2010 Blows In

The wind is howling. 60 mph gusts It feels as tho the wind is coming right thru the walls of this 1921 farmhouse. All I do is bring in wood and feed the woodstove! I hope this is not a sign of the coming months with lambing due to begin in 3 weeks. Thank goodness for thermal barn suits.
I brought a little Shetland ewe into the basement. I suspect pneumonia and it is so windy that she is using too much energy to keep warm. I notice a big improvement since she's had antibiotics and yogurt and is warmer. Hopefully she'll go back to the flock tomorrow. Having her in the house has made it easier..and warmer.. for me to care for her, that's for sure.
Molly, my reluctant model is wearing her new scarf and fingerless gloves. They are made from the wool of the Shetland lamb that Molly found without a mother while I was at MDSW in 2008. Molly located the reluctant mother and somehow managed to get her to acknowledge her motherhood before I got home from the weekend. The knitted items were a reward for devotion!

Eating our way through NYC and Brooklyn

Since Molly's home that means I don't stop for a second.But if it weren't for Molly I would never have seen half the places I've been. We just returned from a trip to NYC, not to see the ordinary stuff but to visit some of the Best Affordable Restaurants. We started out in Brooklyn in the Brighton Beach section. We were the only ones there that didn't speak Russian. The stores were full of fur coats and hats and some really wonderful felted hats and shoes. We could have been in Moscow by all appearances. The restaurants had all kinds of Russian favorites that they loaded on your plate then charged by the pound. Tim's girlfriend, Elisabeth, was along so we all shared. We were stuffed for less than $9 so some walking was in order. Too cold for the beach (Coney Island is right next door) but the shops were interesting.
From there were headed to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to Junior's and the World's Best Cheesecake. Awful traffic but we got a parking space amazingly enough. The cheesecake went into boxes for later. Next stop Hoboken NJ, just across the River. A mere 4 miles as the crow flies but the Garmin took us accross the Brooklyn Brige and right thru Chinatown in lower Manhattan. AAHHH. I grew up in NJ and have gone to NYC all my life BUT I have managed to avoid driving there until now. My brother who works in the city is still laughing. This is another fine mess you have gotten me into Molly!
We survived Canal St. and gratefully arrived in Hoboken where we had a hotel room booked. And what a room it was! 16th floor with a 12 foot window overlooking the NYC skyline and the Hudson River boat traffic. AWESOME. The girls were still ready to go since we still had daylight so we found Carlo's Bakery...Cake Boss on TLC... and got on line. By this time it felt more like Chicago than NJ with the wind whipping off the river, but the people on line with us were fun so we braved the cold. Molly and Elisabeth got pictures with Buddy...Cake Boss... and more bakery items. By now I was craving protein so we walked around in search of real food. Hoboken has really changed since I was last there MANY years ago. They say Eli Manning lives there but we must have missed him. I swore I saw Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear Fame but they girls assured me that if I had indeed seen him he would have immediately pulled me off the street for a fashion intervention. I kept purchasing cheap additions to my attire as the day got colder and was not too careful about matching. My Teva's and wool socks were reportedly the worst fashion faux pas.Even my brother who just worked outside in NYC all day looked better than I did when we met him for coffee.
Tuesday morning was bitter. Wind chill of 6 and 40 mph wind gusts. Now I was wishing I had purchased one of those Russian fur coats in Brighton Beach.
This time we took the train into NYC and the subway to Dylan's Candy Bar on the upper East side. That place makes you feel like you are living CANDYLAND.... A magical lollipop land. Chocolate fountains,hundreds of candy bins on 3 floors. Even the floor has a candy motif! The music was all candy realated tunes. The girls were thrilled but I kept asking myself "Why does the daughter of Ralph Lauren need to own a candy shop?" Too realistic I guess. Maybe I am as cynical as Anthony Bourdain.
From there it was blocks and blocks of walking. Molly and Elisabeth were not interested in the old standard NYC stuff like the tree at Rockefeller Center (Rockafella Centa, as my mother used to say) but I made them go anyway before returning to Hoboken. Actually we were glad to get out because the Christmas tourist crowds were impossible to navigate in spite of the cold.
It was a great time for all of us in spite of the fact that our camera was missing. All of our pictures gone! The girls were devastated that their pictures with the Cake Boss will never be on Facebook but they now have no proof that I wore what I wore. Guess we will have to go back and retrace our steps... in warmer weather tho.

Fiber Friends Forever

The dreaded call from the UK that I have feared for so long came yesterday.Isabel, my friend of almost 20 years has died. The ovarian cancer she had fought for 5 years with such strength and dignity finally won.

Our friendship began as 2 spinners in guilds that wanted pen pals in 1990. For 10 years we exchanged patterns,funny stories and life adventures. We learned that we had so much more in common than a love of fiber. We had 2 children and husbands many years older than ourselves. When we met for the first time in the UK, that budding literary friendship blossomed into a special connection that "the pond" could not break. We were so alike but so different that we became the perfect traveling duo. Isabel was quiet and smart and witty, while I was cheeky,loud and overly friendly. We both loved to travel,sip wine,have cream tea and laugh. Our semi annual trips together took us to every place of fiber interest in the UK. It was Isabel that introduced me to the BFL sheep on the hillsides of Wales. Although she was afraid of sheep close up, she agreed to spend her 5oth birthday at the Welshpool sheep show where a charging Texel sent her right over a gate.Some birthday celebration!She would go anywhere to make my trip special. Our inability to read maps brought us to some places that we never intended to see but that made travel so much more memorable and funny. She was my friend and the sister I never had. It was the sisterhood of the traveling spinners. Laughing was the thing we did best.

The walking trip along Hadrian's wall that was to be our next adventure is not cancelled...I'll walk it alone one day and laugh and recall those wonderful trips with Isabel. And of course, I will miss her. She brought joy and laughter to my life as only good friends can do.

Gorgeous Day in November

What a wonderful warm sunny day after many of rain. Yesterday I got the truck stuck in the muddy lane going up to the top field trying to deliver protein tubs. Even 4WD didn't help the mud was so deep. One wiff of those tubs and the flock ran down the lane and waited for me to roll the tubs off the tailgate. Notice I didn't use the word patiently. They attacked before I could get out of the way. Gotta love 'em.
After a morning of trying out my new dye colors and making some of the most frightening color combinations, I decided to take a break and sit on my porch,sip coffee and watch my flock. This porch is like being in a treehouse. I can see the whole farm. Unuasual to be sitting here in November, but it sure feels good. There's green grass in most fields...amazing. The skeins I dyed earlier are drying in the breeze and look a bit less vivid. Maybe Bozo the clown won't buy them after all. It's funny about wool though, no matter what color yarn or roving you make, someone will love it and someone else will be negative. Good thing too or the world would be a pretty boring place. I love guessing what will sell first.

Molly just called from a cold canyon in Utah on her way from Salt Lake to Logan. Think I'll enjoy sitting here for a while longer. That cold will be here in a few days!

Thinking Christmas Yet?

Here are a few items that might work for a gift for someone on your list.



Lap blankets Made from York County PA wool...not BFL tho. Woven in PEI, Canada
$65.
2 styles white with white blanket stitching
white with black stripe and blanket stitching


Scarf Kit
1 pound of wool roving with a scarf pattern included. The bag comes
with a picture of the sheep and a little bio. $20

kits come in white,light grey and dark grey. The wool is BFL cross.

Rhinebeck Rovings

Biltmore wool Barn delivered so many bags of my roving to Rhinebeck that I thought I'd have a lot left for winter shows. I was wrong! Here are 5 colors that are left. I'll have to start dying wool tomorrow and have more roving made.


Amount remaining
#9 12 oz.
#10 2 pounds
#11 12 oz.
#12 7 oz.
#13 10 0z.

Shearing Lambs

Got my lambs sheared last Thursday before they had a chance to fill their fleeces with burrs and hay. Wow are the fleeces beautiful and soft. It makes me so happy to bag 'em up and just look at the locks in the clear plastic bags. Not only am I happy with the fleeces but the lambs looked great this year. Most of them look like yearlings. Good growth this summer since we had plenty of pasture. No health issues either. It was a good year.
I'll be off to Rhinebeck on Friday with some of these fleeces ready to sell. Hope to see some familiar faces there. Anne Priest is always such fun to visit with. Kathy and Mark Stephens from Biltmore Wool Barn will be bringing my new BFL and Shetland roving. They processed it on short notice when I got news that I had gotten a booth. Can't wait to see it. They do such a beatiful job carding. I'm so glad I had dyed lots of fiber over the summer to send them in a hurry.