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! :)

Layla crochet cardi

As promised, here are some pics of my Layla crochet cardigan, all finished and wearable. This was my first ever crocheted garment, nearly my first crochet project ever (if you discount the little bag that I attempted and is still languishing in my work basket waiting to be finished). This cardigan wasn't the easiest project to begin with, even though the pattern said it was an easy one. There was a lot of shaping to do and I kept getting the stitch count wrong. I ripped it out nearly as many times as I crocheted it. But now that it's done I'm very happy with it. Excuse the slightly fuzzy and overexposed photos. I forgot to set my camera into program mode before I handed it to my mum to take the pics, I think she did a great job given the circumstances :)

So here's Layla:



The pattern was a Rowan one, from Magazine No.25, which is pretty old, published in the 90's I think. It's one of the earliest mags in my collection, but easily one of the best, there are many patterns in that issue that I want to make up.



The yarn I used was Patons 4-ply cotton. It took only 3.5 balls of the yarn, so really quite a bargain project. It substituted very well for the Rowan 4-ply cotton that the original pattern called for. Also, since the yardage on the Patons balls was so much more than on Rowan 4-ply, there were far fewer ends to weave in.



I've been wearing it all day today, it's really comfy. Oh yes and for the eagle-eyed amongst you, the front pieces are slightly uneven. I think my tension must have eased off a bit by the time I worked the second front piece, so one side is slightly longer than the other. It's visible if you're looking for mistakes, but not really noticable otherwise.

I'm now hoovering up any pretty crochet patterns that I find, which is a good thing as I have quite a bit of cotton in my stash. I hate knitting with cotton, but love crocheting with it, weird huh?

Fire!

I've been having fun dyeing and blending up some drumcarded wool batts for the Wildcraft shop this weekend. And of course I had to sample the merchandise, so I've done a little spinning too :)

The first batch was made from a blend of 'Buffy' the sheep's wool, some kid mohair and a little bit of dyed silk waste. I've called this colourway 'Fire', and I think you'll see why:





It's a fairly smooth blend, as I wanted it to be possible to spin an even yarn from the batts. And it looks like that worked, as I was able to spin this little sample skein from one of the batts:



Eye-poppingly bright isn't it? But I like bright colours :)

The batt I used to spin the yarn isn't shown in the photos above, as I didn't think of taking the photos until after I'd spun it up. The sample batt was a bit more blended than the others, which is why the colours have come out a quite even orange. The stripey batts will make more of a stripey yarn. I'd love to spin some more, but, tempting as it is, I mustn't use up all Wildcraft stock myself! :)

Next batch will be in 'water' colours, from Willow's fleece. Once I've got a set of each of the elements, I'll update the shop and you can try them for yourselves :)

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.

Finally open...

First off, here's the big news: the Wildcraft Shop is finally open! After a week of testing (thanks B!), I'm now reasonably confident that the Zencart software is playing nicely, so do go ahead and take a look. The shop can be found here: www.wildcraft.co.uk.

With the shop open, I took a bit of a break from programming and wool dyeing this weekend. On Saturday I went with a friend to Charmouth, for a day of fossil hunting. The weather forecast was for lots of rain, but as you'll see in the pic below, it didn't turn out too badly.



I also made my finest fossil find to date, a huge pyritised ammonite. I believe I squeaked a bit when I found it, but who wouldn't, isn't it a beauty? :)



It was just lying on the sand, on its end so it wasn't immediately obvious that it was an ammonite. Which is probably why the party of cliff-hackers a few yards away hadn't spotted it first :) The pencil in the pic below is for scale, but if that doesn't help, the fossil's about 4cm in diameter. It's currently soaking in plain water, to remove the salt from the sea. I fear I might have to retire from fossil hunting now, as I can't think how I can beat this find!

Returning to crafty matters, I also have a FO to report. My Layla crochet cardigan is finally finished, hurrah! This was my first major crochet project and it's been a real struggle. I had to rip and redo it so many times! But today, after re-crocheting the edging for the third time, I finally got it to look as I wanted it to. The best part is that the cardi fits me very well, and I really like how it looks. That's unusual, normally I can't stand items I've just completed, they need to go through a process of maturing (i.e. being hidden in a wardrobe) before I'll wear them. But I think Layla will get worn often, she's very comfy and quite flattering. I still have to sew in the yarn ends, but then I'll get some photos taken and post them here. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview:



I'm now keen to crochet more garments, since I've got the hang of how crochet works. I've already sussed out my next project, it's going to be 'Gudrun' by Annette Petavy, which is another cardigan. I'm planning to make it with some Debbie Bliss cotton angora from my stash. The pattern doesn't look too complicated, so hopefully I won't have to rip it out as many times as I did with Layla!

Shearing Day

I'm broken! I sheared the sheep yesterday, and it was very hard work for a newbie :( Those oh-so-cute looking Texel cross ewe lambs were not-so-cute when it came to removing their wool! The sheep on the BWMB course that I did in January were nowhere near as wriggly as mine...

Anyway, I got the fleeces off, not in once piece, but without destroying them completely. I think I'll have to process them myself (not send them away as I was intending) as there are a fair number of double cuts. But hey, it'll mean I've done the whole lot myself, from shearing onwards...

So here are some of the girls after their haircuts:



Velvet, the old girl (black head and legs) on the right, was by far the easiest to do. She's around 13 years old, so she's had a few shearings from the professionals and clearly knows the score: sit still and it'll be over soon. Do you see the wild-eyed look in Willow and Cordelia's expressions though? It'll be a while before they want to be anywhere near me again!

The Texel x fleeces are very nice, a bit softer than the Suffolk that I'm most familiar with and with a more open staple (I used to have a flock of pedigree Suffolks). It should card and spin very easily. I'm planning to make some drumcarded batts from this wool for the online shop.



Oh and I did also shear Giles the ram, who behaved impeccably, but he needs some more clipping around the legs and face before I take pics. Otherwise he'll be really embarrassed, as he looks very silly. Actually it'll be me who's more embarrassed, I can't believe I left him looking so awful! So no, you can't see photos yet. My excuse is that he was the last sheep I did, at the end of a long day and he's a Very Woolly sheep. How one ram lamb can grow so much fleece is beyond me! It was good that I did him this weekend though, as I already found a small patch of fly strike (maggots, yuk!) in his wool, left without treatment it would have spread very rapidly in this warm weather. Removing the fleece got rid of it very effectively. I'll finish trimming up his little legs later in the week and post pics then. He really is the cutest little thing under all that wool.

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!