Woolybuns

A Pleasant Way To Spend A Rainy Day

Sometimes, a bunny just kind of hops a bit deeper into your heart.  This fella has done precisely that.  He is a pointed white, 50% German, 50% French, born last March so he is only 5 months old.  I hadn't intended to keep him but he got to meu, and I started thinking of him as Smudge.  One of my firm rules: do not name the ones who are not staying.  Once you name them, there is a personal connection.  So Smudgie stayed, along with one of his brothers who has yet to let me know what his name is.  The brother took after their dad, the Frenchie.  Smudge took after the German side.  He's got an impressively solid, substantial set of shoulders, a butt to  match, and a coat to lust after: densedensedense, as much crimp as density, and all that lovely non-matting character.  His full name is officially Hop Smudge Sundae.  Apparently, I am not the only one who finds him irresistable.  We had visitors today looking at Bunivere's and Hopalot's babies, and, since more rain happened for a full 24+ hours, I brought Bunivere and babies into the kitchen for a couple hours.  Just so the visitors could see samples of my bunnies, I brought Smudge in for a brief visit, too.  All the babies crowded around, claiming him as an older brother.  Bunivere, though, claimed Smudge in an entirely different way, the little tart flirt. I had to move quickly to prevent unauthorized activity so there are no photos of the moment.  I did promise her a date with him in the future.  The babies did their own flirting, with the camera.  This little girl could be the one who stays here.  I've got the choice narrowed down to two.  The other possible is the one on the left in the photo of the two in slipper pose.  The one on the right is promised to the visitor today, and she has named the doe Ziyal.  Interestingly, the visitor's husband bonded with the only buck in the litter, even dubbed him Capt. Jack Rabbit.   The man insists they will only have one rabbit. 

Senator Ted Kennedy

Immense sadness at his passing.  Others have and will write more eloquently of his greatness, his unfailing devotion to a better life for working people.  Yes, he, like all of us, had his faults.  But he rose above them.  He gave back far more than he took, both to his family and to America.  When I first heard he had the same horrible illness one of my uncle's is soon to die from, I had hoped the Senator would have a longer, healthier time than usual, as my uncle has.  I had hoped he would live to see his legislative efforts on health care reform rewarded and feel he has been cheated of that.  My hope now is that Congress will honor "the greatest United States Senator of our time" by crafting and passing health care reform worthy of the man.  Rest well, Senator.  You earned it.

Now Where Did I Put That Pattern?

Corrie blue bunny is all spun up.  Unless I have more of this fiber hiding someplace - entirely possible given the number of brown leaf bags in which I store fiber stashed here and there around the house - I have about 1100 yards of this handspun.  I originally planned a simple stockinette with roll edges sweater but I don't think that is enough yardage.  And given the nature of the spin, I suspect I'd have a lot of pilling under arms if I made a sweater anyway, so at this point, I think a shawl is what this yarn wants to be.  I bought the Portuguese Fisherwoman's Shawl pattern at Spa last February, designed by friend Shelagh and think this is the right pattern for this yarn.  I'm eager to cast on but first things first: bath and abuse for the yarn and while it's drying, find the pattern.

One Month Old

Born one month ago, the Bunivere babies are at the utmost of cuteness.  And sweet.  Every time I open the hutch door, they all run to the opening looking for scritches.  Once in a while, one or another will get booted out the door but they weigh almost nothing so tend to bounce, especially because there is a soft landing of dropped hay under the door.  They don't much like the surprise of it, though.  If I'm quick enough, I scoop up the dumfounded baby before it knows what happened.  If I'm not, it scoots for cover and I have to hustle before bunny panic complicates the catch.   Right now, they are at the age where I see them more as a litter than as individuals, but personalities are beginning to emerge.  The self chin girl with the white splotch on her face is kind of the leader of the pack.  She has been at the head of the line for scritches, attention and food right from the beginning.  I'm trying not to attach to any of them individually until I decide which of the silver martens stays here.  The lone boy in the bunch does get my notice, though, as he was the shy one and his mother bit the tips of his ears off.  So I've cuddled him a bit by himself and now he's right in there with his pushy sisters begging for attention.  Bunivere has decided I'm now welcome to give them all the attention I want.  It gets her off the hook.

It's Time Is Now

This has been sitting around for a very long time.  So long I don't even remember for sure what it is.  Other than 50% angora, of course.  There is wool in there, no silk nor alpaca, but I don't remember which wool.  The possibilities are polwarth, merino or blue faced leicester.  I suspect BFL.  The answer may be buried here in the blog, or it might even pre-date the blog.  Except I know it was processed by the talented folks over at Still River Mill and I think I already had the blog by the time I met them.  Guess I'll have to do some blog  digging.  In any case, the processed fiber came back natural bright white and I hauled it to NHSW a couple years in a row, and took it to many a spinning guild meeting.  It just did not sell.  So a couple (few??  not a clue) years ago, when I decided to experiment with dyeing roving, this stuff volunteered.  I threw about 4 ounces in a pot of sapphire.  Angora being so water resistant, I got lots of white and pale blue along with the sapphire.  I'm kind of an easy going type and like randomness so the monotonic variation is fine by me.  I expected when I dyed this that I'd end up with a sotted, felted mess because the roving is very soft.  But no.  Pleasant surprise: this roving dyes easily as long as I don't ask it to be a solid color.  I.e., don't mess with it in the pot and it won't mess with you in the spin.  Not that I actually spun any after I dyed it.  I just fondled it and drafted a bit to see if it would.  Then other stuff caught my attention for a few years.  Yesterday, I intended to felt, even gathered up thoughts, ideas, and materials, only to discover that my tables all took a trip to the town next door in anticipation of a young man's first birthday.  A good cause, one I had agreed to without fully acknowledgeing how long they'd be away, so that left me looking for something else to do.  When I tripped over this ball of roving, I realized it's time has come.   I spun up about an ounce last night and possibly another ounce this morning.  It's a very nice spin!  Turns out I'm glad it didn't sell because it obviously has much to teach me.  Not lace even though that's what I was thinking.  But it's choice is apparently sport or heavier.  I can't wait to see what it wants to do in the knit!

Ouch!

Yesterday, the day started with clear, comfortable sunshine, the kind of day that suggests you could soar like those folks parasailing under the huge happy face at Lake George.  So I shook off that re-entry blah from a fun weekend of little sleep and much junk food and headed to the barn.  It seemed a day wide open with possibilities.  Perhaps with my trainer's nicely developing trailer backing skills, we would finally take that trail ride we've been trying to get in all summer.  But Justin, a 4 year old Appaloosa my trainer owns, had a moment of idiocy and changed all that.  Lucy started her day early, getting the first horse out and working around 6 am to beat the heat.  By 10 am, she'd worked and bathed 4 horses with good results.  Then it was Justin's turn.  He hadn't been out for a couple days because of the ugly heatnhumidity.  He wasn't inclined to settle down on the end of the longe line.  He's kind of a chicken about silly things like the longe whip so Lucy hadn't been using it but he was being... well, a horse's ass, so she bent over to pick up the whip.  Justin freaked, slammed into reverse at about a hundred miles an hour and launched Lucy into the air at the end of the longe line.  By her hand.  Granddaughter Jessie, who saw it all unfold, said Justin flew Lucy like a kite.  The whomp on return to the ground stunned and hurt but did not break Lucy.  That snap into the air, though, focused on her hand.  When I arrived about half hour later, she sat at her kitchen table with her hand cradled in ice, tears in her eyes.  She asked me to take a peek to see what I thought.  It. Was. Ugly.  To the doctor you go, I said.  He confirmed it.  Her hand is broken.  The good news is this break is kind of a clean simple break, unlike the big break from a previous nasty horse accident which broke her femur in 57 spots.  She did not fully recover from that.  If she treats this break as she should, it will heal fully.  But as soon as she had the brace and sling in place, she started talking about how she has no problem training with a cast on her arm.  She's done it before.  We may have to use the longe whip on her.

Bunny Babes 3 Weeks Old

                                 

Turns out, there is only one buck in the litter and he's too embarrassed to show himself.  Seems his mom apparently got a bit too thorough clearing his sac off at birth.  The tips of both of his ears are gnawed off and ragged.  His sisters, however, are all about cuddles and skritches, nibbles and explorations.  This is a very fun litter!

WOOL

Weekend Out On the Lake, I think it stands for, the brainchild of Rows Red.  The place: Wiawaka.  A fun time in a beautiful setting.

Lake George   

Beautiful old buildings. 

             Pretty little gardens everywhere.

Little duckies gliding by.  

                          Spinners scattered about enjoying.  

        

                            

 

And maybe a bit of fiber.

What I came home with, from the silent auction to benefit Wiawaka.

Mid-Summer's Night Gnome

A couple months ago, a friend PM'd me on Ravelry about a swap she signed up for, suggesting I join it, too.  The assignment: get to know your swap partner and create gnomes to swap, deadline Aug. 1.  My swap partner hails from Houston and is Slightly Foxed.  So we connected on both Ravelry and Facebook and got to work.  Packages went out this week.   Mine arrived yesterday, though I did not see it until late last night, nicely in keeping with the theme Mid-Summer's Night Gnome.  Look at the goodies!  Is that face not adorable??  Don't you want to  just cuddle him?  I sure do. And look: he's got a mushroom.  A treasure trove mushroom.  Nice treasure, huh.  Even better: it's dark chocolate which I love and my children  hate.  Heh.   That bag of chocolate?  Yeah, it just might not be as full as when it arrived.  The yarn: 2 skeins of Regia self striping sock yarn, and a lovely soft skein of cotton, colorway Aqua Ombre.  Beautiful color combo! 

I chose to needle felt a gnome.  I've done some needle felting before, first time was in a guild workshop with Sharon Costello.  We made tiny little ornament gnomes and one clever fella, a teenage imp,  made his with a drop seat to his pants with a carefully crafted nekkid butt hiding behind the drop seat.  For this swap, I intended to get my fiber supplies from a local friend but the bum she went to Hawaii when I needed her here.  So I went back to Sharon's website and found the perfect kit.  It's called Woolabies and contains enough supplies to make not just the one gnome I was to make, but a second one.  I thought how fun to make the one then send the rest to Slightly Foxed so she could make her gnew gnome a friend or mate.  I had a lot of fun crafting the gnome and have come to think of him as Gnorm.  He reminds me of the character Eli Lap played by Jan Rubes in the movie Witness, with a slightly more ... impish perhaps? tone.  I had intended a chubbier, more jovial character but these gnomes are a bit like teenagers, with a mind of their own.  No matter your best efforts, they develop their own personality so you love them as they are and let them go.