We have been included in another treasury.  Actually this is the second one recently but I was seriously lax and didn’t do anything about copying the last treasury so it is gone already.  Anyhoo, the new treasury is live and it is called Buttercups and Bluebells!  Lovely sound that title is.  It just slides off your tongue and makes you want to lie down in the woods and watch the clouds puff on by.  The colours are gorgeous with all those yummy blues and stunning yellows.  Hmmm…what do you think?  like it?  if so, while it is hot and live, go to HERE, and comment on what you think.  Remember the treasury is only there for 2 days and than it is gone to make way for new material keeping things fresh and new.

Of particular note I think is the “Gate to the Bluebells” by consumedbynature.  I think this is a stunning photograph.   kudos to you!!

On another note, we have rehomed the last of the sheep, sold off more than half the dairy goat herd, sold off half the chickens and are getting down to a more manageable size.  I plan on having a handful of dairy goats for our own milk, some chickens for our own eggs, dogs, cats, and our new bunnies.  I have both French Angora rabbits, which are my first love, and some Silver Fox and white New Zealand rabbits.  The Silver Foxes and New Zealands are for meat.  That is an experiment that I am not sure on.  We will see.  If it turns out that they are not for us, than it will only mean more rabbit cages free for more of my baby Fur bunnies (ie. the French Angoras!)

I made my second treasury today.  All sorts of lovely yarns made from my Etsy FAST team members.  I did a snap shot of it again so you can see it.  It will be on line for about 2 days but than gone.  you can see it here

After 2 days, the only way you can see it is in the little snap shot that I have here.  There are some lovely hand spun yarns, mill spun yarns…..even a hand spun yarn made from tissue paper although it is NOT Water proof!

Of particular note is the lovely Red hand spun yarn from Penny Royal Farm that is her August Challenge entry.  Very nice

Wild and Wooly from PraireDAisy Handspun is another of my utter favorites which is why I bought a new book on spinning novelty fancy yarns and some angelica to card into my fleeces to give my yarns some bling!  thanks for the inspiration.

Well I am going to go do some spinning as if I keep on typing here I won’t ever get to have any yarn and fleece fun!  Just back from town and the opening of my new art show tonight.  “Wearable Treasures” at the Fremont Art Center in Canon City, CO.  I did not win any placements, but the main judge did pull me aside to talk about one of my scarves that I hand wove and that she just loved and had wished she would have had another ribbon for.  that was nice to hear as I have yet to win any prizes in any of the shows i have entered this year, but I am brand new to this so everything can’t happen at once.  I also wore a shawl with my dress that I hand crocheted and everyone was commenting on that as well.  Over all a wonderful show, with so many lovely entries.  If you get a chance to go see it, it will hang until August 29, 2009.

I have been included in my first Treasury on Esty. Charlie had his first inclusion a few weeks ago but this is mine and it is for Berry Confetti!!!

Berry Confetti in my First Treasury!!

A Treasury on Etsy.com is a neat way to show your appreciation and admiration for another artist’s work.  You get to pick 12 items only one can be yours, and most times they follow a specific theme.  This Treasury is named …with Altitude! in Honour of it being in Colorado and our elevation.  It is really wonderful when another artist admires your work enough to include it into a treasury they create!

Berry Confetti is a hand woven rug that I did from Shetland Rovings on a Peg loom that my Father in law made for me in Scotland.  I than dyed it with numerous packages of Kool Aid to get the colour that you see and lightly wet felted it for more strength. 

I got the Shetland fleece from my friend Roger, in Pueblo CO, and it was my first time using Shetland fleece.  I decided that I do not like working with Shetland fleece in rovings and weavings as it is very soft and falls apart.  It would be necessary to hand spin it first and than use it in a rug, or felt it like I did with this rug.  I still prefer Merino Fleece for just about everything from rovings to hand spun yarns to mill spun yarns.  I do like my long wools though for working with lock formations in my weavings.

August 8, 2009 is the opening reception for the Wearable Treasures Art show at the Fremont Art Center in Canon City, CO.  I dropped off my entries for the show yesterday so at least I can breathe and that is done.

Now I plan on getting into some heavy duty spinning and creating some things from that once I make some novelty yarns.  I am a bit torn in doing it on my spinning wheel which is faster and my brand new drop spindles, top and bottom, that Christie made for me.  Christie’s shop on Etsy is at this link:  http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5594913 She does not have anything currently listed in her shop, but she has been working on my custom order and you can convo her and get her to make you YOUR spindles as well.  look at her solds and see some of her designs.  She burned our logo into the spindles and we designed the shading and texutres ect together.  she was the brains and creative, I was only the director. haah

these are a couple of shots of the spindles when she was almost done and ready for the lacquer.  aren’t they just lovely?

It has been a very drizzly cold wet rainy day that reminds me of Scotland.  Makes me homesick for it.  Silly huh?  but I am wearing 2 shirts and a sweater, and fluffy slippers..so that must tell you something. After all the hot weather we have had of over 90 degrees heat by 9 or 10 am, this is a bit odd.  I do so hope the goaties do not get sick as these huge fluctuations in temperatures are very hard on their bodies, particularly the baby goaties!

Wow, with joining Twitter.com and the 3 groups on Etsy.com I have been getting a lot more traffic to my site, more sales and more emails and more and more busy.  This is way cool! 

I listed a lovely rug today on Etsy that I had made orignally for a Bed and Breakfast here in Colorado, but could not get the colour correct for what they wanted.  so I redyed it in colours to suit me.  Than I entered it in the Fusion Fiber Art show which was cancelled.   Than I put it in my display for the Strut Your Stuff show and now I am going to list it for sale on Etsy.com for the first time.  if you wish to see it, here is the listing.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27821988

The colours are just glorious and I do not think the camera really shows them off well.  I hand dyed this with Kool Aid.  Remember trying to get Kool Aid stains out of fabric? well I was trying to get Kool Aid stains IN to the rug!!  I hand wove it on the 3 ft peg loom that my father in law, Hector Morrison, made for me in Scotland.  Than I slightly hand felted it, wet felting, to give the Shetland fleece it a bit more durability as it is a fine shetland that would rather be soft than sturdy.  Felting fixed that!

Yesterday, I listed a Fiber Grab Bag.  I have had the idea to do this for ages, most new spinners would like to try various types of fleece from various breeds of animals in various stages of prepartion and colours but don’t want to buy large portions as they haven’t a clue what to get or what they might like.  So I do a grab bag of fleece, rovings and various sheep, goat and dog breeds to give a varied expierence.  I have never seen so much traffic in my online store as yesterday..still smiling with glee!!  we have had over 169 new folks come see that listing alone in about 24 hours.  Wow, and I had 4 listed and 1 sold right away.  I may do this more often.  here is that listing if you would like to see it.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27773812

I hope to be adding more items each day. trying to pace myself and add one every day or every few days so that I don’t lose an entire day at the computer.  I turned in my entries for the next fiber show today, Wearable Art Treasures.  I did not finish the “Winter White” kid mohair scarf, but I included it in the entries anyways to show them that it was about 90-95% done. it can be finished for the show but not in time for their meeting tomorrow.  so we will see if they will include it or not.  apparently there has not been a large number of entries so far, so they may not have the show again.   off I go to care for the critters that make the lovely fiber that I create with!

“Strut your Stuff” art show at Fremont Art center opened on June 5th and they chose Charlie and I for an article in our local paper. I thought it was to be an article on the show, but it turned out to be an article on Charlie and I. you can see the article here but know that there are a few misquotes. We do not have 29 sheep. We have 9 sheep and 20 goats! haha but she did get the number correct! The yarns that I have available in the show are NOT handspun this time, these were sent off to a mill to be spun very evenly, strongly and finely into lace weight that I could use for warping and weft on the loom.

See the Article Here

Little April, Monty, Ringo, Blue, Star and all the others are still with us. Some are in varying stages of recovery but no one has given up the fight. I hope to sell a few more angora goats this weekend a local shop as I have to make room for some of my lambs next spring. I didn’t keep any lambs this year except one, but I sold her mom so we did not increase in sheep size at all. We actually went down numerous sheep as I culled the meat herd and put them in the freezer.

Hope to have hay in the next few weeks and that will be us started on the way for getting ready for winter already. funny saying that as it is 81 degrees outside right now but winter IS coming!!

Recently we have been selling a lot of the fleeces and rovings from the online store. www.albaranch.etsy.com in case you forgot the link. hope to see you there buying up fiber and photographs. we are having a clearance sale on many items in the shop, so go have a look and see what bargains you might be able to score!

Since my last posting,  Emma did finally kid.  She had a very lovely marked bouncing boy!  we named him Monty and he literally bounces around.  He can be seen at times catapulting through the air, and landing in his favorite spot…on the broad back of Brownie the sheep!  He has attempted it on various other smaller sheep with varying results.

The little premature doe, April, is sitll with us.  she has not been feeling well so we don’t know how she will go.  she has scours and we have no clue why.  Tried various medicines and so far she seems to be determined to keep the scours.  I did wean Jet, Ringo and Blue and put them in the big boy pen a while ago.  The weaning may not have been too premature, but the big boy pen I think may have been.  I do not think they got enough food even though I thought they were.  Ringo was down in the pen at the beginning of this week and than his brother Jet was.  Charlie just said that Jet died during the night.  They were weak from lack of food, so we made them a special pen out of alfalfa hay bales and have had them separate with unlimited food for days…I thougth they were coming on, but Jet gave up the fight.  When Ringo got knocked at the beginning of the week, I thought he was injured internally and would not make it.  He has however still been with us for another FIVE days..so there is hope with him.  We took Blue out of the big boy pen even though he was thin but not as weak as the others.  he has been having fun in the doe pen but he is so close to that age where he could be too fertile.  When we remove the last of our sale animals this week, we are going to separate the really big boys into that far pen and leave the smaller boys in the middle pen so that they can be separate from the girls but still be safe from being in with the big boys until they grow a lot more.  I hope this helps the issues.  sometimes the angora goats just grow so slowly.  Monty is at least a month younger than them and is probalby twice their size and 4 times more energetic!!

After working night and day on my fiber entry for the show, they cancelled it!    so it won’t be displayed but here is it.  Four Seasons:

It starts at the left with the white one as winter, than spring, than summer and than fall going clockwise.  I used Wensleydale, Lincoln Long Wool (coloured and white), alapaca, mohair (coloured and white) throught out the weavings.  there is raw fleece tied in, rovings, hand spun yarn, mill spun yarn from my rovings, but there is no synthetic yarns from any shops or anything other than pure fiber as even the hooks to hang it were braided from left over warps.

I listed six different listings last night on www.albaranch.etsy.com so go have a look and enjoy! it is a great collection of fine yarns that I had got back from the mill.  Mohair, Merino, and some merino/mohair blends.  some white and some colours.  I finally listed some of the red yarns, a medium and a dark fawn mohair yarns!

I have been making goat cheese every week recently, and boy it is certainly nice to have it again.  Sales are starting up on the etsy shop again, go stop in and buy something!!

I have been a bit behind in posting anything as I have been busy weaving up a storm for the “Fusion a Convergence of Fiber Artists” gallery show that is coming up.  I have my main entry done and we are hoping to get it photographed today and I can post a pic when we do.  I am also putting in a few smaller things that I made earlier this year.

I just got my newest order of yarns and rovings back so I have plenty to weave with and of course we just sheared again about 2 weeks ago.  since this time they were all mostly covered, the fleece is fantastic and so much better.  It is clean, brigther colours, and softer without wind damage.  I plan on hand processing the 3 lincoln, 1 teeswater and 1 wensleydale fleece that I have.  I will send the rest off to the mill to have some stronger, thicker warp yarns made up for weaving since everything recently has been fine light weight yarns.

Rachel had a new baby doeling premature.  It was touch and go for a while there, but she is now 10 days old and running around the pen.  her legs were not strong enough to stand or walk at first, and than later she could be was effectively walking on the backside of her knees but she is stronger now and up on her hooves like a proper little goatie and jumping around like they do.  she is still very tiny, maybe all of THREE pounds now, but she is just goregous.  she is going to be staying.  Emma has still NOT kidded, I swear her knees must be superglued together. ahah  will keep you updated

I haven’t gotten anywhere with my list of items that I wanted to accomplish today.  I have instead baked bread, listed items on www.albaranch.etsy.com and wrote in my blog.  oh well, I guess I had better get busy!!

I was explaining what equipment that you may need to wash and card your raw fleece at home by hand.  It really is simple.  The items in my list are probably not even essential but I have found they do make my life easier.

1. a few or as many as you want of the cheap plastic 99cent 2-3 gallon buckets from walmart

2. set of good rubber maid gloves as you will be working with dirty fleece in really hot water

3. liquid laundry detergent as most dish soaps are too harsh on the actual fleece

4. dash of fabric softner to help your wool soften and smell wonderful

5.  a few of those white zippered lingerie washing bags to put your fleece into thereby avoiding it going down the sink drain and plugging it.  i usally get the ones that are about the size of 1-2 quarts, where you can put about a pound of fleece in it max as that way it is easier to wash by hand.

6. you can get a set of carding combs from a spinning place or you can go to the local pet shop and buy two of the same size brushes that are the square wire mesh brushes.  they can be used for carding just the same but on a smaller and much cheaper scale.

7.  get 1 or 2 of the silver metal wide tooth combs to also do some combing of your fleece

There you have the basics for washing and carding your fleece at home in your own easy to size batches.  You dinna have to be posh with your carding combs as the doggie ones will do just fin!

Having said all that, I not only have the dog ones, I have the speicial large carding combs, a set of small carding combs that came free with my big drum carder from louetts that I have used maybe 3 times in about 5 years.  so there you have it, I send mine out to the mill these days!! haha I hate carding but I can do it if necessary.

I am skirting, picking by hand, washing and drying my fleeces this weekend as I need them for a new project in their long ringlet lock form.  so at least I don’t have to card anything!!

We have had a few additions to our family in the last week, if you have been over to the hubby’s blog, you will have seen a pic of our new BLUE angora twins.  I think that the boy’s name is definitely going to be BLUE, but the verdict is still out on the girl’s name.  I can’t decide between Stella or Star.  any suggestions?