Not such a little horse now

Inara's been growing really fast lately, she's starting to look much more like an elegant young horse, rather than a gangly baby foal.

She's not turning grey yet, although the vet seems pretty sure that she will eventually. Her mane and tail have a peppering of white hairs, but I haven't seen any through her chestnut colouring on her body. I'm hoping that she'll go through a stage where she has a pale mane and tail and a dark body. One of the things I like about grey horses, is that it's as though you get several colours for the price of one as they go through different stages before they reach their final colouring.

While I was out in the field taking Inara pics, I also caught some nice shots of cobwebs and other autumny things...

I love how the light's been split into rainbow colours over this one:

Brr..., it's making me chilly just to look! Autumn's definitely begun around here. Time to return to some cosy knitting...

Lately I've started work on a top-down sweater for myself, from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits book. I'm knitting Ingenue, which is a top-down funnel neck sweater, only I've adapted the neckline so it'll be an off-the shoulder version instead. Here's how far I'd got with it few days ago:

It was really sunny the day I took the photo, and the colour wouldn't capture correctly, it's a much darker burgundy in real life. The yarn's Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora, which is lovely to knit with, very soft. Since the photo was taken, I've knitted down to the part where the sleeves are separated off, and started the body. It's all plain stocking stitch, which is mindless knitting - excellent for doing while I watch all the great new TV series that have started up again. Like Heroes Season 3, only half an hour now before it begins! :)

Foal Action Shots

I can't quite believe that Inara's been home for nearly a fortnight. It's been quite a whirlwind since she arrived home, she's grown already and she's learning to take all kinds of new things in her stride.

First off, this is the young lady we're talking about, she poses beautifully :)

And here she was early last week, looking a bit scrawny and bewildered by having such a big field and only her mum to share it with:

She soon started testing out her galloping legs, and I can confirm that she's very fast, often too fast to catch on camera!

But I did get some better shots...

And here she is today, on the day that she and her mum were (re)united with my other two horses, Millie and Sam. Poor Inara got left out while her mum said her hellos to the others, she couldn't quite make out what the fuss was all about. But look how she's grown in just a few days, compare this robust looking critter with the scrawny beast in the first pic taken just six days earlier. All that galloping's clearly paying off! :)

We've been making hay on the farm this week, 1500 small bales of it. We make 'barn dried' hay, which is taken off the field earlier than normal hay and drying is finished in the barn by a set of huge electric fans. It makes sweet tasty horse hay (yes I've tasted it and it is sweet!), but it takes a lot of extra work as every bale has to be loaded into the barn and stacked by hand on its edge within a few hours of being baled, otherwise it degrades and starts to grow mould. Which meant several 11pm stop-outs this week while I helped my father and brother to offload the trailers into the barn. We sell most of it, but I've bagsied some of the best bales for Inara and her mum's winter fodder. She'll need the very best hay to grow properly :)

All of which has meant that my spinning and knitting activities have had to take a back seat this week. But I've still been spinning whenever I could, and I've managed to keep up with my Tour de Fleece objective to spin every day. I've even finished a fair amount of yarn, helped along by some new spindle-shaped goodness. Plus I've discovered that spindling while on a hay trailer is risky (a long way down if you drop the spindle!), but very effective - provided you don't mind picking out hay seeds from the fibre. Next time, I promise news and photos of spinning, my swallowtail shawl, and other crafty goodness...

Tour de Fleece, Part 1

So, the Tour de Fleece starts today (as does the Tour de France), so it's time I explain my spinning plan. Well I call it a plan, it's more a list of stuff to do, along with some pretty pictures of fibre from my spinning stash.

I've divided my projects into two types, the spinning-wheel project (there's only one wheel project but it's a biggy), and the rest are on my lovely new spindles.

On my wheel (a Majacraft Rose) I plan to spin this:

It's some merino-silk top that I dyed as a trial run for Wildcraft. From it I plan spin a whole skein of 2-ply laceweight yarn (proper laceweight, say 24-30 wpi) – sufficient for a small shawl (which might end up being a woven shawl, given that I'm still engaged in a battle of wits with my swallowtail lace one). The colourway of the fibre is called 'Wild Rose', and the colours match the two cakes of shetland top that Belaybunny bought from me recently - I think she's planning to spin laceweight from hers too, so it'll be interesting to see how the colours compare when spun up. I've never managed to spin a big skein of proper laceweight, the finest I've done so far is about a thick 4-ply weight, and I usually get bored after around 100 metres. For the Tour I hope to spin finer stuff, and to stick with the project until I've finished the whole of that 100gram plait of merino/silk.

While my wheel is taken up with the laceweight project, I'll also aim to spin as much yarn as I can on my drop spindles. (which are more portable than the wheel, so I'll have no excuse not to spin every day!). I'll be working on dk and sock weight yarns, and I'm going to focus on getting getting sufficient twist in the yarn, especially in the plying stage, which is often the bit that lets me down. I want to make some lovely twisty sock yarns and cosy tightly twisted dk's that will make a cute hat or gloves. To make the yarns I'll use more of my hand-dyed fibres, I've picked a few that didn't make the grade for the shop, or were trial runs - and here they are:

Apple Blossom superwash BFL (the green came out brighter and less natural looking than I intended when I dyed it, but it's a lovely soft fibre:

A small braid of Shetland in 'Last of the Lavender' colours. This was dyed with the dyes that were left over after I did my recent 'lavender' colourway for the shop:

And this BFL/silk blend, which is in 'Harlequin' colours. This was an early trial at dyeing coloured top.

I've made a start on spinning the Apple Blossom fibre already (actually, I started on Thursday's SnB meetup, but I'm counting that as a warm-up :) ). It's spinning up very quickly, and I'm loving the new spindle that I'm using (another prototype made by my mum, she's getting really good at these). At around 35grams, this spindle's lighter than the one I blogged about earlier and spins at just the right speed for the dk and 4-ply yarns I want to make.

In other, non-spinning news, Inara and Krissie are both doing very well. I visited them earlier in the week, to find that Inara's looking very bright and perky, and has developed an interest in sniffing fingers. Very cute...

They'll be coming home either next weekend, or very shortly after. I can't wait!

A little horse, and some very bad lace

Exciting news! Krissie my arabian mare had her foal yesterday morning, a lovely chestnut filly. She took everyone by surprise by choosing the date that the vet predicted as her due date, but with very little sign that she was going to give birth until just a few hours beforehand. But all went well and both mare and foal are healthy and well. I visited them yesterday at the stud where Krissie's gone for foaling, and took many many photos! The photos in this post were taken when the little one was just 8 hours old.

I've named the foal 'Inara', as I've long been a fan of the one-series sci-fi show 'Firefly', which included a very beautiful character with the same name. Inara's also the name of an ancient Middle Eastern goddess, who was a protector of wild animals, so it seemed fitting.

She's by a stallion named Icon, who's a beautiful palamino arab x lusitano (a spanish breed). I'm hoping Inara will have inherited at least a little of his amazing talent for classical high school dressage.

It's hard to believe that just under 11 months ago, this was my first view of her, when Krissie had her first positive ultrasound scan:

The black circle in the scan photo is the embryo sac, I think Inara might be the tiny little bundle of grey cells at the top of the circle, but at that early stage it's hard to tell!

Krissie is being a brilliant mum, she's suckling the foal very well and taking excellent care of her. This is her first foal, so I'm really pleased she's taken to motherhood so well.

They need to stay at the stud for a couple of weeks, until Inara's strong enough to travel home. But I'm planning to visit a few more times before then, so hope to have some foal playing in field photos to post soon.

Back briefly to crafty news. As if I didn't have enough to occupy my brain, I've cast on my first ever lace project. This is the start of a Swallowtail Shawl, in Posh Yarn's 'Eva' (a cashmere/silk heavy laceweight yarn).

I'd been putting off learning lace knitting for a long time, although I've long been attracted to it. I'm left handed, and I knit left handed, so things are likely to come out the wrong way round if I knit lace without planning it beforehand. I've done a few simple motifs in lace before and got really confused about why my ssk's and k2tog's were coming out backwards. But after some research on Ravelry, I think I've figured out what to do. Basically I just have to read the charts in reverse, simple!

Well it would be simple if I could follow charts accurately. A few repeats after the photo above was taken, I got into a dreadful muddle. Fortunately I'd threaded a 'lifeline' through my stitches before the muddle, so I was able to frog back safely. But I've now knitted (and frogged) the following few repeats far more times than I'd like to admit. I keep miscounting, doing too many yarn-overs, dropping stitches, it's driving me a bit crazy! Perhaps I have too much foal on the mind. I feel inclined to put it away for a while and return to some nice simple sock knitting for a while. But knowing how my brain works, I won't be happy until the lace issue is fixed, so I could be in for a froggy weekend!

Hope to post some happy lace news soon. And also about my plan for the Tour de Fleece. Yes I have a plan, and I've even written it down. Somewhere, on my computer. It's probably hiding underneath all the photos of horses from yesterday... :)

She made it!

Good news, Krissie made it to 'horsepital'! For those who've just joined us, Krissie is my arab mare who's expecting a foal very soon, and who took a serious dislike to the transportation I'd arranged for her to go to the stud to have her baby. But, after working with her for three days, getting her used to loading and unloading into the trailer, she finally trusted it enough to stay inside and eat food from a bucket while there. Which, on travelling day, was sufficient distraction to take her mind off of running out as the ramp was closed behind her.

She travelled reasonably well (it was a 2 hour trip to the stud), and she is now safely stowed at West Kington Stud. The stud seems to have a lovely relaxed atmosphere and Krissie went straight out to a big field with lots of other expectant mares who all seemed far more interested in eating than in making introductions with her. Which is probably for the best, I'd have been much less happy if they'd all started running around wildly :)

She's due to have the foal on the 24th June, but could easily go a couple of weeks longer - fingers crossed all goes well. I will of course post photos here when the foal arrives. I'm so looking forward to it, after 11 months gestation I can't wait to meet the little one!

And as a reward for managing all this, I've treated myself to some of the new Noro Sock yarn, which has finally made it to the UK (I bought mine from The Knitting Parlour).



Bea brought a ball of this to SnB a couple of weeks ago and I was much smitten with it, plus I want to know if I can replicate such a yarn on my spinning wheel. So really it's research, not a stash aquisition :)

A mixed bag

Ah, summer is here! I wish I could say I've been lazing in the sunshine with my knitting, but I have instead spent most of today trying to encourage a reluctant horse into a horse trailer, with only limited success. The culprit is Krissie, my arab mare, who's pregnant and due to have her foal in a fortnight's time (see pic below to see how very pregnant she is at the moment!).



I'm planning to send her to a stud to have the foal, they're much more experienced at it than I am and have foaling facilities and vets on hand. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to find a horse trailer of my own in time for the journey (I've been looking to buy a secondhand Rice trailer for ages), so I've borrowed a friend's box (thanks again B!).

But now after several very frustrating sessions of trying to load her, I've learned that Krissie doesn't like trailers much. I think with time she'll get used to it, as she's ok with going up the ramp and doesn't look overly stressed. She just doesn't like the ceiling over head, which is understandable, she doesn't like stables much either. The clicker training I've done with her has worked wonders with getting her comfortable in a stable and I'm really relying on the clicker work now.

She's has actually gone inside the trailer a couple of times, but she doesn't stay in for long, she seems to have got the going backwards quickly thing very well sorted! She's supposed to be going to the 'horsepital' on Tuesday, so I'll spend tomorrow working with her again and hopefully we'll get somewhere by the end of a second day.

Maybe Sam could teach her a thing or two, he used to be just as worried about trailers, but I did some trailer work with him a few months back and now he seems to love this one. He even loads himself, look!



Anyway, enough about horses. What about wool and knitting?

Well the Wildcraft shop has opened with much success. Big thanks to all those who've bought things already. I could barely keep up with the orders the first week, fortunately it's slowed down now to a more manageable level :) I'm very excited to see Wildcraft rovings appearing on Flickr and in people's stashes on Ravelry. I've even seen a few spun yarns appearing. Coley of Sheknitigans did a beautiful navajo plied yarn from a roving in the 'fumitory' colourway.

So the Wildcraft roving that started out as this:



Has now been transformed by Coley into this:


Tainted Love
Originally uploaded by sheknitigans

Lovely work Coley!

And there are others too. Take a look at what Belaybunny has been up to. She's working on some shetland in an 'anemone' colourway that's looking very pretty on the bobbins.

I updated the shop with some new rovings and stitchmarkers last week. A few have gone already, but if you like the Scottish Seascape or Calendulas colourways, they're still available. I have plenty more undyed wool top in stock, so I'll be doing some more Shetland and BFL rovings soon.

And then of course there will also be the wool batts. I've now prepared the Water batts from Willow's wool.



In real life they're quite a lot more blue than the pic here shows, I had trouble getting the camera to pick up the darker blues accurately. The dark is more like navy than the grey seen in the photo.

And I've washed and picked some of Cordelia's and Giles' fleece for the Air and Earth batts, so they'll be ready soon. I've tried spinning some samples of the fire and water batts and they're producing a lovely striped yarn, a little like Noro stripes, which is what I intended. The fleeces are quite strong English wool types, so they're not merino-soft, although the silk and mohair that's blended into the batts does soften them up a bit. I think they're going to make fabulous hard-wearing sock yarns, or great yarns for felting/fulling.

Now I just need to get Krissie loaded, then I can get back to the wool preparation! :)

Back to normal after shearing

I simply had to post these sheep photos that I snatched this evening. Sadly I only had my teeny-tiny phone camera with me, but I think perhaps it adds to the candid camera effect...

As you'll see, the ewes have completely recovered their confidence in me after their shearing episode. Maybe they've just forgotten it ever happened, or perhaps they've put it down to aberrant behaviour on my part, I'm normally the nice lady with the treats, not the wild woman with electric clippers!

Anyway, here you can see Buffy demanding some more of those nice horse treats:



And this is Willow checking out the camera:



Finally, this strange shot is a birds-eye view of when Buffy the sheep met Krissie the horse for the first time (they're sharing a paddock at the moment). That's Krissie's nose on the left side of the photo. They sniffed each other politely, then both returned to asking me for 'more of those tasty food things please'... I really wish I'd had my proper camera with me, it was a very cute moment.

Photographic evidence

Just a quick post today, after a busy holiday weekend which included horse riding (with Bea and her super horses Muttley and Moon, and encouraged by that on the following day on my own horse Sam), sheep foot trimming (yuk), wool dyeing (more on that in another post), and my own personal favourite (not!) - putting up electric fencing.

Anyway, to prove that I do actually ride my own horse sometimes, here's a pic taken this weekend just before Sam and I set off on a hack. I'm not really a winter rider, neither Sam nor I like going out in wind/rain/mud, so we've only recently started riding out again. His summer coat's coming through now so he's looking all sleek and handsome, much nicer than his winter hairy beast look. And yes, that's a bitless bridle, Sam doesn't get on with bits, so he wears a hackamore.



We even had a proper balanced canter during this ride, so it seems he's remembered some of the schooling I did with him last summer after all! His trotting needs work though, his trot currently resembles a runaway train going downhill, sideways!

Here's another photo of him that I took this weekend. Luckily you can't see the knots in his mane from this angle. I spent ages trying to comb them out before our ride, but they thwarted me in a single session. Next time I'm attacking them with furniture polish (thanks for the tip Bea), and possibly a machete!

Spring things

Since it was such beautiful weather today, I took myself off at lunchtime to take some photos of spring things. I love the light at this time of year, which is soft and muted, and I love the fact that I can walk about in the fields without being togged up in a huge winter coat. I've been playing around with the metering on my camera lately, the spot meter is fast becoming a favourite, especially for white flowers and those pesky white sheep.

Some of the resulting pictures will probably become new colourways for some painted rovings. This blackthorn, for example, looks very pretty against the pale blue of the sky behind.



And this little violet has enough shades in the flower alone to inspire a new colourway.



Speaking of dyed rovings, the Wildcraft shop is progressing well. I've finally got a holding page set up at www.wildcraft.co.uk and the shop itself will be following soon.

Finally, this hairy monster is also a spring thing.



That's Sam, my homebred gelding. He's trotting towards me in the photo as he thinks I've arrived to do some clicker training with him (which he loves, it involves treats!). When he discovered that the thing in my hand was not the treat bag but a camera, he gracefully decided that a good tummy scratch from me was a reasonable substitute. Which left me covered in horse hair, as another sign of warmer weather is the start of moulting season!