Betty's haircut

I sheared my first sheep today. I'm too embarrassed to post a photo. She's too embarrassed! The fleece should have been sheared in the fall (aaah, I didn't get the memo), so it was mostly a mass of felt on the surface. Not much usable there, alas. The other purebred longwool is in better condition; her fleece is much thicker and longer though. I'll work on her next week when I have my teenaged helpers. The crossbreeds are in gorgeous fleece, and will be sheared on Sunday, when we go to pick up our new angora goats.

I've finally gotten to the painting in here, after three weeks of skim coating, sanding, skim coating, sanding, repeat. It's so rewarding to put color on the walls after all that work.

I'm exhausted and reeking of sheep urine and lanolin, a strangely not-unpleasant combination, but its time to get cleaned up and call it quits for today.

little crafty thing

In my semi-annual senility self-check, I attempt to learn something new, just to make sure I still CAN. Results for first quarter 2007 are good. I finally learned how to do garter stitch grafting, practicing on this little washcloth.

This is Plymouth Fantasy Naturale. Since I ordered a bunch of this cotton for the shop, I thought I'd look for a one-skein project to do. It actually didn't make a dent in the skein. People use this yarn for baby things; personally, I think its a little heavy. I'd use fingering wt. cotton for the baby things, and this for kids knits or other projects.

It was a fast, fun knit, about an hour and a half start to finish. Starting with a cast on of 15 stitches, knit little pie wedges in mercerized cotton with an integrated lace edge and short row shaping. Grafting in garter st. is one of those things that has escaped my abilities for a long time. I've got 2 hats on the needles from waaaay back that can get finished off now.