How time flies

It's been ages it seems since I have had time to post to this blog. Maybe I can start catching up. We've had a cooler, later, and somewhat wetter summer than normal and I have relished it. However, now in September we seem to be experiencing summer. Much hotter and very dry. the poor plants wither so bad I can hardly keep up with their watering. The garden has been growing but slowly and I just hope that the frost stays away long enough to harvest the tomatoes. The poultry have been having a good year, raising chicks, and ducklings and gunieas. Our guineas flock increase this year by 6 new ones, and they are all running wild. They do drive me slightly nuttier because I have to think of ways to keep them from eating newly sprouted greens in the garden, and they chatter continueally.............But the grasshoppers have been way down this year, and tick season was short so I credit them with that. I wish they would catch hornets! They do catch and eat mice though! Sheep wise, that status quo is about the same. We still have 4 ewes, and 1 ram. However, we are likely to add another ewe lamb and we did replace our ram. This new one is 50% Icelandic, and the rest if a border Leicester/cormo complicated cross. His wool is white, lusterous and has a nice handle.
The rabbity has been thriving and we had out first large litter of purebred German Angoras and and all raised by the mother which makes me very proud of her. We've had other purebred German Angoras before, but none that were from large litters, or that were successfully raised by their mother. I gave her the unglamorous of SOW hoping she would raise her babies as easily as a pig does and she seems to. :)
Time to go now. Hopefully pictures next time
Barbara

CLOSE UP OF MORE SKIEINS FOR PN

THIS SHOWS THE RAINBOW DYEING ON PN SKEINS. This was all rainbow dyeing as talked about below

CLOSE UP OF SKEINS FOR PN

WEEKEND DYEING

This picture above of the sock blank after it has been of rainbow dyed. This will hopefully make
an interesting pair of socks. This was done with Pro-Chem's wash fast acid dyes using the colors
of boysenberry ( darkest value) Mulberry medium value) and buttercream ( lightest value). It
is drying on a sweater rack.

The photo top right is the whole of 5 batches I did for punch needle embroidery. The burgunday colored ones are two batches of rainbow dyed ones using the same colors as in the sock blank on the left. There are 3 seperate batches of 3 skeins each in solids also for PN.
The colors used were Prochem Avocado and Spiced Pumpkin but neither at full strength. The blue is Kiton Acid dye turquoise, again not full strength. some of these were heat set in the microwave, and some heat set in the oven at 350 degrees.

The Latest in DYEING

I've started building a palette of colors in yarn for my needle punching projects. I started with a skein of merino 2 ply yarn. I broke it up into useable skeins that average 25 yards each. I've since tried it in the needle punching and it works great with enough "bloom" to puff out on the right side. I need both solid colors, and varigated. I used squirt bottles and sponge brush to apply the dye to the skeins for both the solids, and the varigated. I heat set the dyes by: some in the micro wave, and some in the oven, speed. I used Pro-chem Wash Fast Acid dyes, and one Kiton Acid Dye . Here are the results.

ART...........scratch board

The brown eyed Susan's picture with the Painted Lady is # 3 and the American Copper on a daisy is #4 and the Monarch on a thistle is #5 and all are done on 5 x7" boards.

The giraffes drawing is a sketch for a future one, I plan to do in larger size. Next I am working on the horse to try that in a 5 x 7. I love this size because is you make mistakes or have flaws in some form, you haven't ruined as much material.
fun, fun, fun.




Finally here is step 2...the actual scratching part Things don't always go like I planned. this is the completed picture and it shows a Swallowtail butterfly on a tiger Lilly. This is a 5 x7" panel and is not step two but the final result. Somehow the second step got left out and I will try to add it now.

This is the first step in the process...adding the chalk lines.
Below is my first piece and it on a 5" x 7" board. The butterfly is supposed to be a Swallowtail on a thistle bloom.

I discovered recently a new technique of art for me. It was shown to my by my daughter Kathy who is proficient in the medium. It's a simple as drawing and goes quickly which I consider a plus. I will show what I have done already, and the progress of one of those so you can see the process. You start with an original drawing on paper, minus the details, so it is essentially an outline; then you chalk the back for transferring to the scratch board. Once it is done you lightly scratch over the chalk lines using a stylus or pen like scratcher. Then you remove the chalk lines with a soft cloth and begin scratching in the details. Afterward you can begin painting or inking in the color if you wish to do it in color or leave it in dramatic black and white. Very cool process.

SHEEP

Gosh...a long stretch of time has gone by since I entered anything into this blog. I will never catch up so won't even try.

In early July we picked up a new lamb from a Shetland breeder not to far from us, and she is a cutie. We named her CAMILLA. That is supposed to be German for Chamomile which is the name I wanted for her. We have loosely followed a botanical theme in sheep names. She's white because she is meant to be a replacement for Fleur who we were culling.

However, Fleur is still here, as she pulled a sly one at loading time and got away from us. We'll try taking her in when we load fall lambs now. She is isolated and feed until I think it safe to release her. That way she doesn't get knocked away from the feed, and can have some goodies that the others can't have. She is also somewhat more catchable ( but not very) for vaccinations, and physically checking over. It also allows her to get acquainted with the flock without getting harmed. Here's a few photos.