I was taking photos to try and get a good one for an ad.
Gem
Janelle
Moon
Zelda
Dazzle
Prancer
Zip
Babe
Fanny
These Meridian ewes are all with Kenleigh’s Savor. He’s just a little guy but has been doing the job.
Last, but not least, Amaryllis.
I just got this order of rayon chenille. I can’t wait to start weaving these! The first warp will be one in which I use all of these together! Just wait and see.
I am not the music video star, but some of my sheep are. A young woman, Shannon, who lives in town contacted me when she was looking for a location to film a nativity scene for a music video she wants to produce. It sounded kind of fun so I said she could use my place. The filming date was last Sunday . Shannon’s friends and family members were the actors and actresses and I was livestock wrangler.
My ram pen was the perfect set–nothing in the shot that looked modern. None of these kids had any livestock experience, but they all did great.
Violet is the starring ewe and she played her part well, standing patiently while Shannon filmed close-ups. The goat kids were a little more difficult–eating the bedding in the manger, the robes, etc. We substituted one goat kid for another part way through.
One of Shannon’s friends has a three-month old baby who was used in most of the shots, but this is the baby stunt double.
After filming in the barn, the shepherds went out to the pasture to get footage with the sheep and the donkey.
The weekend weather was great, but on Tuesday that changed. We had 5.25″ of rain on Tuesday with high winds. That was the date scheduled for a meeting of a group of weaving friends known as Yolo Weavers. We had already planned to meet at my place and make paper. It turns out that paper-making was just the thing to take our minds off the nasty weather.
This is a pile of paper scraps.
This is that pile of paper in a blender.
Here is the resulting paper. The yarn in the first photo creates the texture in this paper.
This is another of my creations. Notice the glitzy fiber in it!
And here are the two girls (middle), daughters of a spinning friend, who taught us to make paper.
I spent the last two days in Placerville teaching Weave a V-Shawl to the Hangtown Fiber Guild. Here are the results:
Ladies, please turn around.
These are the warps for shawls not quite finished:
Quite a variety of shawls!
Last weekend was Lambtown in Dixon, CA. The fiber building was so busy that I barely got outside to snap a few photos. The sheep-to-shawl contest was one of the most popular events. Teams come with looms already warped and they need to prepare and spin the yarn and weave the shawls during the contest. This year the fiber for the weft was Jacob wool from my flock. It got great reviews from the spinners. Here is the winning shawl woven by the Silverado Guild from Napa:
And a close-up:
The Del Oro Guild got second place:
I didn’t get photos of the other shawls, but I did get one of Hangtown Guild’s portrayal of their theme of “Au Naturel”:
There is a new use for all that roving that you don’t have time to spin! Hangtown always does it with a sense of humor!
One last photo taken at Lambtown:
Do I want to swap out my sheep for a flock of these cuties? Hmmm…what is a group of chincillas called? Covey–no, that’s quail. Warren–isn’t that where rabbits live? Crowd? How about Cloud?
It’s been a week now since I went to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival with two friends, Chris and Diane. I didn’t take as many photos as I thought I had–or at least they didn’t turn out that great, but here are a few.
When Shannon of Kenleigh Fiber Studio asked if I wanted to share her booth I liked the idea, but I really didn’t want to drive the whole way myself. I wanted to drive straight through and I didn’t know if my back would let me do that. Diane and Chris were game, so we had a great road trip.
We left shortly after 6 a.m. on Friday. First stop:
Coffee for Diane.
We took turns driving. It’s my turn in the back seat. You can’t see the speedometer in this shot, but Chris and Diane made pretty good time!
As it turns out, Shannon and I probably could have each filled a booth. We did a pretty good job of cramming everything into one booth. Shannon raises jacob sheep also and does fabulous needle felting. Her sister makes goat milk soap and lotion which we also had in the booth.
These are a couple of Shannon’s felt bags which sold out. The Festival was packed with people and there were 150 vendors!
Diane did her part to support the vendors!
It was a great weekend and I wouldn’t mind doing it again. Read more about the event on Shannon’s blog–click on Kenleigh Acres on the right.
Next event: St. Helena Farmer’s Market in the morning and then Lambtown!
I took this photo earlier this week after we’d had a little rain. It was only 1/4″ but everything felt so fresh and clean.
I think I’m ready for summer to be over–at least the hot weather. But we’re going to have at least another few days of triple digits.
The Open House was Saturday and the threatening rain had me worried. The clouds and wind actually were a huge relief from the heat we’ve been having and there were only a few drops of rain. Here are some photos:
Cute kids and cute lamb. Note Rusty’s involvement.
And here are cute cookies provided by my friend Jackie. Can you tell they are Jacob sheep (without horns)?
This is what my shop looks like now.
I sure like the blogs that have lots of photos. I hope you do, because I don’t have time to write much.
First up–Everyone is invited to my Grand Re-Opening this Saturday, September 12, from 10-3. I hope people will bring wheels and knitting and spend a few hours relaxing under the trees.
I have a lot of fair photos to sort through. Here are a few. Dylan Duncan (Genesis Farms) helped me with the sheep show. I’m grateful to him. My husband was sick and couldn’t come to the fair–he didn’t want to show anyway, but would have been the photographer. Instead, Dylan’s mom, Diana, helped out with the camera.
This is Dylan and me showing Rubicon and Moonshine in the yearling ram class. Rubicon was second to the St. Croix ram which ultimately won Grand Champion of the Primitive & American Breeds Divison. Four breeds were represented–St. Croix, Jacob, Tunis, and Shetland.
Dylan’s dad, Darryl, stepped in to help show in the Flock class.
There are no blue ribbons in here. The Tunis sheep are included in this division and they got all the first and seconds in the classes they entered. I got most of the 3rds after the Tunis and the second places in the group classes.
But the real contest for me was in the display area. The Fair offers a substantial prize for the Marketing Display. Here’s part of my exhibit.
A friend, Joan, helped out tremendously by spinning all day on Sunday and Monday. We had huge crowds most of the day and I sure got tired of talking. I demonstrated weaving while Joan spun.
Here are the final awards. I’m third AGAIN in the overall Marketing award. However I did get the Herdsman award for 9 head or under. I also got Best Display Directed at the General Public (or something like that) and Most Creative. Those are the maroon ribbons.
A friend came by with her knitted felted purse. That is her flock and the sheepdog coming in on the left is my dog’s mom.
More fair photos will follow, but not now.
It’s hard to take photos when sheep are in pens. This is Mary who lambed last week at the CA State Fair Nursery. She has triplet ewes. Madeline is next to her and lambed a couple of days ago, also with triplet ewes! They are quite the crowd-pleasers.
The sheep show is this weekend. I’m there with 8 sheep (not counting the sheep in the Nursery) and a big display. Today I took one of my portable rigid heddle looms to work on. Some of the girls who were there with their family’s sheep flocks were hanging around and watching me weave. After I finished a scarf I told them that they could all try it. I finally decided to just let them weave one. Three girls traded off and finished a scarf. We warped the loom again for another and tomorrow I’m going to take another loom and a basket full of yarn. I’ll let them keep weaving as long as they want to. Another great crowd pleaser!
These are 2nd to 5th graders. I got them started and they’re doing great!
They’re tying the fringe here.
These girls sure make it look easy. Maybe they can sell looms for me.!
Saturday was Fiber Frolic at Meridian Jacobs. Colleen Simon (friend down the road) put this on and each teach two classes. Participants get to pick from two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon and lunch is provided.
In the morning Colleen taught minature sock knitting–it is the same as regular sock knitting, but many fewer stitches. While she was inside I was outside with the dyeing group. Good thing that this class was in the morning because the high temperature that day was 107!
Look at the fiber and yarn that we dyed!
We all went inside for the afternoon. I taught a Novelty Yarn class while Colleen taught Needlefelting. These are the butterflies that students made:
On the weaving front–I finally finished a batch of baby blankets. Here is what they look like when they come off the loom:
Not too impressive, huh? That’s 18 blankets. Here are some that are finished and ready for sale:
I have sold 6 of the 18 blankets already so I’d better get busy with another warp!
The State Fair is going to get in the way of that though! That is coming up this weekend and I am still working on my display.
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