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The third in the series of books called One Skein Wonders is now out - Luxury One-Skein Wonders.  Featured inside are some truly lovely knit pieces.   And, the good news for Pygora fans, one of them is a lovely scarf pattern by Myrna Stahman for which she used yarn by RAINBOW YARNS NORTHWEST!  How cool is that?  It was our mill spun 70% Pygora , 30% fine Merino blend. 

We’re thrilled that Myrna used our yarn for her project and can’t wait to knit up this pattern ourselves.

Check out the book at:  http://www.amazon.com/Luxury-One-Skein-Wonders-Judith-Durant/dp/1603420797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224869706&sr=1-1

Susan

I’m all caught up in the barn (well, almost) and decided to get carding on a fleece I will need this winter.  I’m working on a special project for next year and need to get much wool carded.  I can get it picked in nothing flat, but my process bottleneck is my carder.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my carder, just wish it was bigger!

I did, however, have help today!  Two of my grandsons, Dalton & Wyatt came up to visit.  After petting the goats, catching the cats, and goofing off with their papa Gary, they found me in my studio.  And we had a blast teasing and carding wool.  I enjoyed myself thoroughly, as did they.  Sigh….they grow up so fast!
Terry

How many ounces of Pygora will fit into a Priority Mail envelope?  Which PM envelope? - my post office has two….

Here’s the larger of the two - it’s made of tyvek-type stuff, almost bullet proof!  It’s 38 cm wide, light and flexible.

Every year the fiber farmer worries about the crop and when to harvest. It’s a delicate dance between weather, quality and animal comfort.  Shear too soon and you won’t get full length locks with all the characteristic style and finish.  If you hold off too long you risk having it felt on the animal, rendering it useless for processing or handspinning, and an uncomfortable coat for the animal to continue to wear as it pulls at the skin.

Other times the weather turns so cold I just don’t have the heart to cut it off and risk a dangerous chilling.  Some of my girls are getting quite old so their comfort and safety is important to me.   If the weather is fairly mild, shearing won’t bother them as they’ll have some time to re-acclimate and have their metabolic rates adjust accordingly.  It’s during this time that I feed more hay to keep their rumens working and generating some heat for them.

Because of our hectic work lives, Terry and I often don’t get to take a really close look at our goats until the weekends, and as a result we sometimes have to make decisions to act quickly and do something that had not been planned in advance. 

Such is the case of last Sunday.  The weather was warm although rainy and humid.  Mid morning Terry called me to have a friendly chat about something to do with our little fiber business.  Then I happened to mention that after taking a close look at my goats the day before, I decided that I had to get busy and get a couple of goats sheared quickly while their fiber was still so nice. I also mentioned that there were at least 6-7 others that really could be done but that they might have to wait…”Gosh, I hope I don’t lose the fleece off the others ’cause I won’t be able to do any more until next weekend.”

After hearing my lament, Terry quickly responded with “I can come over to help you this morning if you want” and she even said it in her happy voice.  I didn’t even hear a hint of reluctance on her part and I really did listen for it. OH, JOY!  Someone to share the pain and dirt!  Someone to talk to while I work!  Within an hour she had driven the 25 miles to my place, magically appearing with her clippers and her goat stand, a smile on her face, graciously offering to spend several hours with me on one of her days off!  Now, if that’s not a true friend, I don’t know what is.

Now, mind you, shearing is one of my least favorite chores.  Not only do you get hot and sticky but you get covered in short bits of hair that quickly penetrates your clothing, causing some pretty intense itching, sometimes in unmentionable places.  Invariably your nose runs profusely and wiping at it just seems to distribute more hair, which in turns leads to even more itching.  Usually my goats are easy to catch, but when they see the shears come out they make themselves scarce.  Terry and I aren’t getting any younger and catching uncooeprative goats and wrestling them through a gate and into a stand is darn hard work.  But after a few hours we had all nine sheared, fleeces boxed, feet trimmed, deworming injection administered and lice powder applied!

So, as you can imagine based on the description of our activities above, we’re not fashion mavens either.  We don our fat farmer clothes which tend to consist of sweats and old T-shirts.  In addition, we don’t bother with our hair or makeup beause we’ll just sweat it off.  Check out this link:  http://www.hmrpygoras.com/  This is the website for our good friend Lisa Roskopf of Hawks Mountain Ranch Pygoras.  There’s a great photo of Sarah, her friend and barn helper, shearing one of Lisa’s Pygora does.  Obviously we all  share the same taste in shearing attire! 

Terry and I finished our afternoon of shearing by sorting through some lovely boxes of fiber and prepared them for shipment to the mill  (read that to mean we stuffed, jumped on and wrestled a huge amount of fiber into the smallest box we could in an attempt to hold down shipping costs).  Then we toasted our efforts with a glass of Merlot and some good cheese and dreamed of the lovely yarn we’re sure will result from the fiber we had just harvested. 

All-in-all it was a good day made even better because of the company and help of a dear and good friend!

Spinning Pygora to a 2 ply gossamer weight is truly insane.  It is.  Ok, if one has plenty of free time, maybe not.  However, since my “day job” crowds out my spinning time, it really is ludicrous to spin that fine.  Heck, I’ll never get this done!  Yet, for me, it’s not about getting it done.  It is the journey of spinning the fiber that satisfies my mind.  And I desperately need an outlet to calm myself when my world gets too hectic.  Spinning calms my soul.  I know that sounds rather trite - but it’s true.  Maybe it’s the rhythmic nature of spinning, or that my mind can float off into a “neutral” place (a luxury I don’t get at work - ever!).

As promised, here’s the fully monty - my Pygora skein (110 yds), dwarfed by the ribbon….( I wonder if Susan is getting tired of my skein award yet??? ha!)

Wow!  We made Lime & Violets “The Daily Chum“.  Ok, so it says “Rainbow Farms Northwest”.  Big Deal!  It’s close enough for me and the link goes to our site.  Yay!  It’s always nice to get a little PR boost.  Thanks you guys!!

Some of you have asked for a closeup of my skein.  I will attempt a decent photo - but likely not until this weekend when I’m home during daylight hours and can take the time to make a good photo.  Otherwise I’m afraid it won’t look very nice.