Towels

Towels are on my loom at the moment. I'm using an 8/2 cotton warp in purple and a 3.5S variegated cotton flake weft. The weave structure is linen weave. The multi-colored cotton flake really transforms the pattern in interesting ways. I like it.

Minion Hat

A Great Book to Read

I just finished reading the book Boys Don't Knit (in Public) by T.S. Easton. It's a young adult book, and it was great. It's funny and clever and just plain fun. I highly recommend it.

The main character, Ben Fletcher, accidentally gets in trouble with the police. Because he has a clean record, he gets probation. One of the requirements is that he takes a class at the local college. Faced with a choice of four courses, one of which is taught by his father, he ends up taking knitting....

Undulating Shadow Twill

Currently, I'm weaving cloth for a shirt using a 6-ply rayon at 24 epi in an undulating shadow twill. I've woven with this yarn before at this sett, but I used a different weave structure. I want the fabric to drape, and at this point, I think the fabric might be a bit too firm. I won't know until it's off the loom and washed, though, so onward and upward! It's gorgeous, no matter what the hand ends up being.

The colors are actually a sea foam green and deep forest green, although the photos don't depict them very well.

Sheep Riding -- I Don't Recommend It

I met a woman who was looking for baling twine for a large project she's working on. I told her I had lots and lots (and lots) of baling twine, and she was welcome to it. So she and her son visited today.

The sheep kept up a lively conversation with us while we were bagging the twine. When we finished, I asked if my visitors would like to go in with the sheep and meet them. They said sure.

As I was unchaining the gate (yes, there is both a latch and a chain -- sneaky sheep), I glanced away to tell my dog, Logan, to stay. At the same time, Gimli, one of the rams, pushed against the gate, apparently thinking I was going to let the sheep out to graze.

That's when things got really interesting. Logan charged towards Gimli. Gimli lunged for freedom. I tried to block the ram and shut the gate. Gimli rushed forward, somehow ending up between by legs. Considering the ram is tall and wide, I ended up straddling him, backwards, with my feet not touching the ground and him heading off to graze.

Now, Gimli's a gentle ram, but with Logan in the picture, things could have got pretty scary if he decided to chase the sheep. I managed to slip to one side and roll off of him. Unfortunately, I landed at the edge of a pile of scrap fencing. Luckily, I only scraped one elbow on the wires, although I think I may be a bit sore tomorrow. Falling off of a moving sheep onto hard ground isn't the most comfortable thing to do.

My visitors managed to shut the gate before any other sheep escaped. By the time I got to my feet and got hold of Logan, who thought the entire event was terribly exciting and was eager to play some more, Gimli had returned to the gate. I opened it; he trotted in. I pushed Logan away and latched and chained the gate.

Do I offer guests adventure or what? My visitors felt bad about what happened. I told them it wasn't their fault. Logan was to blame, with a sizable contribution from Gimli.

Gimli

Return Trip

A few weeks ago I sold one of the lambs, Midnight, to a friend, Pam, in Chino Valley, a town about 30 miles from Wilhoit. Pam has a Shetland sheep and a few goats, so Midnight had ready-made companions.

At first, Midnight seemed to be doing alright. But after a few days, Pam emailed me, concerned that the lamb seemed depressed. We exchanged information and ideas and agreed to keep in touch. By the end of the week, though, Pam and her husband were really worried. Midnight was barely eating, and she was spending most of her time laying by herself near the barn. They asked if they could bring her back to Wilhoit. We agreed we needed to do what was best for her health-- that they return her and I refund their money. We just hoped that she would recover once she got here.

So nine days after she left, Midnight came home. She started grazing the minute she exited their van. My other sheep were in the sheep enclosure, munching on hay. I opened the gate, Midnight entered, ran straight for the hay, and started eating.

She and her mother, Sierra, didn't even exchange glances. We, the spectators, had hoped for a movie reunion moment and were disappointed by their lackadaisical attitude, but at least Midnight was eating!

After awhile, the sheep sauntered over to say hello and get petted. At that point, Sierra and Midnight did acknowledge each other, with Sierra smelling the lamb and a metaphorical light bulb going off over her head. Midnight tried to nurse, but Sierra kicked her away, basically saying, "You're weaned. What do you think you're doing?"

Happily, Midnight has eaten and behaved normally since she's been home. She enthusiastically kicks up her heels when I throw hay over the fence, and when I open the gate, she joyously rushes out to graze with the rest of the flock. She hangs out with her mother and the other lambs and acts like she never left.

I've sold quite a few sheep over the years. I've never had one not adjust to their new environment. It was odd. But, you know, sheep are people, too, and every one is different.

Midnight, back at home

Sierra and her daughter, Midnight

Save the Cottonwoods

The grass is growing, and I want the sheep to graze the larger property. However, I have some young cottonwood trees coming up that I want to save from hungry, cottonwood-loving sheep.

I decided to fence off the trees with some plastic garden fence I already had. I drove in a few T-posts and attached the fence with cable ties. It wasn't a strong physical barrier, but I hoped it would act as a visual deterrent.

It worked at first.

However, less than two weeks after I erected the fence, the wind blew down a medium-sized dead cottonwood tree, which took out part of the fence. I removed the dead tree and repaired the fence.

Today I let the sheep out to graze and turned around to see Gimli, one of the rams, had broken through the fence and was happily snacking on young cottonwood leaves. I ran over and tried to push him away. He didn't budge. I took hold of the torn end of the plastic fencing and tried to use it to force him away from the young tree. He surged forward, and his head went right through the plastic mesh. Now there's a large hole the size of Gimli's head in the fence.

After extracting him from the mesh (he didn't seem to notice it), I started shoving him, trying to get him away from the trees. I felt like Harry and Hermione when they tried to get Hagrid to leave the centaurs after showing the two of them Grawp. Gimli didn't seem to notice me any more than Hagrid did Harry and Hermione. However, after several attempts, I finally got the ram to turn around and start munching grass instead of leaves.

I'm glad my sheep like me and aren't afraid of me, especially the rams. But their trust can be a drawback when I want them to do something that they're resisting. They ignore my efforts to shift them and basically look as if they're saying, "Huh? Did you want something? I'm eating, you know."

Babysitting

You might wonder, and quite reasonably, why I would post about babysitting. Hmm, well, knitting will come up.

Last Saturday, I babysat my friends' kids, a seven-year-old boy, Tevin, and five-year-old girl, Naya. They're sweet kids with a great deal of curiosity and seemingly boundless energy.

Everything went fine until bedtime. Now, I know that saying "time for bed" equates to "let's play and wind ourselves up" for a lot of children. These two were no exception. However, three hours later I was still trying to get them to stop bouncing on their beds and stay in their bedroom.

After one of innumerable "good nights," I sat down in the dining room and started casting on a scarf. Several minutes later, Naya came in and asked what I was doing. I told her I was knitting a scarf. Her brother showed up and asked the same question. I repeated my answer.

Naya then told me that I should knit her a bear. She instructed, with hand gestures, that when I finish it, I should put it in a box and wrap it so that she could then unwrap it and open the box and find her present.

Tevin informed me I needed to knit a dragon for him. He pulled out one of his magic and dragon books. (He had shown me the volumes earlier after I said I was going to use a sleep spell on them to make them go to bed. He pointed out that there weren't any sleep spells in his books, so I couldn't use one on them. Sigh.) Flipping pages, he found the dragon he wanted me to knit. It's green and has a straight tail and neck. I am to make the feet exactly as illustrated. I told him I would try. He said, "Do your best."

And on yet another return visit to the dining room, Naya announced that if I finished her bear before I left (I appreciate her confidence in my knitting speed), I was to hide it behind something on the table, so she wouldn't see it.

I have a lot of knitting to do.

Tablet (Card) Weaving

I designed the ivy pattern on the band pictured below using 40 cards. It's woven in 10/2 cotton.

One side of the tablet-woven band

The other side of the tablet-woven band

After I finished weaving it, I set the cards on a table. A couple days later, the stack of cards fell to the floor. I picked them up and put them away. Apparently, I missed one. Logan didn't.

Bags, Sacks, Totes, Purses, Satchels, Pouches

Surely you can't guess the theme of this post from the title, but I'm into making bags lately -- specifically bags geared toward animal lovers.

I keep struggling with obtaining great photographs of them, though, especially of the linings.

Scanning the bags often gave better results, but that didn't solve my problem of portraying the insides of the bags. Then the obvious, and I do mean obvious, solution hit me. Turn the bags inside out and scan them. OK, so that epiphany took much longer to arrive than it should have.

 I still need to work on the "great" of great photographs, but I think I'm making progress.

Front

Back

Front lining

Back lining