Fiber

In spite of the dire warnings about Hurricane Earl, the weather’s turned out to be lovely this weekend. The hurricane changed course and left us with clear, cool, breezy days that feel like fall.

The term “holiday” is used loosely here.  We don’t have holidays from taking care of our animals. Long weekends and nice weather usually mean more tourists and farm visitors. It keeps us busy!

Our first fiber festival of the season, Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival, is coming up soon, so one of my projects this week is to wash, skein and dye yarn. I’ll start with sock yarn. And I still have a lot of fiber to skirt and send to the mill. It’s not easy to find the time to get everything done!

Another wet day. The grass and weeds are loving this, but we’re not.  The garden needs weeding and the lawn needs mowing. And wet weather means wet dogs – ugh!

We’re hoping to get a break from the wet weather soon, but the forecast sounds like we have scattered showers and humid weather again tomorrow.  It’s shaping up to be a good day to spend skirting fiber in the barn. I hope to get a few batches off to the mill this week – finally!

Today I skirted a fleece from a male that arrived at our farm on Saturday.  Starry’s Rastban is his name and he’s a light fawn herdsire owned by Starry Mountain Alpacas and boarded at our farm.  And he’s for sale!  Anyways, his fleece is fabulous – dense and fine with crimp that has high amplitude and high frequency.  I love skirting the nicer fleeces!  I think I’ll plan to show this one. Unless he sells before the fall shows – then his new owner can show it!

Looks like tomorrow will be a good day for the start of the Washington County Fiber Tour. Fiber enthusiasts should venture to NY and join our alpaca and fiber friends for this fun event.

It’s another beautiful day in the Kingdom!  Cold nights and warm sunny days are perfect for sugaring, skiing and drying up muddy roads.   The ‘pacas are happily eating hay out in the sun and we are starting to eliminate hay bedding and, hopefully, getting their fleeces cleaned up a bit before shows and shearing.

I’m back from a great fiber weekend in Freeport, ME at Spa, Spin & Knit. Depsite heavy, wet snow, high winds, power outages and such, many fiber enthusiasts made the trek.  We arrived in Freeport at noon on Friday to almost 50 degrees and sunny – that was quite a change from the weather driving through the White Mts!

It was a good weekend for selling lots of yarn and fiber, talking to old friends and customers and meeting new ones! Now it’s back to work – unpacking first, then taking inventory to see where I have to restock.  I have plenty of yarn on hand to wind, wash and dye more skeins.  And lots more fiber in the barn that needs to be skirted before we start to shear again next month.

Well, it is still only February, despite the mild, dry weather we’ve had over the last few weeks.  This is the one week that I have to travel – to Freeport for Spa – and snow is forecast for the rest of the week!  It’s gonna be a long ride through the mountains.

I’ve been busy winding skeins, dyeing yarn, printing patterns, etc and will be packing up and heading out Thurs. For those of you not familiar with Spa, it’s a “free-form” weekend of spinning, knitting, eating, drinking, shopping…..well, whatever you want to do in Freeport.  There’s a big vendor room and I’ll be there selling alpaca yarn all weekend. Hope to see some of you there!

Our next fiber gathering will be Feb 26-28 at Spa, Knit & Spin in Freeport, ME.  I’m busy winding skeins and washing sock yarn and hope to have time to do a bit more dyeing. I’ve ordered the needles that have sold out and put in a large order for Greener Shades dyes yesterday. Now I just need to have the weather cooperate for the drive to Maine.

The forecast here is for snow today, but we have clear blue skies at the moment, so I’m not convinced. It’s been a dry winter and, at this point, I’m ready for spring!

Had a great time this weekend at Vermont Knit Camp’s winter event: Knitting within Walls.  Good food, nice weather for snowshoeing and lots of new fiber friends. And I got a lot of knitting done.

Seyon Lodge was a great place. The hosts were welcoming, the rooms clean and comfortable and the food was fabulous! If you ever want to quiet, inexpensive Vermont getaway, this is the place.  They also have a nice big space for meetings, conferences and other function downstairs. The bonus for me is that Seyon Lodge State Park is only about 20 minutes from home!

I’m off this afternoon to “Knitting within Walls”, the winter version of Vermont Knit Camp. It’s being held at Seyon Lodge in nearby Groton State Forest, so it’s just down the road a bit.  I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend of knitting, eating and visiting with fellow knitters/fiber enthusiasts.

I’ll be taking two knitting projects with me: my Shingle Creek Socks, I’m about a quarter the way through the second sock, and a special alpaca hat that’s a Valentine’s Day gift. I’ll bring my spinning wheel and snowshoes and, of course, won’t have nearly as much time to do all those things as I think I will!