stinky sheep fleece

Just got a new stinky sheep fleece the other day, it is quite soft and the fibers wash out to snowy white. Hmmm what shall I do with it? Spin it for a shawl? socks? oooh the options! In the mean time..... The cats LOVE it. It's better than catnip.

We sniff it,

we rolls in it,

we crawls in the bag with it,

we licks it,

we loves it,

we won't get out of it.

Balloon

Doesn't a nice purple balloon make everybody a little bit happier?

random

Sweet Rogue, a thrown-away dog. She is 115 pounds of love and lard. Lace shawl started with yarn nearly as fine as sewing thread....somebody stop me, this is insanity.

Burgess poking at a sock on the needles, he can really mess up my counting sometimes.

My Girls

Here are my beautiful little girls. The sweaters turned out just the way I intended. I am so pleased. I love my little nieces will all my heart and the little nephew too, who apparently, nobody was able to catch for a photo. He might be a bit like his father, just sayin.

Spring

It's lambing season!!! and shearing season and mud season.

I really do love sheep, at least I loved MY sheep, and I covet their wool. They do have ewe-niqe personalities and the little one are always good for a laugh.

Sheep are not genius's they will never be adept at higher math problems but then neither will I.

windswept

The boys and I went shooting yesterday. Of course I forgot my camera. The storm was moving in and quite frankly it was not as fun as it should have been.

The wind was a bit sharp and the grapple and rain all the more annoying.

We were shooting in the hills above the river, beneath us and falling away into the ravine the river was almost black, the banks lined with silvery brush and red twigged willows.

I have always loved the color of winter in the river bottoms, it is a mix of pale muted purples, reds, black and greys and the occasional flash of rusty yellow. It is oddly austere and rich at the same time.

Right now it is mud season but in two months those hills will be thick with new grasses and come June red poppies will border the wheat fields beyond the river bottoms, it will be eye-popping-ly beautiful.

A few miles away is the little town where my great-grandmother grew up in the late 1800's, she used to say it was the perfect place for an asylum, in the summer you never wanted to leave and in the winter you could not get out.


Most people who shoot there leave a mess behind them and that is a real shame we always police our brass and make sure we leave the place better than we found it.

I wonder if those who shoot there look around and see how beautiful it is, mostly they are concerned with blowing things up.

I have to admit the black river makes a satisfying riiippp when shot with the rifle.

Have I become my mother.

Do we become our parents? It worries me sometimes that I might have become my mother.
This pic is a solace though. She would never have allowed a cat in the house and NEVER by her knitting. Lynx is particular to knitting of any kind and if it is in the the sun so much the better. Sweater finished! for the second niece, the baby. She and her sister can wear slightly matching sweaters.
Their brother gets the vintage sweater if anyone can catch him long enough to put it on him.

vintage

Nearly forty-five years ago my mother knit this sweater for my brother. He was about the most adorable kid on the planet, we all nearly worshipped the ground he walked on.

He wore the sweater all those years ago (here he is kissing my mom's friends baby), my sons wore the sweater and now its cleaned up, mended, new buttons and ready for his son to wear.

Hopefully it will last another forty years.....but with his little boy? hmmm maybe not.

Japan

My heart is breaking for the people of Japan.

If I could I would wrap my arms around an entire nation, weep with them, heal their wounds and even clean and rebuild their homes.

I watch the news, the internet, I watch the grief and shock on their beautiful faces, and I mourn.

Cameras fix on the faces of children and I am stunned by their beauty, the faces of the aged move my heart and they are beautiful.

The sorrow is so great. No other people will handle such a crisis as well as the people of Japan. Their grace and diginity is unmatched.
We should all watch and learn and perhaps be ashamed.

sweater

Can you see the cat butt in the upper right hand corner? Lynx was determined to get herself in the picture.

Anyway this is the little sweater I finished for my pretty niece Rose-bud.

The bottom hem area is part of an Estonion lace pattern and the rest I made up as I went along.
I sure hope she likes it and that it fits her!

I kept trying it on the neighbor boy who is about her same size, he was not amused, but it fit him so hopefully it fits her.

If not I will put another one on the needles and try again and her little sister can have this one.

This is wool and a great eye-popping color.

Linen

Last summer I got a little crazy about natural linen, and a bit nuts about lavender.

I intended to upholster an antique couch in the linen and I will, but have not gotten the courage up to tackle the project yet.

Another artist showed some embroidery on linen somewhere along the line, on their blog(thanks to to Geninne at gennine.com) and I began to wonder what it would be like to embroider the back of the couch.

I thought I would start with some pillows first to see if I liked it. Well I do. I like it a great deal. The designs are just free-hand drawn onto the linen and then embroidered with beading accents.

This little guy has bubble like beads. I have always wanted a big googly-eyed gold fish. They are my favorite.

This one is large and very loosely stuffed with wool felted and applied circles.

This is a small one and it is stuffed with about a cup of dried lavender.

This one too has lavender and a hanging loop.

These are small and meant to tuck into drawers, they still have almost a cup of lavender even though they are little.

I'm putting these in my Foxearth Farm Etsy shop. I will have more pillows coming, the one with the mermaid on it is going to be sooooo neat.

sewing with help

Today I was trying to sew a linen pillow but Burgess was determined to help with the project.

Many times when I am working on something he insists on "riding the wrist". I managed to get some pics of him doing just that, and poking his long Pinocchio-nose where it does not belong.

It is pretty funny but he does drop the occasional warm doodie which is not appreciated:)

Oh dear.

Tonight I whipped up a jug of pink lemonade using lemon juice and a pink strawberry kiwi protein powder. I just mixed it in an empty 2 liter diet coke bottle, it was a nice powdery pink color. Pretty.
My son asked me a few minutes later, "Mom is this something I can drink or is it for dying fabric?". Poor kid. He never knows whether it is food or one of my projects.