Shearing Day 2017!

It was another successful shearing day at the farm! The weather was PERFECT and the four man crew from Mariacher Shearing were awesome. The fleeces are gorgeous and after they are skirted and sorted by my mom, the fleece will be delivered to the fiber mill in Vermont and we'll have luxurious yarn for you all!

If you would like to see a video of the shearing, go over to our Facebook page and view the "LIVE" video that Liz recorded during the shearing of Dupayage.

Playing Catch Up

Hi blogging friends! Hope everyone is doing well! I'm sorry I haven't posted much lately. Not a ton of knitting going on and work and life have been crazy busy. All good stuff...just busy! So I thought I would play a game of catch up and show and tell some things that have been happening lately.

My mom and dad traveled to MAPACA and brought home lots of ribbons! Very exciting!!!

The farm has been busy and thankfully most of the spring has been cool. Besides those INSANELY HOT few days, the pacas have been fairing well in their full fleece. Shearing day is later than usual, much to my parent's chagrin. My mom spent those hot days hosing the herd down and keeping everyone as comfortable as possible. She works so hard every single day taking care of those critters. I don't know how she does it.

One of my chickens is broody right now. I don't have a rooster, so that means she's sitting on regular old eggs. I force her out of the box to eat and drink and stretch her legs. She's all huffy and puffy in there, but her health seems just fine, so I'm letting her pretend to be a mom to be.

The alpacas have been very happy playing king of the hill.  I am amused at watching them run up and down and push each other over to be on the top of the hill. It's all very cute!

(Most of the alpaca pictures were taken by Liz)

In knitting news:
I had been knitting my Rhinebeck sweater which was going to be The Knitters Dude sweater. Well....I wasn't a fan of the very, very, very long floats and having to scoop them up every few stitches. So I ripped it out. And started over, this time knitting Mary Jane Mucklestone's Super Soul Cardigan. I am making some modifications to it. I'll do a post on that when I have more done. Right now I'm knitting the sleeve and I'm MUCH happier knitting this one.

I've also been working on some socks at the baseball games. Currently I'm working on the Hermiones Everyday Sock using yarn I bought from Backyard Fiber Works at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

And in personal non related farm or knitting news:
I had the most amazing experience last weekend. I played Carnegie Hall. YES! I did! I really did! I still can't believe it happened. It was surreal and magical and emotional and amazing and perfect. I play the flute in the Greater Shore Concert Band. We are a community band from the Jersey Shore made up of 80 musicians that play for the love of music. This year marks the band's 50th anniversary and we had the huge honor of being accepted by Carnegie Hall to perform on that famous stage. I'll do a longer post all about it but for now, here are a few of my favorite photos. Thank you to my sister, Andee that snuck her camera in to get some beautiful photos of the concert.

The Dude! Yarn Along

As I talked about in my last post, I bought yarn for my Rhinebeck 2017 sweater during my trip to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. After lots of time spent looking at sweater patterns, I landed on the Knitter's Dude sweater. 

My yarn is O-Wool wash worsted. The main color is Silver Maple. The bands of color are a nice mustard color, Feldspar. The larger motif is in the Wineberry color. After I started the sleeve, my son commented that it looks very Harry Potterish. Yup...it kind of does. It's also my college colors (Kutztown University). I second guessed my color choices, but I'm sticking with it this time and going to keep on knitting. The color in the photo doesn't show the motif color well. It's a pretty purple/wine color.

I am knitting the sleeves first. It's a nice way to do a swatch and also, I hate sleeves, so this is a good way to start and just get it over with! Now...let's talk about the knitting.

The floats between colors of the motif are LONG. Too long in my opinion. Makes for tricky knitting in the round on a sleeve. I think it will be a little easier once I get into the body of the sweater. Picking up floats as I go is not my favorite thing! And then to do it on double pointed needles is even harder. But, it is knitting up nicely and I have hopes of having it done in time for Rhinebeck next year.

What are you knitting?

Maryland Sheep & Wool 2017

YOU GUYS!!!!!!!! I just got back from the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

I will forever remember this trip as the one that I laughed so hard it hurt. What a great time!

This year our group was my mom, sister Liz and Paige from Frame & Fiber. We left early Saturday morning and headed right to the festival.

We had a blast. Laughed a lot, bought LOTS of yarn and great goodies. We met awesome vendors...some new to us, some returning. Tops on my list were the new vendor Backyard Fiberworks, the tried and true O-Wool and we loved the guy working at The Fold booth. 

The weather was cold and windy, a bit gray and some rain, but it made it perfect for wearing hand knits. I don't ever remember being cold at Maryland so it was nice! 

Stayed at Turf Valley and had a  delicious dinner...celebrated my birthday a few days early (and it was our waitress's birthday too!)

It was wonderful!!!!!! I could write more, but I think the pictures tell the story.

Yarn purchases:

O-Wool (will be my Knitter's Dude Sweater) for Rhinebeck

Backyard Fiberworks (the white speckle, purple, apple green) will be the Goldfish Memory Shawl

Backyard Fiberworks (pink/white speckles) will be Apple Blossom socks

Backyard Fireworks (American wool CORMO!!! dark gray) will be the Whiskyfied Shawl

The coral color will be knitted into a gift for my sister, Liz

Mustard colored Peace Fleece (mittens???)

I also picked up some beautiful earrings and a cotton woven shawl with birthday money from my parents. 

Thank you to my mom for treating us to the hotel and dinner. I'm so happy we got to spend quality time together. My family and I all live so close together but we're always on the go and usually with a bunch of kids in tow. So to have some fun grown up fiber, food and drink time is extra special!!