Lessons in Dyeing

 So I'm hoping to be a craft vendor at my hometown's Johnny Appleseed Festival in a month.  I'm not sure if that makes me ambitious, entrepreneurial, or just plain delirious.  It will be my first vending event if I can pull it off, but that means that I need to more than double (maybe even triple) my inventory; most of which is already posted on my Etsy site.  So I got to thinking about what I might bring with me:

Baskets

Hand spun and dyed yarn

Hand processed and dyed roving

Decorated origami stars

Knitter's mittens

Hats

Woven scarves

And whatever else I could find ready to go in my craft room.  

I still have not sent in an application and payment.  I have till mid-September to decide, and that's sure going to come up quickly.  I spent the past couple of days trying to work out what needs to be made, prices, tracking down a tent.  There's a lot to think of.  So I started with the fiber!  I pulled out my trusty book on Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece by Gail Callahan and went too it.  I have thirteen colors to work with, although if I mixed them, the possibilities could be endless.  

Not shown - Fire Red

And here was the finished product drying in the bathroom.  It was too humid to dry it outside.

And once it was re-skeined.

Two hanks of Alpaca and one of Babydoll Southdown.  Not bad for a few hours.  Er, a few hours of dyeing that is...I already had the yarn spun up.  Still, I'm pretty happy!  And if you're not familiar with the Sheffield's Johnny Appleseed festival, take a peek HERE!  It really is a neat thing to see.  Makes you want to go out and get your own axe and start a swinging!  And let me tell you, the women are just as tough as the men!  It's quite impressive.

Who knew that alfalfa had such pretty flowers?

In the Silence of the Day

I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder rolling across the hills.  It was a slow drone that seemed to fill the air you breathed.  My husband had just gotten up and was preparing to meet a friend to work on a new butcher block for the kitchen, while me and the dog still laid in bed in that twilight somewhere between sleep and awake.  It was a still morning; still is.  One of the kind that make you feel like if you move too fast, you might accidentally stir something up, and awake the farm in a flurry of commotion.  A morning where you seem to walk gently and purposefully as you do your morning chores.

I checked the weather channel on my iPhone before I got out of bed to see what kind of weather I could be expecting (we still appreciate some of this fancy technology here on the farm) and was excited to see that we had a severe thunderstorm warning listed.  I love thunderstorms!  But when I turned to look at the map, I found that it looked like nothing more than a tiny red, orange, and green burp in the sky.  Oh well.  Another day perhaps.  I got up anyway.  Might as well at least enjoy the morning chores as the burp passed.

An hour later and that thunder can still be heard passing over hills and through fields, but the sun has broken through the clouds now and chickens are fancying their nest boxes and fussing when one of their fellow hens seems to be taking too long.  I appreciate these exaggerated mornings.  They give us time to reflect.  The storms long gone now, and though the Weather Channel says there's a 40% chance of rain all day, the movement of the radar seems to indicate otherwise.  Then again, I'm no meteorologist.  So we'll just have to wait and see.

All In A Day

ella's first art batt!

Yesterday was quite the busy one.  I was blessed with the company of my sister and two nieces for the whole day.  The older of the two was working on a wrapped clothesline basket to enter into their county fair later this month, and wanted to use my sewing machine to complete it.  She worked hard all day and turned out a beautiful project.  I'm hoping to see a ribbon on it come judging time.

Sewing baskets wasn't the only tasks performed and completed.  My younger niece (and sister) carded, spun, and plied a wonderful art yarn.  We also made two new hoops for my nieces, which were used on and off all day, and made origami omega stars.  It was quite the busy and productive day!

Come evening, I had them happily on their way back north and my husband and I headed up to the Farm Show.  Let me tell you, farm shows have a whole new meaning once you enter into the world of farming yourself.  Even if your farm just  consists of chickens, angora rabbits, and alpacas.  The first place we always head for is the Poultry tent, perusing through the menagerie of different breeds and admiring their plumage, color, and size.  Also of interest were of course the sheep barns and the rabbit tent.  Meat rabbits are seriously on our list, and visiting the rabbit tent allowed us to get a good idea of the breeds out there raised for that purpose.

By the end of the evening I was exhausted and ready to go home, put my feet up, and work on some knitting before heading to bed.  It was a good exhaustion though.  I love that sense of accomplishment and the sleep that comes after a good day's work.

A Full Weekend

The past two weeks sure have been sultry!  It was so hot that for a solid week we brought our buns inside to keep cool.  They never would have made it out in that heat and humidity.  Since they don't have the option to burrow into the cooler ground like the wild rabbits, we created for them their own little underground sanctuary - in our basement, which stays a nice 60 degrees year round.  I have a feeling they were much obliged.

The garden (for the most part - I'll get to that later) is doing well.  As a matter of fact, it's doing so well, that I'm realizing that I should have planned it out just a little better.  My butternut squash is taking over the whole lower quadrant.  Not surprising in that I planted 8 seeds (all came up) in a 4 by 8 plot.  I didn't have the heart to thin them out.  And now they will be the squash monster that takes over my whole garden; I'm sure of it!  The roma tomatoes plants are full of fruits.  Beans producing like mad.  Okra enjoying the ridiculous heat.  And pumpkins starting to trellis up our TV antennae tower.

This past weekend we travelled up north to help move my brother and sister-in-law back home.  It was a long and exhausting process, and by the time we left to come back down to the farm, you could tell everyone was whooped.  Even after the moving truck had been unloaded, it was still a full weekend.  We visited the local farmer's market (Eat Local!) and open air market - something new for Warren County, and went a saw a movie.  And of course ate more than we should have.  That always happens when mom's cooking.

Can you find the Sphinx (Hummingbird) Moth?

This is not to say that we didn't find time to relax as well.  We certainly did.  I took the opportunity to shoot some pictures of the flowers and wild life in her gardens during one of those times.  My mom's flowers always seem to attract Sphinx moths.  I love these little things.  They never stop flitting from one flower to the next.

Chinese Lantern Plant

I acquired this plant from a friend of mine when we both lived at the barn.  I think these are fabulously bright and wonderful!  I love the orange color they change as they mature.  Inside is a tiny little fruit that reminds me of a type of tomatillo.  Don't just go out and eat them though, as I can't tell you if they are edible or not.  Some have told me they are edible and others have said they are not.  If anyone knows for sure, I'd love to know!

Knitting Addictions

I ran across this animated short a couple days ago, and the whole time I watched it, I sat there shaking my head thinking, "I can relate!"  I would knit just about anything to keep on knitting.  Once upon a time I ran out of fiber, so I actually spun up some plastic bags into 'plarn' (plastic yarn).  I never did knit it up into anything as someone felt so bad for me that I had resorted to making plarn, that they gave me one of their sheep fleeces to process.  I will not deny that I have a fiber addiction.  I have more fiber up in my craft room than I could probably process in an entire year.  Then again, who knows.

So to all my other fellow addicted knitters, crocheters, and fiber artists, I hope you enjoyed this clip!  Happy Knitting!

The Buck Moon

Tonight's Buck moon rose to a chorus of coyote's out in the back pasture.  It couldn't have been a more perfect scenario.  As a matter of fact, I have never heard the coyotes so close, and so active before.  It was just as if they needed to make sure that the man in the moon felt welcome as he looked down over our hills.  In the background, the fireflies dashed to and fro lighting their little paths all over the sky and through some of the tall vegetation (including my garden).  It was picture perfect, really.  


The full moon goes by various names as it rises each month, and varies according to different peoples and traditions.  From what I have read, the Buck Moon dates back to the Native American peoples of the northern and eastern regions of North America.  It's reference it to the the new growth of velvety antlers poking out from the foreheads of the bucks this time of year.  We visited an animal sanctuary this past weekend which houses and cares for a small herd of reindeer.  I got to feel first hand what that wonderful velvet feels like and now have a better appreciation for the name of this month's full moon.  All I can say is that velvet is a wonderful texture to feel.  


It's nights like these that make me thankful that I live in the country and not the city.  I realize to each his own, but oh the wonderful sounds of nature.  It's peaceful.  And that's how it should be.