Today was raspberry processing day! I adore raspberries. The jam is cooling, the sherbert is freezing, and there’s still some juice left in the refrigerator for adding flavor to water, lemonade and iced tea. I think there are still enough berries out there for one more round of picking and processing too. We’ll see if I get to it in time - if not, the wildlife will enjoy the berries!
Lots going on since I last wrote! For those of you asking about purchasing my yarn - I neglected to mention in the last update that I dropped off all of this year’s fleeces at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with the Zeilinger Wool Company for processing into yarn again for me. They are the same folks who processed my fleeces into yarn last year. However this year I requested a slightly lighter yarn, sport weight instead of worsted. I’m looking forward to getting the yarn back this summer, but don’t expect to have it for another month or two. I will let you all know when it is available! I will also be hand dying some of the yarn when I get it back, so please let me know if you are interested in a particular color - sooner rather than later!
I held back my two favorite yearling fleeces from the crop sent with Zeilingers for processing: Buttercup, the reddest of my reds; and Valerie, the whitest of them. I wanted to keep these out for spinning myself, and so that I could have some roving to sell to handspinners interested in trying out California Reds. These two fleeces were given to Singleton Fiber Processing in Walkersville, MD to be washed, picked and carded into roving. They did a wonderful job hand washing and picking the fleeces (kept separate throughout the process) and carding them on their mini-mill into roving - and they turned them around for me in a week! I will certainly be calling on them again next year, and I’m happy to recommend them. You can contact them at orders@singletonfiber.com.
The photos below show an example of Buttercup’s fleece: the processed roving, a handspun skein of yarn (forgive my novice spinning skills, I need a lot more practice!), and a sample stockinette stitch swatch knit from the handspun. Look at all those gorgeous russet highlights against the naturally tawny wool color! I just adore the subtle natural variations of color in the fibers of my Reds. Please contact me if you’re interested in buying some of the roving for handspinning.
The sheep themselves are doing great, the little ones are now about two months old and boy do they grow fast. They’ll be weaning from their moms next month. Everyone’s doing great, though they are HOT and spending a lot of time in the shade during the daytime. The gardens are growing, though I did not get to plant as much as I’d have liked to. The first batch of pesto has been bottled, the blackberries picked and made into sorbet (YUM!) and the first of the raspberries are ripening now. I forsee jam in the near future. I’m hoping for a large pickle crop this year too, if I can keep the critters away from the cucumber plants! Oh how I love the sweet summertime - going back outside! Life is good.
The 47th annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival was held last weekend. I attended a workshop taught by Carol Bodin on dyeing in variegated colors. Fun and educational, I had a wonderful time and I’m very pleased with the results of my lesson:
I also entered one of my braided wool rugs into competition at this year’s festival, and I won a 4th place ribbon! Not too bad I think, for the first time I’ve ever entered something. I call it “Caribbean Sunset Sailing” and made it for the lovely Christy Van Aken of California, who I met while cruising the Caribbean.
The weather for the festival weekend was extremely hot, and it was difficult to think about buying wool while browsing the vendors. Probably a good thing for my bank account! I did of course purchase a few things… I certainly couldn’t stroll through such a huge array of fabulous products and not go home with something. Maryland Sheep and Wool is always a great festival, and this year was no different. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Remember the yarn that I dyed in pretty red and purple shades a few weeks ago when I did my natural dye experiment? I liked how the colors looked together so much that I knit a sweater out of them. I like it!
A little video introduction to the new members of the flock:
All the lambs have now been born. Daisy delivered twin girls, Belize and Bequia, on 4/19, and Violet delivered twin boys, Norman and Jost Van Dyke, this morning. I’ll get some pictures of all of them posted as soon as I get a minute. That brings our total inventory of lambs for this year to a whopping NINE! In order of appearance: Cayman (m), Jamaica (f), Panama (m), Trinidad (f), Tobago (f), Belize (f), Bequia (f), Norman (m), and Jost Van Dyke (m). Three sets of twins and one triplets; five females and four males. Hooray!
Tara delivered twin ewe lambs this morning! They’re adorable (aren’t all lambs?) and doing just great. We’ve named this set Trinidad and Tobago. I am so impressed with these moms. They are so careful and attentive, they dote on their little ones like a grandmother with her first grandchild. I know I’m biased, but this is yet another reason I think California Reds are the most wonderful breed of sheep in the world.
No more new lambs yet, but I let Rosie and the two day old triplets out of the barn today. They enjoyed their first taste of green pasture and meeting the other adult ewes. These first three have been named Cayman, Jamaica and Panama - so adorable! Enjoy:
Rosie started delivering triplets at about 6am today. Male-Female-Male. Mom and lambs are doing fine, pics and more info later!
No lambs yet, though I expect them any moment. I am waiting very impatiently, checking for signs every two hours. The moms don’t seem terribly happy either at this point, they are HUGE and this hot weather is not making them any happier. It’s supposed to hit 90 today, the weather has gone so screwy this year! On the plus side, the sheep have very light coats now since they were sheared just a few weeks ago.
So while I’m waiting, in an attempt to get my mind off of the pacing (yes I am very truly horribly impatient), I have been trying my hand at dyeing! I wanted to use natural dyes - not Kool Aid (yes it does work very well as a permanent dye) or synthetic dyes - so my first tries were done with native central/south american dyestuff: cochineal (a type of beetle) and logwood (tree’s heartwood). Dyeing is a long process, 24 hours or more, but there’s not really a lot of work involved. I started the night before I planned to dye, by preparing the yarn and the dyestuff. For the cochineal, preparation involves grinding up the dried beetles into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle, then putting the ground dyestuff into a jar with some vinegar to soak/dissolve overnight. Logwood needs to be fermented to oxidize it and release/activate the dye. I bought some logwood shavings that had been fermented and dried, and put them into a jar with water to soak overnight, to add more oxygen. I also started soaking yarn, as you want to put the material you wish to dye into the dyebath thoroughly wet and saturated, so that the dye will uptake into the fiber evenly.
The next morning I got up bright and early to start dyeing! The dye process involves a lot of waiting - and some STRONG smells - there is a good reason for doing this in a well-ventilated area, even if you are using natural and non-toxic materials! I began by taking the dyestuff I had been pre-preparing the night before and mixing them into large pots of water, then simmering them for an hour or so. Next the fibers come out of the soaking bath and go into the dyebaths, and simmer for another hour or so. Then the pots are removed from the heat, and put outside in the shade to cool down naturally. After a few hours of cooling I took the fibers out of the dyebaths, rinsed them thoroughly with cold water until the fibers drip clear water, and hung them to dry. I did second and third dyebaths in the same day - the second ones using the same dyebaths as the first to produce a lighter shade of the same color, and the third combining the remains of the two original dyebaths and re-adding and boiling the logwood I had used originally to extract more color from it.
I spent a full twelve hour day dyeing these skeins of yarn, plus the time the night before doing prep work. Started heating the dye pots at 7am and took down the dry skeins (it was a wonderfully warm sunny day, they dried fast!) at 7pm. I must say, I LOVE the results of these experiments, and had a wonderful time doing it. I am looking forward to trying other colors and materials now that I understand the basic process.
