I bought a bunch of angora goats to have my own fibre to spin.  Than the herd grew to large proportions and I coudn’t keep up so I started having them sheared and sold some.  I really enjoy the critters but I had not spun any of their fibre. I started after 1.5 years to spin their fibre and realized I hated it.  It always seems to go up my nose and irritate me.

So I cut back on them more, but I missed them greatly and decided to give spinning their fibre a second chance. I tried and it wasn’t as bad as it was the first time as I had gotten into more spinning, gotten better at it and started to enjoy spinning again. but the mohair was still not my favorite.

My health started to go down hill.  The animal numbers started to go uphill.  something had to give and it appeared to be ME!!  I started to sell my angora goat herd off, put a lot of the sheep in the freezer and went from 40+ head last winter to only 15 head right now with perhaps another 5 going here shortly.  10 is my magic number that I think I have to be at or BELOW! to be able to find a balance somewhere.

Been weaving up a storm lately, a lot with yarns that I have spun myself.  Found a lot of things I can’t do, some that I can do and make numerous mistakes.  still learning on what I can and can not do and what does and does not work with weaving hand spun yarns.

What does all this mean?  well after making at least 4-5 scarves in the last week, I realized I can’t wear Mohair.  apparently I am allergic to it.  maybe that is why I have hated spinning it, working with it, touching it and wearing it.  Anything with mohair in it gives me the creeps and I tear it off in less than a minute.  I had a sample of a 2 ply yarn that had been spun and given to me.  one ply was 100% angora bunny and 1 ply was 100% alpaca.  I wound the skein of yarn around my neck and wore it outside for 2-3 hours while I did my chores yesterday.  not only did that skein of less than an ounce keep my neck warm when normally I wear a scarf wrapped around my neck 3-4 times, but I didn’t claw it off.  That is a good thing!

I finished a 100% merino scarf the other day, and it was OK for me to wear as well.  so my intuition of having merinos and angoras for my new fibre seems to be accurate.

Today I cleaned out my entire fibre room of anything that has mohair in it.  Raw fleece, Mill processed Rovings, yarns, and even blends that have mohair in them.  Expect to start seeing me list them on line as I am going to clear all Mohair from my ranch as I have sold off all the angora goats so there will be nothing new coming up.  Wow, can’t believe I am allergic to the stuff. Maybe I should have worked with the fibre before I bought a herd of angora goats 3.5 years ago.  can you say DUUUUH!!!!????

I have been hand spinning yarns coming out of my ears.  I decided to take a pic of them hanging from my inkle loom.  I can’t believe how much fun it has been recently.  The one on the far left is a 2 ply of mohair, alpaca and merino.  I like the chunky red one as I achieved the colour with Kool aid.  so love those dyes and how fruity the yarns smell afterwards.

My most recent endeavour has been spinning white merino roving drafted evenly and somewhat thinner than my bulky yarns, than pinching a bit of angora bunny fluff and sort of core spinning it onto the outer bit of the merino.  I am not attempting to cover the merino but let it twist into the merino and around it making a twisty spiral sort of yarn that is totally cool. Than I ply it again to make a two ply and get a thick chunky yarn that is probably around 3-5 WPI.  The last ball of yarn I made was what finished off my weft in my new scarf, although I still have a large bit of it left.  Here is a picture of the small ball of yarn BEFORE I did any weaving with it.  The red water bottle next to it is for scale as that is a ONE LITRE bottle.  It was extremely hard to wind that yarn into a ball as my hands got tired.

I like this yarn as it is merino yarn from my merino ewes, blended with French Angora Rabbit, German Angora Rabbit and English Angora Rabbit. A truly European yarn!

So what do you think? leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts

I saw the most amazing article today off the daily mail in the UK.  see the article here

I will include a picture of the bride and groom. Her dress is made from Lincoln Long wool as is his waistcoat. This is the sort of weaving and creating that has been percolating in the back of my mind now for some time, but on a smaller scale of course as I hate to sew so it must be something I can weave entirely on my own loom

Since I do spin, weave and raise Long Wool Sheep, I have this very type of fibre and can do this work.  I just think this dress is an inspiration and can not wait to get busy on my next project. aha

I love the detail on her dress bodice.  The bead work and how it just shimmers.  I think the skirt is glorious with all those long flowing locks. I remember the first piece that I did with weaving the long locks into my wall hanging (4 Seasons you can see here) and how excited I was to see it come together and how I had to constantly run my hands through the locks as they were just textile and so inviting.  I am guessing it was hard to keep her hands off that dress as it was just so stunning.

I generally shear my Lincoln and other long wools twice a year.  In order to achieve that length of lock, she must have only sheared them once a year.  However with the horrid heat that we have in Colorado, I have to shear mine as they would just melt under all that wool.  As it is, every six months I worry may not be enough sometimes.  My sheep seem to grow about 1 inch per month of fleece so their locks are still long enough to work with. 

I also enjoyed the portion of her article on how she respects their life and utilizes the animal in its entirety.  Having Lamb on the menu at the wedding reception, honours the animal and gives it the respect that it deserves.  So many think eating lamb is wrong, but to a shepherd or shepherdess it is a way of life.  I congratulate her and her new husband and wish them the best in their new life together!

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!

I have been sucked into cyberspace today!!! Yikes!  But have been working to make our online shop more visible and to get my name out more on the web so that folks can find me.  To that end, I have joined Twitter.com.  And so has hubby.

if you have a twitter, let me know.  we are www.twitter.com/MelisaMorrison and www.twitter.com/ChazMorrison

getting more weavings done for the next art show.  Wearable Treasures in Canon City, CO In August.  will show you pics when I finish my most recent weaving.

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

What have I been up to recently? well it is time that I start blogging on a regular basis as I can’t seem to keep up with remembering what happened since the last time.

We went to Scotland for Christmas and Hogmany. Had a lovely time with the folks and got another great idea for an item of clothing to try weaving on the loom.

We came back in January and promptly got sick. Both of us have been down for weeks, so unlike us as we hardly ever get sick. We sorted out a lot of various things that we needed to do though as ranch life must go on.

We lost one of our new pregnant angora does..sniff..sniff..than we lost a cat..didn’t really need that one….than this week has been a nightmare. It started with Charlie not getting flight details for his travel to Africa on Monday. So Tuesday he was all pins and needles while we waited to see if his office people would get their act together. He had emailed them and called them on Monday to which they had ignored him. On Tuesday, we got a phone call and had 1 hours notice to get him to the airport for his flights to Africa. thanks a lot!

while I was finishing up the last of the chores, I noticed Brown mama was down. She is a merino/rambulette cross ewe that had been heavy with lambs and walking splayed legged for days. she did get up a little bit later but her back legs were shaking. So I hurried him to the airport and got back to the ranch. she was up, but that evening she layed down as if she was resting and never really got back up again. she did try a couple of times the next day, but would take about 2 steps and fall. She appeared to go into labour but was not stressed, so I was checking her every 99 min..that was the most that my kitchen timer would do..ahah all of Wednesday and got nowhere. no lambs. on Thursday I was starting to panic as I had not been able to get the vet out on Wednesday (I had no sleep for days) and my friends couldn’t get here as some were lambing or kidding as well..than one came rushing from Pueblo. He was with her for 5 min and said that her cervic was closed and we had to get her to the vet for a csection. We could hardly move her, this is one big sheep! but we did get her in the truck to rush down the mountain and we ended up having to do a c section that basically cuts the lambs out and than euthanizes her. it was not pretty. she only had maybe a 20% chance of even surviving the surgery so we didn’t stress her any further. She had been down too long.

I now have a ram and ewe lamb to feed round the clock and don’t really have my dairy goats in milk. I also have 3 more merinos that are rather heavy with lambs but no one has lambed yet. what a week.

With all of this, I have not done any weaving but I did get all my yarns from the mill yesterday. I am hoping to get most of the new yarns posted in the shop for sale and hope to be able to do some weaving or something soon. life of a rancher. ahahah

Today is my 9th anniversary of being married…to my husband!!  good thing that it is to him, otherwise he might be confused.  However, he is on his blasted boat again and I am alone.  Well, if you count all the critters I suppose not REALLY alone. hahah  BJ says that it is good that he was with me on the most important one..the getting married one…or there wouldn’t be any anniversary..she has a point!

Ok I am back. had to rescue my “fried bread sandwich” as my husband calls my grilled ham and cheese.  Not feeling the best today, sore throat, beginnings of a head ache, bags under my eye..or rather my bags have luggage and they are over their luggage limit.  and my neck hurts where my ear tubes are under the surface.  Been fighting for weeks now that I have gold fish swimming in my ears… it is what I call when I move and my head sloshes.  normally it is only there, not really any sinus stuff.  But it can be interesting when I get dizzy, try falling over in the barn yard because you cock your head a little in any direction!  almost fell into the trough!

I have been weaving so much these days.  I have all my things up now on our shop except raw fleeces, and clean rovings.  starting on some of the rovings today.  you can see a link to the right of my postings for the Etsy shop.  We are listed as albaranch ….go check us out and buy something.  I have had rather good luck selling things there, loads better than awful ebay.  they suck with all their new policies.  Unfortunately I sill have all my belly dancing things to sell, maybe I will sell them in the local shopper, probably be cheaper than ebay.

Been so focused on getting the art up on etsy.com that I have forgone sleep a lot these days.  Sleep is overrated you know.  it is a major inconvenience when I am in the middle of something, and than I just ignore and find myself face down on the computer.  Blast!

I think my next weaving with be with a yarn that I have not tried nor do I have any critters of these variety out in the barnyard.  Romney/CVM cross. it has a nice soft handle to it with a lot of loft, not all that dissimilar to my merino, just not as soft.  so we will see.  I have some merino off at the mill being processed as we speak.  they are going to be doing merino for me for the first time, and than doing some in blends with mohair and alpaca as well.  so will be really interesting to see what we get back.

Found a new seamstress as well.  She has some of my favourite items, the lining disintegrated on my favourite Cerise skirt, so she is putting a new one in.  I hope that she does well as I really miss my skirt.  funny how you get attached to an item like that.  Well I should go do the morning chores, since I maybe starting them before 2 pm today, I am doing much better than last night which was more like 6 pm.  Morning chores.  Denise asks me why I don’t just call them chores as I only have to do them once a day and I said I call them MORNING chores just for her.

All my weaving equipment has been ordered and should arrive next week.  I have my kid mohair yarn back from mill and another mill has some Lincoln, Wensleydale, CVM and a sample of Sammi’s kid mohair all to be spun up into yarn.  I will be able to do some weaving here shortly and this will be fun.  I ordered some books as well that will show me how to make various things.  I am considering scarves, placemats, napkins, towels, rugs, wall hangings, blankets, throws, skirts, capes, ponchos, hats, purses, pillow covers to name just a few things.  that might kepe me busy for a while.

On a grand note,  Bob was able to fix my antique stove today. wahoo!! and I now have a kindler that works again and all the knobs have been greased so they are not seizing up.  I spent hours cleaning it out, inside and out and there was an amazing amount of GUNK in there.  I have no idea how clean it may or may not have been when we first got it, but if it had been all clean, it has certainly gotten very dirty in the last couple of years.  Since it is now fixed, I see no reason for us to purchase another stove when we build our house as this one will work wonderful in it.  Well there is the reason that I just WANT the other stove from England, but it is really expensive and frankly what we have will do the job as good or better.  And it only cost about $300 or $400.  I can’t remember which.  for us to be able to use the other stove, we need to buy two stoves..one for winter and one for summer so that cost would be about $13,000.  hmmmm….I think my wee little stove is the better deal.

I have been baking a lot of pies recently and also made some jam with some of the rhubarb that I grew in tubs outside.  I noticed the other day that the rhubarb is getting big again, so I think that some jams and pies will be in order this month again.

The new herding dog, Todd, has been working our sheep and goats..breaking them in a bit so that they are more respectful of a border collie.  I tried Abbey on them the other day, but she would not herd. she only had eyes for the blasted chickens.  NOT the chickens Abbey, get the sheep and the goats!!