Snoodle

A Little Bit Country

Nora and I are back from our fabulous weekend in Vermont.  As the old joke goes, "Why do people live in Burlington... to be close to Vermont."  and while my city is technically within state lines, we saw a whole lot of the real Vermont over the course of three days.  In fact, by Sunday evening, we had travelled through 57 towns!  My sister-in-law's farm is just lovely.  Her home is an early 19th century colonial with a "new" addition: new meaning late 1800s-1910s.  Her 10 acre farm is home to horses, chickens, quail, rabbits, turkeys, sheep, goats, and a black labrador.  Nora has been anticipating barn chores for weeks and was thrilled to sweep the aisle of the barn and gather eggs.  She stayed up very late each night, but waking up to hot chocolate made with raw milk from the farm across the road was totally worth it!

On the way to the Wool and Sheep Festival (every thing's a festival in VT), there was a row of cars pulled over.  It took us a moment to figure out what was stopping traffic, and then we saw him!  A moose!!!

Okay, I've never seen a moose before; a fact that my husband, an Alaska native, finds hilarious.  (Don't get me started on the aurora borealis either.  I'm sure it's a myth!)  So, I was snapping away with my camera from the safety of the car.  Some folks were not so cautious, and one woman was bringing her child closer to it.  Then, a trucker laid on the horn of an 18 wheeler -maybe due to the traffic congestion.  Yikes.  It was time to get outta there!

So, we continued on to the Vermont Wool and Sheep Festival.  It was fun to go with people who have sheep as well as angora goats as my sister-in-law (a knitter) and niece (a weaver) asked questions to vendors that I wouldn't have even considered.  So, I wound up learning a lot.   Although I'm pretty sure that the question of owning my own flock of sheep is decided: no, there is a rich amount of to be learned about all of those fabulous natural fibers that will keep my quite busy for a lifetime!

Jacob sheep

Falling in love with angora rabbits.  She had to settle with a Folkmanis puppet.  Though, I think it's just a matter of time...

Weaving at the children's table

Border collie trials: my favorite!

and on the way back, we saw a lovely horse team passing us on the road.  I whipped out my camera fast enough to prove it.  Oh, it is clear that I am a city girl.  I don't want to be, but I am.  I'll give it a year or two before I settle into a life of felting, taking care of the angora rabbit Nora so desires, and I'll be so country, I'll just leave my camera in my bag when a horse team trots by... but I'll still take it out if there's a moose!

Thanks again, Wen and Heather, for another wonderful woolly weekend!

My Punny Valentine

I like Valentine's day with it's glittery, lacy, fancy handmade cards heavy with glue, the flowers in the middle of February (which I only get to enjoy because my father delivers for a local florist) and the CORNY puns!

I will admit that I do like a little present... something special, but not necessarily expensive.  Thrifting gives me a bigger thrill than jewels.  Lucklily, my husband shares my frugal sensibilities.  I knew he would appreciate this thrift shop find by Copco from around 1969.  It went perfectly with the groovy tablecloth that I found.  We have a serious love of cheese so I thought it would make a fun gift.  Here's what I wrote in the card:

I'm so FONDofUE

CHEESY, I know...

But my heart MELTS for you.

I wasn't really expecting a gift from my husband, maybe a "Doggone It,  please be my Valentine!" card with puppies on it.  But David, got me something really wonderful - really, better than a fondue pot!  Nora knew about it before hand and couldn't help but to give me a clue: "It starts with a 'sh' blend and is a compound word."  (Kindergarten, seriously!)

It is oh so warm and cozy!  It's the one that I admired in the Mountain Vewe Coopworths' booth at the  wool and sheep festival.  I brought the information home... and forgot about it.  David kept the farm's card but "lost" it.  After tearing apart his office for weeks, (so that's what he was doing) he found it on Thursday (in his backpack of all places!) and ordered it right away.  It arrived on Saturday!  It was so nice to get it for Valentine's Day.  It's just perfect for a snoodle - Nora fell asleep on it minutes after it was out of the box!  I had to wait a couple of hours before I could really check it out.  If you're interested in supporting a great great Vermont farm, I would highly recommend them.  This skin is so thick and soft!  They also sell freezer lambs, roving and hand dyed yarn.  I'd be happy to share contact information if you're interested.  Sadly, this gift did not come with a punny card, but I'll share my thanks to my beloved:

Thank EWE for the gift

It's not BAAd

Wool you be mine?

I hope you all had a weekend full of love, doilies, and laughter!

The Christmas Sweater

It seems that those gnarly Christmas sweaters that people wore for reals in the '80s are making a comeback.  I've been checking out sites like Ugly Christmas Sweater Shop and Ugly Christmas Sweater Party for some great examples of the best of the worst.  I'm not sure how I've made it this far in my career as a teacher without sporting one of these in December, but I might have to get one for Christmas 2010.  I'd totally wear it... with a big ol' poinsettia broach.  I think this is my favorite one:

 

I made my nephew his own sweater this year... for Christmas.  His favorite book is Caps For Sale (one of mine, too).  So, quite awhile back, I knew this was what I wanted to make for him.

 
 

 Here's my needle felted sweater version:

 

 

These photos were taken on my mother's carpet right before wrapping it and with my really sad $15 garage sale point and shoot digital camera (I'm dreaming about a new one.  Any suggestions?)  I think the images look a little better close up.

  
 I was really happy with how it turned out.  It's made from an adult size sweater that was felted in the washing machine.  I sewed it into a smaller sweater keeping the bottom hem and sleeve hems for the new sweater.  Then, I felted the pictures, one layer at a time, using wool roving.  I was planning on closing it with buttons, but it didn't seem to go with the landscape of the sweater.  So, I used a zipper.  I had no idea that finding a separating zipper was so hard to find in my area.  Solution?  Recycle!  I ripped out a zipper from a sweatshirt that was just the right size and sewed it on the sweater.   The "mend and make do" sensibility truly at work! It took forever to make it, but I had pretty high standards and attention to detail -- down to the peddlers "checked cap."  But that little boy is awfully cute; worth every second!

 I think he likes it.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wooly Weekend

What a fun weekend we had!  We headed out to my sister-in-law, Wenda's farm to spend the night before heading to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival in the morning.  She had a bit of a surprise for us when we got there.  She and my niece, Heather, were going to pick up two kids and a goat from a farm another town over.  This is a big step in fulfilling Wenda's dream of a productive farm that will allow them to eat what they raise, or in this case, knit (Wen) and weave (Heather) the fibers from these lovely angora goats.

 So, how do you get goats from farm to farm?  We thought that the idea of dog crates was a little bold, but no.  The mama rode right in the back and those sweet-faced little kids rode in laps!  I wonder what the cars passing by thought...

 

 

 Doesn't everyone do this on Friday night?  

 

I got a little emotional a couple of times thinking what a big step this is for this two-woman run farm.  Like every animal they raise, they've done extensive research on raising goats.  It's exciting to see that all of that study has finally brought them to some "maaing" out in the barn!  You can see they're already making Heather quite happy!

Wenda got busy right away making them a comfortable home to spend the night.  She's already plotting ideas for building a loft of sorts that they can jump up onto for sleeping.  I think these goats will keep them busy for awhile!  But it was early to bed because there was more excitement in the morning when we headed out to the Wool and Sheep Festival.

 

We spent a lot of time watching Jim McRae demonstrate Border Collie Herding.

Despite the rain showers I learned some Collie commands:

Come by - move clockwise around the flock

Away (away from the clcok) - move counter clockwise around the flock

Lie Down - The dog can see better in this position.

That'll do! -  Thanks, you can stop now.

Eleanor played the part of the collie and practiced following the commands as we walked from vendor to vendor.  It was a great way to get her running around and learning clockwise and counter-clockwise.

 I had a wonderful time  looking at all of the fibers: wool from every kind of sheep, angora from both sheep and rabbit, alpaca, and llama.  But really, it's more fun to play with it!  Happily, we found the local Waldorf school's children's arts and crafts.  She whipped up a God's Eye in minutes, and after watching the other children wet felting pumpkins, she wanted to join in.  She wrapped up a golf ball with some saffron roving and felted it.  Then, she added some brighter orange.  After the golf ball was cut out, I sewed on a stem and leaves.  The colors looked just like a pumpkin.  I would have taken a picture, but she is actually sleeping with her little pouch right now!  We're going to have to do some more felting soon.  There's a damp chill in the air, and there's nothing like some wool to warm up things. Well, short of having a sheep in your lap.