Tales Left Untold

So last week was really busy, and there were things I didn't write about. I know you all really missed out. And since today has been a slow news day, I thought I would write about them now.

One day last week, we went to a guy's farm, who has been a 4-H Volunteer Leader for like 40 years, since his kids were in it, and now his grandkids. He told me he had some sheep fleeces in a barrel in his shed, and if I thought I could use them, to come get them. So R and the kids and I bundled off early in the morning and went down to his farm. What he had, were 3 full Corriedale fleeces: One white/brown mottled, one black, one gray. 33# of smelly, lovely, soft wool. We wrapped it in a bedsheet and rode around in the car, smelling like sheep.



I processed out the gray fleece already. See it? --->




Wow, beautiful long wool, very soft.

I dried it on a rack over my clawfoot-tub garden. --->



And carded some of it, to send to a friend of mine. And listed some uncarded in Diantha's shop, Fluff4ewe.

Ok! On to something else!

In a little town called Loudon, just up the road, there is a former school for sale. it is built on a hill with 3 acres of ground. On the ground floor on the front of the building, facing downhill, it has 3 large classroms, each with 2 doors into them. Very easy to divide into 6 LARGE rooms. I take it on the back side of that floor are the bathrooms, kitchen, and boiler room, since that part of the story is underground. The top floor is like the bottom, except on the back of the building there are 2 classrooms with bathrooms between. Then there is a T which is a foyer with long hall upstairs, and an office or room with a half-bath downstairs. Because we are more curious than is good for us, we stopped and let the girls look in windows. They want us to buy it. "OH! It would be SO cool! We could have rooms for all our crafts!!"

ROFLOL. We have a history of buying bad houses and fixing them, though it takes years. YEARS. My dh is not into construction, and he is reluctant to undertake any project, or finish undertaken projects. That doesn't phase him in the least. He said, "It would take a fortune to run the place, and what would you do with half the building? It is 9000 sq. feet!"

I said, you get a grant and make it a "Center for the Arts." You teach spinning and weaving and knitting and quilting and painting. You charge $100 for 6 weeks of lessons and a "gallery showing" at the end, limiting class size to 10 or 12 people for each course, and do it again in 6 more weeks. See? No problem!

On the way through town, we saw a little old wooden house, abandoned. Attached to it was a brick 3-front little "strip mall." He said, "Now there is what you do that in... have the 3 fronts as classrooms and the 2-room house as Gallery/giftshop." Again, curiosity winning over discretion, we stopped and snooped in windows. The middle shop was FULL of bags of wool! Well you know City Hall was on the back side of the block... might find out who owns the place and see if they want to part with some wool.

Turns out the guy who owns it works at City Hall. One of the ladies in there says, you might try to call his house... his wife is probably home. Ok, so that turns out like this... she has been wanting to do just that, with the little buildings downtown. Said she has dreamed of doing an Art Center type of thing, just didn't know anyone to partner with, who could teach the stuff. So we are invited to her Alpaca farm this week to talk about it, and see her animals! What fun!

Alright, totally unrelated. I got a Treasury for Easter, called Empty Cross, Empty Tomb... Resurrection Power! I don't talk a lot about my faith. I try to live it and pass it on to my kids. But I am so totally unworthy, and humbly grateful, for what Christ did for us, and I hope this helps show it.

We had a GREAT Easter. Des and Tony and the kids came down, as well as a guy that Des and Tony and I used to work with at Sonic, and his girlfriend. We had ham and other yummy stuff, then hid 75 stuffed plastic eggs in the yard and let the kids hunt them. Because my own extended family was not here, no one complained about the food or ranted half an hour if there was food they didn't like. And no one yelled at the kids for acting like kids in the grass. A good time. In the pic, the middle kid is the girl next door. The grandbabies are to the right. I have 3 older kids, not pictured. And Beverly wanted to wear her Chucks with her dress. LoL!

In the evening, I got a T West called, That's Some Great Grass (Gotcha!) it has all grassy items, including a wonderful soap we have listed in Richard's Rossoaps shop. We also added a new soap today, called Leather Up! It actually smells like leather. Mmmm!

Such An Uneventful Life

Ok, so I have recovered from all the sandwich-making and running over the weekend. Or almost recovered.

My dh is on vacation this week, so this is what we have gotten accomplished: Nothing.

Oh, of course I am kidding. Yesterday my parents, who are down from Ohio, came over and Dad and Richard and any other Army Corps of Engineers volunteers they could commandeer (oh don't we LOVE alliteration?) worked on our electricity. I put together a lasagna to make for dinner, but along about 7PM when they decided that the only outlet they hadn't checked was the one behind the stove, that the electronic ignition for my oven plugs in... I made a trip to the local big-box store and then to Taco Bell, where I dazzled the associates with my ability to order random food for a dozen people, to go.

They actually got my order right (which dazzled ME)... but probably only because I went IN to get it (instead of driving all the way home to find out they forgot the order of nachos) and stood there and counted it all before I left.

My BIL came also, with my little niece, and brought us a 36-in. television that he got for free and fixed for a little bitty part. Just in case you couldn't see the TV screen from anywhere in the 24' x 30' main great room of our house BEFORE. NOW YOU CAN.

I am slacking on putting new yarns up to my my7kids etsy store. But we have listed quite a few new items in Diantha's shop... including a HUGE furry purple and aqua 2-ply handspun, a carded batt in cranberry Corriedale and white llama, and some washed Corriedale and llama fleeces.

I got a main Treasury, which has expired. But Diantha has a current one, called She Loves Wild Colors. Here on the left is a screen shot! And I got a T West from my HeartFeltFun Boutique, called Hip To Be Square. So here is a shot of that one.

Tomorrow I get to go to a local farm and get some natural black, gray, and brown sheep wools. More on that later! And, we get to make Diantha's skirt for Easter. AND, my folks will be back over for the much-longed-for Lasagne. I better get some sleep!

Picturesque Busy-ness

We had a good time at the 4-H fair yesterday. They gave me all the wool from the sheep shearing... some of it is a lamb's first shearing. I don't know what breed, but it is simply lovely. One of the ladies was talking to me and asked if I would like to have the wool from their shearings this year... New Hampshires and Dorset. I know Dorset isn't next-to-skin soft, but it would still be good for felting or selling to felters. I said, well, if you don't need it... and she said, "Oh, no, we never knew anyone who could use it for anything so we have just always thrown it away!"

What, WHAT, WHAT?!?

Here are two pics of our setup there: the left pic is our display table from the front, the right one is with labels.

Like a Bad Mom, I forgot the sunscreen. I remembered just as we got there and meant to ask hubby to run home for some, or across the street (to the big-box store), but got busy setting up. Then he took off and was gone an hour and a half... came back and took off again. By the time I remembered, we were all pink-cheeked. Not bad, no one seems blistered. But I felt sad about it anyway.

WoolAndWood at Etsy bought some yarn from me a while back, and has made this incredible, felted Irish Summer handbag out of it. Stop by her shop for other gorgeous, creative items!!

I nabbed a main Treasury tonight, called SHEteam is Simply Blue. Here is a screen shot. SHE team is Schooling at Home Etsians, so God bless us, every one. We need all the help we can get, LoL. Despite our busy-ness with teaching at home, the team members manage to create WONDERFUL art. I am proud to be a part of it!

One of the advantages to having more than one shop (and more than one computer) is that sometimes one can do the impossible... and have a second T. Cheating, I guess. But I let my 10yo daughter Veronica pick out all the items, and Diantha helped her with the headlines and comments. So on the left is a screen shot of her T, called Pink and Purple Pills. If you get a chance, go visit these lovely collections and click on the items... it gives the artists exposure, and boosts the Treasury in the Hot lists, helping it have a chance to be an Etsy Front Page.

One more: EmptyNestEgg at Etsy has generously included my dh Richard's Fish Away Odor Removing Soap (which really works by the way) in her Treasury, called She Said Go Fish. Here is the last screen shot. What a nice Treasury! Thanks!

New Yarns, New Yarns, New Yarn

Wow, this has been a yarny day. I sold 10 skeins of yarn and a felted eyeglass pouch since Saturday. It brought me down to like 5 or 6 skeins left in my shop! So with a sense of urgency, I went thru my sold items and relisted anything I had more of. And, I started putting up my A Christmas Story series of yarns.

I just love the classic movie A Christmas Story! This year is its 25th anniversary. You can look up trivia, see the restored house, and buy memorabilia at http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/. I am not affiliated but it is a lot of fun.

So here I am, I have like 7 hand dyed yarns ready and about 4 more in my head. I list 6 of them and sell 3 of them within 2 hours. The customer says she might get more of them but wants to wait and see what else I put up in the next couple days. I have Ralphie's Bunny Suit, Randy's Snow Suit, Dad Has Cursing Down to An Art, Fah-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra and some more. Tonight I am too tired to list more, and want to get pics in the morning for natural light. So impatient needlers everywhere will just have to wait.

I started spinning another batt. The good ladies on Spindlers advised me to spin something that wasn't merino, because it is so soft and slippery. So I bought this gorgeous batt called Shenandoah and started to spin it. So far I am able to draft it better and the spinning is going quickly, I did about half the batt in about 1/2 hour last night.

But so far I don't like it! It just looks mousy brown to me. Some people are fans of brown... my dh likes it, says it is very calming (imagine my dh needing calm). But I am a Color person, and this yarn isn't turning me on at all. Not to mention that it isn't as soft. I could make Richie a pair of slippers I suppose, his feet aren't very sensitive and he likes BROWN. LoL.

First time in a week I didn't take any cold meds, vit. C or aspirin. Now my throat is sore and I am tired. So I think I will go prop up on the bed with some pointy sticks and string, and call it almost a night. Ecclesiastes 5:12, The sleep of a laboring man is sweet...

Stop by my Etsy shop and see the A Christmas Story yarns before they all disappear, ok?

Why Don't I Go Lie Down?

Well to quote Dustin Hoffman as Hook, "I never lie... the truth is FAR too much fun."

No, I don't think what I mean and what he means are the same thing, even though I love that quote.

I am sick. I am coughing, my head is stuffed up, my throat is sore, I feel like I have a wad of stuff in the back of my throat and like I have a low-grade fever.

So today I unwound and hand-dyed a HUGE skein of wool/angora, another of wool/nylon, a third, smaller (20 gram) of 100% cashmere and overdyed it, a fourth, 33gr of another 100% cashmere, and a fifth, 60-some grams of 100% lambswool in black. I am going to ply the cashmeres with the black (tomorrow!!) for selling.

Also worked on pages and pages of webcode for the Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge 14, wound 2 skeins into balls to fill an order (and wrapped them, and made the freebies to go with them). And cooked dinner... which also ended up including my sister, her dh and their 5yod. They "borrowed" my 16yos Artemas today and were returning him. While they were here, I made Strawberry Yogurt muffins from scratch. When they left, Darling Richie asked me, "Why don't you go to bed?"

Well, I have to take meds again at midnight and I am too dang miserable to go to sleep for hours without them. So I will nurse the baby, check my Etsy, write my blog, sneak a little Black Raspberry Chocolate Chunk ice cream, and THEN go to bed... having had a full day, and feeling like I should curl up and die. (Though that ice cream made life a little more worthwhile, LoL.)

Don't Sacrifice A Sheep In Your Kitchen

I had a yard sale Friday and started to have one Sat... Fri. night I started coming down with a cold or something (always do whenI go too long with not enough sleep) so Saturday I felt LOUSY.

We closed up shop early and decided to take a drive... they do this thing twice a year here where there is like 100 miles of 411 that is one long continuous yard sale, so we decided to go drive some of it and see what we could see.

While getting ready, one of my kids was in the shower so I put a hank of wool in a dye pot on the stove, thinking I would let it heat while she showered and in 10 min. or so turn it off and it could soak while we were gone. Got busy putting yard sale stuff away, grabbed the kids into the car and left.

When we were out 2.5 hours I remembered the wool. We were half anhour from home; nobody we could call nearby to go in and turn it off and rescue me. Got here to find out house FILLED with smoke and the WORST stench (burnt sheep, or imagine taking 3.5 oz (100 gr) of someone's haircut and putting it on the burner). The wool was CHARCOAL.

We opened all the windows, lit smelly jar candles, put fans in the doorways and stayed outside until church that night. Went to my sister's afterward, left some of my kids there (so they wouldn't have to sleep in the burnt smell) and came home. With my terrible lungs (respiratory allergies and having had pneumonia repeatedly) I don't need to breathe it either but dh wanted to come home to check things. So we shut our room off from the rest of the house with fans blowing fresh air through... I took some cough medicine. My house still REEKED of burnt sheep.

Sunday I got up at 6AM and went to the local Wally World, bought 3 cans of Febreeze and another candle. Our room was actually worse than thebody of the house! When he went to work I went back tomy sister's house for the day.

While at her house I finished my 2ndhandspun... 4 oz. of supersoft green/blue/brown/copper merino that I started out in the yard Saturday. Got it washed to set the twistand it looks like I got 97 yards but I still feel I am REALLY bad at this spindling.

Plus I unraveled and skeined 2, 100-gram components of different sweaters. However I did NOT get my webcode written for the W/U Fabric Challenge. Blek. So much for getting anything done here. Here it is Tuesday and my house still smells slightly. We slept with all the windows open @ 53 degrees for the last 3 nights too.

Next time I want to make a burnt offering, I think I will do it on the gas grill...

A Bad Day and Some Yarn-y Explanations

Yesterday was an exhausting day. So today I got up with hopes it would be better, but no.

U

nwound, hand painted, and reskeined a new yarn and got the biggest tangle in it... turning a 15-minute job into a more-than-an-hour job.

Eldest ds calls from work (11 miles away) and says, By the way, I forgot my lunch AND the belt to my pants, can you bring them?

On the way out of the house, my eldest dd calls and says, that saw and sander Tony was gonna borrow? Since you are going to be out, can you meet me and give them to me? (Always a joy to see my grandbabies, so sure!)

Called the bank to ask for a new debit card, my old one expired yesteterday, and they tell me I am overdrawn. WHAT? turns out a draft that was scheduled to be taken out of my account on the 3rd (scheduled that way to be sure to always be covered by an automatic deposit that goes in on the 1st...), the bank decided to pay for us "early"on the 27th, when the auto-deposit wasn't in there yet... 2 Overdrafts @ $35 bank charge each... and the bank says, "Oh well!"

Our ins. just called, the renewal is in 2 weeks... they finally added eldest ds's Reckless Op from last year, and the premium went UP over $700 for 6 months... bringing the total to almost $1800 for 6 mos. WHAT? so she drew up quotes, Progressive was cheapest with $1200, but unlike the other companies, make you insure a kid as soon as they get a permit, not regular license. So now she has to requote with 2nd ds on there, since I just got the paperwork from their "school" to get his permit.

The quilting deadline that was like a guillotine yesterday, feels more like an Iron Maiden today. Gonna be a late night tonight, I can tell ya already.

So, I got the very last of my Thanksgiving yarns up today. I didn't add Thanksgiving in the title, because this first one is a good lead-in to Winter. Also I have used a wicker chair as my background for my yarns, because it is earthy and visually interesting, without being distracting from the yarns. But for Winter, I am going to use white fluffy batting to look like snow. I am not sure yet if I like it or not... jury is still out on this one.

I say all that to lead up to the yarn. I called it "Early Snow," and it is nearly white, with little hints here and there of the palest blues. A wonderful yarn, very fine but warm, with wool, rayon, angora, and cashmere. YUM-MAY!

The first year we moved up here to E TN from FL, we came in October. Didn't know anyone, didn't have an umbrella school or regular church or any social connections really. We really only got 3 TV stations (badly) too, so entertainment was limited to what the 8 of us in our little pod could dream up, or videos. Our first Thanksgiving, we had our feast, spent the evening in pursuit of hobbies, and I put the kids to bed. Went to do the rest of the dishes... looked out the kitchen window (our entire house was on the 2nd floor), and there it was... SNOW! Big, fluffy flakes floating silently and peacefully down, covering the side field and irridescently lit by a distant neighbor's sodium light. After having not seen snow in nearly 20 years, it was like magic.

I have recently posted a few yarns that have more acrylic than I usually pick up on my sweater-scrounging expeditions. I am not a yarn snob (REALLY), but I am into the finer fibers, and like to recycle them so that other dirt-road-broke people like me (WHAT? see 1st paragraph, LoL) can actually afford to knit with something nice.

But these few new yarns still have some wool, or silk, or mohair. And really, really, I don't go to all the bother of unwinding a sweater, skeining, weighing, hand dyeing, reskeining, and listing yarns that I don't LOVE and think other people will love too. I personally knit at least a guage swatch out of each sweater I "rescue", just to see how it knits, if it breaks, is it wonderful?

So if you are a yarn snob (you know who you are, LoL), don't look down your nose at some of the yarns in my shop. Really if they feel wonderful, look beautiful, and are a joy to knit with, I am going to harvest them and sell them. And if having a little acrylic makes them easier to care for, isn't that kind of a bonus? I still promise, these aren't your "megamart" yarns.

So come visit my Etsy shop sometime, I am sure you will find a yarn that calls to your heart. The link is right up there on the left! :D