A Pre-Christmas Thought

Have you ever noticed how frenetic some classical and traditional Christmas music sounds?

I must ask Santa for better clip-art.

'Tis The Season

Generic Christmas Hen


The gifts are wrapped and the tree is trimmed

But where are the cookies?

Could they have eaten them?

Spinning Again

It has been so long since I've sat at my wheel to spin. My bobbins were full and I was feeling too lazy to ply them off so I could begin a new project. I've been working on some silk for the past year and on a Romney-Coop for longer than I'll admit here. I've already spun up pounds of the wool with pounds more to go. I've been processing it myself so it does take longer. I should send out the rest and have it carded up since I just don't seem to have the time. The silk was in roving form but I had dyed it with a dark red and navy...splotchy dyeing. I didn't like it so I've been carding it to blend it into a homogeneous color which I like very much. A rich Merlot. Now that I've freed up some bobbins I've just started a new project of 50% Polwarth/50%Mohair that Kim, the Whirling Dervish sent me last summer. It's wonderfully soft. I'm hoping my new drive band is in the mail. My poor plastic one broke and now it's too short to repair. I've had the same band for 10 years and has been repaired several times so it was inevitable that a new one should have been ordered before this. As a stop gap remedy, I took an extra drive band from the Ashford and have that on the Majacraft. Not great, but it'll do...kind of. I can spin, and did finish up the plying, but I don't like the "feel", or lack thereof, of the cotton band. I suppose there isn't enough grip.

Holiday Gifts

I bought 3 silk scarves from Dharma Trading Company, all are 60" long. Sixty inches of dye painting entertainment.





I particularly like this scarf. It looks like a stormy seaside sky and will be a Christmas gift for my SIL who sails off the coast of San Diego.






This one has similar colors but has an overall different look to it though it is not evident in this photo. You'll have to take my word for it. I think my daughter will get this work of art.


Mom loves bright colors. And these are bright. So that is three more gifts.



I wove another rag rug this morning and perhaps will start another before I saunter off to bed. There are four on the cloth beam now. Two will be for the kitchen, one for a bathroom and the other I wove for a friend.

Sent the almost-yearlings off to market yesterday and 3 boar does are sold and scheduled to move tomorrow. I think we have one more trip to market slated and that will be it for the year. Some of the does are looking mighty chubby and I think I saw some "he'in and she'in in late summer, so we may have some kids and lambs starting soon. But who knows. Our careful breeding schedule went out of the window when we moved here. Eventually we'll have separate housing. Year 'round youngins' isn't all that bad. I won't go into why winter/early spring births are better because either you don't need the info or if you're in the business you already know. So there!