Woolybuns

8* F

Yes, that f is for farenheit, but substitute whatever other f word comes to mind.   In this weather, my tiny little dogs still have to go outside, where they shiver and pick up one foot then another and look at me clearly wondering what the eff are we doing out here? And then take forever to circle and sniff  and pick out the one and only suitable spot.   Makes me grateful for the felted angora mittens I made a couple months ago.  They are lined in pure angora, with the outer layer a blend of angora and merino.  But there is fun to be had with this farenheit.  For  me, fun is parking myself near the pellet stove with my dear Rosie and a bag full of foof.   I started this bobbin last September but then Rose  threw some screws again.   Son the College Student took care of that soon after arriving back in town for semester break.  I've been spinning a lot since.   That's pure angora on the bobbin, natural blue, no processing needed.  I think it will be about sport weight once plied.  As of last night, I have the bobbin nearly full.  There is room on the bobbin to continue spinning the single a bit more, but I think I'm ready to spin another luscious fiber see a finished yarn.  The plan: wind it onto my ball winder for a center pull cake, then ply from both ends.  That can be tricky with a foofy fiber like angora but the trick is to wind slowly, making sure the path of the single does not wander astray with wobble.  Yes, wobble in your wind is what causes all those nasty tangles in a center pull ball.  A better ball winder was definitely worth the price. 

 

Wacky Daffies

 Another one sprouts!  I'm quite liking this.  Dahlias are a relatively new plant for me.  I bought the first one I think 3 maybe 4 years ago.  In previous years, I did not remember to bring them in for the winter so of course they died and I've had to buy new plants each spring.  That gets pricey.  Squirrels getting into my dahlias starting late last summer prompted me to rescue the dahlias early enough last fall,  so this year will be my first second year plants.  That pleases me.  The tag says this dahllia is orange.  I bought two in the orange range but I'm guessing this is the solid orange.  The other orange one is, if memory serves (ha!), both pink and orange.  I have two more tubers in pots.  If they all sprout, then my spring purchases will be additions, not replacements.  Progress!  

Also in the daffy category is my sweet silly Kenzie.  Her coat is growing back in enough now that hair falls over her face and blocks her eyes.  Yesterday, both she and Mickey got a bath and I took them to a  pet shop to look for those silly little bows tiny hairy dogs get stuck with.  Couldn't find any.  But I did find some teensy little claw clips, so small my fingers have trouble opening them.  Kenzie is now properly primped.  She's not as amused as I am. 

Daffy Dahlia

Native to Mexico, dahlias are not winter hardy here in New England.  I love growing them on my deck where it gets quite hot during the summer.  They require frequent watering in that spot but so lovely to look at.  But before it gets frosty around here, I have to bring the plants in the house to let the tubers ride out winter in dormancy. 

Remember that warm spell in December?  Yeah, it woke up one of the dahlias.  Inside the house.  Darn thing sprouted.  I figured when cold hit again, it would die back again. 

Nope.

So I moved it to sit in front of the slider to the deck and gave it some water.  It's quite happy there.  More stalks sprouted.  And on January 1, I noticed this.  Yep.  A bud.  The rest of them are still dormant (or perhaps dead?).  At that point, the temperatures outside were cold enough to freeze my car dead.  Right next to the slider is one of coldest spots in my house.  But the dahlia just merrily rolled along with budding growth.  And now, yes, January 17, fresh snow on the ground, temps cold enough to freeze the water bottles outside, and my dahlia is blooming. 

When Lemonade Isn't Your Thing, Try Tequila Sunrise

A few years ago, I accidentally dyed an extra couple pounds of cormo a bright sunny yellow.*  I like yellow in the garden, but not too much of a fan of it any place else, unless it's a pale version.  That means the extra just kind of hung around.  I have used up some of it in workshops, also blended some with white angora to tone down the color, then spun it.  But I still have a bunch.  Yesterday, I decided it's time for the "make lemonade" treatment, so pawed through a box of fibers that have officially been for sale but haven't really made an effort to market them.  Yum!  I pulled out some dyed angora that can tame vivid.  Sent both through my drum carder and out came Tequila Sunrise.  Now I know how yummy cormo and angora is blended together.  I've played with it often.  But every time I play with a new batch, I still react.   Oh Ma Gawd!  This stuff is feather light luscious softness!  Imagine a sleeping bag wet felted with cormo angora.  You could probably get it to soft felt stage then slip inside it nekkid and finish felting the inside.  Yeah, it's that soft and sumptuously tactile.  If that calls to you, the batt is for sale, $8 per ounce.  I can card up more, up to half a pound.  Click on that email me link up there on the right if you want to discuss it. 

*How do you accidentally dye a couple pounds of fiber?  Oh, I'm skilled in soooo many ways!  I was dyeing a total of about 20 pounds of assorted fibers in assorted colors, using 3 dye pots.  I separated the fibers into bags by weight and intended color.  Cormo, angora and silk were all going into the yellow pot but the pots only hold up to a pound each.  It was a couple days of running back and forth between undyed into the pots to dyed out to dry on the deck.  The bag of cormo that didn't need to be dyed until sometime in the future slipped off it's own pile and into the pile destined for the yellow pot.  Voila.  A couple extra pounds dyed yellow. 

Oh Just Can It

Winter watering for the bunnies - yeah, not my favorite activity.  I can't wear gloves (my fingers need each other to stay warm), mittens are too cumbersome, so I have to bare hand it.  And water bottles freeze.  A heated watering system is out of the question, too expensive to run, plus I have other concerns (if the bunny at the beginning of the line gets sick, do the germs travel the rest of the line, possibly infecting the others?  And how do I tell how much water each bunny is drinking?).  The nozzle on the cap will freeze before the water in the bottle does so even if the water is still water, the bunnies might not be able to drink.  So once the temps are consistently cold, I switch to cans.  Empty and cleaned out cat food cans are pretty handy for this.  If the buns don't drink it fast enough and the water starts to freeze, it does so from the outside in, meaning the center could easily still be liquid.  The smart little buns lick through the ice and get the liquid.  And if the water freezes up in the can, a few sharp raps on a hutch leg breaks it up so I can refill it. The downside: an extra trip outside to refill cans, so extra time spent outside freezing my buns off!  But today, outside temps are warm enough that I thawed the bottles this morning, so the bunnies can have access to water all day and into evening some time.  Thawing the bottles involves bringing two gallons of hot water out to the rabbitry, opening each bottle, pouring the tiniest bit into the nozzle to jog out that clump of ice, then pouring hot water into the big clump of ice in the bottle.  I usually end up with water on my hands and often enough with it spilling down the front of my jacket onto my pants.  Yeah, that feels good.  But look at those little faces!!  So worth it.    And then there is this.  Wet felted mittens with pure angora lining the inside, merino and angora for the outside.   Yummy!  Custom fit.  Want to learn how?  I am available for workshops!

New Year New Start

Wow.  An unintended  long break.  The New Year seems to be a good time to break the break, right?  So, hope you all had a safe and fun New Year's Eve.   I'm starting the New Year with a dead car battery,  my laptop in for repair, a very confused dahlia about to break into bloom,and a new fuzzy face in the house.    Let's go with the fuzzy face first cause I know how you folks are.  Cute n fuzzy tops the list.  This is James P. Sullivan, aka Sully, a very big Golden retriever puppy (18 pounds at 8 weeks).  He kind of dropped into our laps. Son the Younger's girlfriend raised the litter, kept one, sold all but this one.    Seems no one wanted him.  I had helped out with litter care a few times and Sully consistently caught my heart.  So when litter mom reached "I need him gone!!!" status, Sully unexpectedly became mine.  But only for about half hour.  That's when Son the Working Stiff met Sully and it was clearly love at first sight for both him and Sully.  So what's a mom to do?  Yep, step aside.  Sort of.   Son TWS lives in the lower level of my house, so of course, Sully does, too.  And as grandma, I will be participating a lot in raising Sully to be a happy, healthy, cooperative member of the household.  Almost best of both worlds.  :)

And I think it's been so long since I posted here that I never introduced another fuzzy face or two who joined my family.   McKenzie, aka Kenzie, is possibly a Silky Terrier cross, a tiny little thing less than 9 pounds,  about a year and a half old, with just impossibly cute ears.  Maybe some Papillion in there?  Who knows.   She was a stray found wandering the streets of New Haven.   She arrived in September.  And before Kenzie there was Mickey, another tiny stray from the New Haven streets.  Mickey is a bit bigger than Kenzie, but the two of them put together still don't add up to a small dog, if you consider a small dog as about 20 pounds.   Mickey is a bit of a tyrant with the other dogs, good with cats and rabbits, and a super good best bud. 

These three are perhaps the biggest reason I haven't been posting here.  They keep me busy!  But I also haven't been knitting (stoopit finger injury persists) nor have I been going anyplace blog worthy.  And there haven't been any new baby bunnies either.   I'd say things need to change around here!

 

I did felt myself a new pair of mittens.  The inner layer is pure angora, the outer layer a blend of  merino and angora, with a wool trim for a pop of color.  They are yummy!   But this puter is not going to allow me to show you a picture.   While my primary laptop is in the shop, I'm using my old Dell, which is operating on XP and there are lots of issues I believe are of the compatibility nature.  That translates to painfully aggravatingly  s    l    o   o   o  w   w.   With a big dose of just uh uh at times.  Mostly I browse on a borrowed iPad but I don't get a lot of the intricacies with that.  

Anyway, I hope you are starting the New Year with a hope, peace, and comfort.