are rattling in there (referring to my lungs, not my head ;)).  He also said that this was the sickest summer he can remember in his 50 years of doctoring.  He attributed it the tearing down of many of the houses that were damaged 2 years ago in the horrendous floods they had here and all the mold and mildew that has stirred up.  Everyone’s allergies have been much worse this year, including my own (and I have awful fall allergies).  I’m afraid it will probably be the same next year when they finish up the “de-construction” of these flood damaged houses.  He put me on some medication that will help with the coughing spasms and I will continue to take my decongestant and allergy meds.  Oh the joys of allergies.

My supervisor at my temp job told me she had extended my stay and was checking into when they could hire me on permanent.  WOOT WOOT!!  That was what I was hoping for!!!  I have been working temp jobs since I lost my job at the Title Insurance company about 3 years ago due to the collapse of the housing market.   It’s been unsettling knowing the jobs were temporary, but Heavenly Father has been kind and they have been long term while I’ve waited for a job that I enjoyed and could do well that was permanent.  I wouldn’t want to do this again, but it has been a learning experience and gives me a lot of compassion for all those who are seeking work in this awful and depressed economy.  I know that my “good fortune” in being able to support myself (even if a bit scary because of the instability of this kind of work and the change in wages with each job), is because I pay my tithing.  And I know that my ability to have a safe place to live, that is within my means, is because I work hard at keeping the Sabbath holy, leaving the worldly things to the other 6 days of the week.  Those are promises that go with those commandments.  How blessed we are when we follow the commandments, and how grateful I am to understand that.

click on picture for larger image

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The gauge wasn’t coming out right, so I frogged it and decided to go up to a size 9 needle from a 7 since I was doubling the yarn (one strand too light a weight, 2 strands a little too heavy but closer than the 1 strand) .  The pattern called for a size 8 needle, but I was using a 7 since I knit a little bit more loosely than others and generally have to go down a size needle to get the correct gauge.  The gauge is now more correct and the 10 skeins should make the shawl, tho it will only be 58 to 60 inches in length instead of 63, because I will run out of yarn before I get it that long.  But it should still be a nice length.  This yarn is very soft, which is why I wanted to use it.  A comfort shawl should bring comfort in every way possible.  I’m almost done with the first 2 skeins so I am about 1/5 of the way done.

Off to bed, 5:15 am comes awfully early.  Will be soooo happy when we get that hour of sleep back when they turn back the clock next month, which is almost here!!!!  I love that as much as I do football :).