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I have had a wild and wooly couple of weeks and apologize for not blogging of late!
I have multiple entries coming in the next 24 hours from a workshop I attended with Lynne Vogel of The Twisted Sisters Sock Book, to our new assistant shepherds, Liza and Steve, to the annual Earthues workshop here at the farm last weekend, plus a few minor clips. Be back tonight with the beginning!
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Currently set up for our annual Earthues dyeing workshop location this week, this is the barn that Jack, Kip and Lyle built! In the summer of 2001 Lyle, friend and owner of Pat Rawson Construction became a talented building mover for us. He moved 2 buildings to new, more usable locations. They are both pictured here: the barn on the left and the little house to the right. The barn had been across the lane and behind another barn, had no windows and was quite rotten from years of no repair. The little house was across the road by the cottage and served as a child’s playhouse in years past. It also was quite rotten, the roof nearly caved in and sills gone. Jack did a number of improvements and then added the little shed attached to the barn in 2002. Then in 2005, Kip of Courtlan Construction added the large addtion shown here. It made a huge difference in the winter chores when it snowed as we didn’t have to shovel just to get to the feeders.
And this summer Kip returned and put a front addition on so to further decrease the snow shoveling come winter. Jack has done all the wiring, painting and built all the stone foundations, added new soil and reseeded the pasture area and added new hardpack inside the barn area. Jack and Lyle also extended the water line from the frost free hydrant by the little house (formerly a chicken coop currently my sheep /fiber house) down into the pasture and into the new addtion where there is another frost free hydrant. I had hoped to put in an automatic water system but we couldn’t dig deep enough in this tough New England soil to take advantage of the geo-thermal heat. Just the same no more lugging water to the barn! The picture below was taken on July 16th and the one below that was taken August 12th. Great job by all, mostly Jack (of course).
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This is me and Simmy in a fast photo while she and her family stopped by to talk dyeing and say hello. Simmy is a blogger and she arranged for her family to come to America for the first time and stay with other bloggers, none of whom they had actually met! Fascinating and clever! We were all in the kitchen at one point and I asked if anyone would like a cold drink (it was 90 degrees!) and no one stepped up to the sink, so Simmy chimed up and said, “Oh stop being so English, have some water!” (referring to their British politeness!). And so they did. It was a brief visit but a fun one, perhaps another year we will connect again. You can visit Simmy’s blog at
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Here are the knitted swatches for the skeins I painted in Seattle. I thought it would be helpful to see that even though the skein may look okay before knitting, it may not be what you want when you knit your project.
Pictured below are skeins 1 & 2; #2 is a duplicate of 1 with an indigo overdye.
Below are skeins 3 and 4: I omitted a “hit” color on these so #3 is rather drab, #4 is a duplicate of #3 with an indigo overdye and seems a bit more interesting. Skeins#1-4 are all painted with the same pallete and are a cotton/rayon blend.
Skein 5 below is a silk skein. I used the same pallete again but painted the strands more individually and also pulled a number of strands first and dyed with indigo, then painted oved those strands to create the purple, a “hit” color to be sure, but too splotchy.
Skein 6 below is wool, the colors are punchy individually but when blended there is too much contrast. I am not fond of this skein at all!
Last, Skein 7 below is also wool and here I changed my pallete and my technique. I only used 4 dyes and they were very complimentary. The resulting knitted swatch shows an evenness throughout. This type of painting would be great for a sweater where an overall variegation was desired.
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The moon is rising over the farm tonight, the sheep are up in the back fields, the day was hot but tonight there is a slight breeze and a complete calmness over all. It’s still warm; 70 degrees at 9PM but it’s mighty hard to find a reason not to be thankful.
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After we finished haying Sunday, Jack and I took Sidney for a swim. This is Jack’s pickup, therefore it’s Sidney’s pickup and no one takes his front seat! Westmoreland is still quite agricultural, and the views are gorgeous all four seasons. When I am driving to and fro I am always amazed at just how beautiful it is here. The second and third pictures are of the county farm which has a milking herd of holsteins and some priceless land along the Connecticut River. You can see the corn, which is now over my head high and also an eagle/osprey perch just on the rivers’s edge. The 4th pic is Sidney getting that swim. The 5th pic is of Windyhurst Farm, another dairy farm in town, exemplary in every way, from the herd stats to the farm cleanliness to the setting. Windyhurst, is run by the Adams’, for many generations now. They also have a maple sugar business and you can come to Stuart and John’s Pancake House
http://www.stuartandjohnssugarhouse.com/ adjacent to the farm for some fantastic cooking! Stuart Adams and John Matthews are childhood friends who started the pancake house years ago like kids run lemonade stands, and over the years they improved it and it grew and now is an established destination.
And this summer Kip returned and put a front addition on so to further decrease the snow shoveling come winter. Jack has done all the wiring, painting and built all the stone foundations, added new soil and reseeded the pasture area and added new hardpack inside the barn area. Jack and Lyle also extended the water line from the frost free hydrant by the little house (formerly a chicken coop currently my sheep /fiber house) down into the pasture and into the new addtion where there is another frost free hydrant. I had hoped to put in an automatic water system but we couldn’t dig deep enough in this tough New England soil to take advantage of the geo-thermal heat. Just the same no more lugging water to the barn! The picture below was taken on July 16th and the one below that was taken August 12th. Great job by all, mostly Jack (of course).
Below are skeins 3 and 4: I omitted a “hit” color on these so #3 is rather drab, #4 is a duplicate of #3 with an indigo overdye and seems a bit more interesting. Skeins#1-4 are all painted with the same pallete and are a cotton/rayon blend.
Skein 5 below is a silk skein. I used the same pallete again but painted the strands more individually and also pulled a number of strands first and dyed with indigo, then painted oved those strands to create the purple, a “hit” color to be sure, but too splotchy.
Skein 6 below is wool, the colors are punchy individually but when blended there is too much contrast. I am not fond of this skein at all!
Last, Skein 7 below is also wool and here I changed my pallete and my technique. I only used 4 dyes and they were very complimentary. The resulting knitted swatch shows an evenness throughout. This type of painting would be great for a sweater where an overall variegation was desired.
