Just trying to regain my sanity

I just can not believe it has been that long since I wrote, where did the time go?? The last couple of days I have been trying to regain my sanity (if I ever had it in the first place) Resident husband is off to the llama convention until Sunday night so I have the place to myself if you can call it that with three animals in the house and at least two hundred in the barnyard. Remember when I entered items in the show at the llama convention? well that is what I have been doing, trying to get the items made up, at the time (remember I was high on sniffing llama fibre and it was after midnight when I made the decision)Now I can usually knit socks in my sleep but the yarn I had spun up was quite a finer yarn than I am used to knitting with so had to look for another pattern, it ended up I had to knit three socks before two were the right size, so o.k. the socks were done, I had entered a hat so had to card and spin the yarn for that and of course it was also finer than I make my hats with so had to look for another pattern, even knit a swatch to make sure I would be knitting on gauge but it was done. ............hat is a little on the big size. Now came the big headache, I had entered a woven scarf and I could not get the loom to work properly, have not used it for at least four years. So decided to do a practice scarf out of other yarn before I put the llama yarn that I had bought from a friend on the loom as I did not want to wreak it. Just could not figure out what was wrong with the loom, changed some things around and was still having problems. Had just decided that I was going to scrap the scarf entry and was leaving the loom when a lightbulb came on in my head...........figured out what the problem could be. Now I only had one day to warp the loom, weave the scarf and finish it off...........could I do it? The next morning I decided to go for it so wound the warp and got it on the loom, was worried a bit about the yarn as it did not have much twist to it and whether it would be strong enough, but it held up and I got it woven and took it off the loom and was going to tie knots in the fringe so when I washed it it would not fray........the knots would not stay tied, finally pulled them as tight as I could and washed it gently........all the knots came out of the fringe and it frayed and the twist in the yarn must not have been set at the mill and the scarf went wonky..........so the scarf did not go to the show after all that!! It is sitting on the counter pouting. I took a picture of the yarn I spun for the hat but forgot to get a picture of the hat. Will post the yarn picture.
That is what I have been up to in the knitting and weaving area but there has been a lot more besides that going on around here, this post is long enough so will post the rest tomorrow. Also the wind has been blowing and we still do not have the windscreen up, have not heard from Mr. Windfenceman.........is he lost out there ?? Yahoo!! Yahoo!! Mr. Windfenceman...........we are right over here.

What have I been doing?

I have been winding some of my colored skeins into balls to make sock and hat kits. Mrs Beasley was insistent than she be the one to hold them for the picture, see how happy she is, otherwise this is her regular job.............a cat lap, although she looked pretty happy doing that too. So that is done and I am onto the next project (the alpaca fibre sorting is an on going thing of course)I decided to do something wild and crazy with the thrum slippers I knit so I rainbow dyed up some roving and used that for the thrums. Now this was going to be super easy I was just going to randomly knit the thrums in but the blue and purple looked so great together I thought (this always gets me into trouble) that I would alternate blue and purple which did look great butttttttt now the simple random thrum idea was out the window and I had to pay attention to what color went where and with my lack of attention span I ended up ripping out as I would get two thrums side by side of the same color! Plus I had to pick through the roving to get only blue and purple............I could have just dyed blue and purple in the first place! Now on the finished slipper there is a place that I have three purple thrums together..........and I did not notice it until I had knit down a bit and I did not want to rip out again so I just left it and I am going to remember to do the same thing on the other slipper so they match.......and I am going to say that it is a artistic design......right?..... But I am going to knit a pair with all the colors together, I am going to force myself even if the colors are fighting with each other..........although I have noticed that the lime green and the rusty orange color look great together. Well husband is off to the farmers market today and I can see my little goat friends standing in a row looking at the house waiting for me to go out and take care of them so I better get moving, they have been known to open the gate and come and get me so I am off!!

Guess what came to our house

On the fibre scene guess what came to live with us a couple of weeks ago???If you know me you know it has four legs ( although when I think of it the gift ducks only had two legs each....) Gift Alpacas, the pictures are of the girls and their babies but a week before we had brought home the boys so there are twelve all together. Plus I bought all the fibre that has been stored up from them for the last five years or more.......I can not say the words that would tell you how much fibre that is, let us just say it is a lot!! So now I am busy sorting it to send some to the mill for processing which is taking some time as these animals wore a lot of their food and as their fibre is really soft it is stuck in the fibre.........so........pick..pick..pick. Keep trying to stay focused on the sorting as I keep getting this urge to run to the spinning wheel and spin a sample. So I am set for fibre for a long time............right? But you know maybe I could use some.......I dare not say the word. I have the cold room stacked with bags of fibre............where am I going to put the potatoes?? So I am pulling fibre out of my eyeballs and I am sure I have involuntarily eaten my share at this point. Now we have the llamas and when we shear them they are cute in their poodle cuts but these poor alpacas when they shear them they are naked and it is not attractive.....but it is growing on me. Another thing for me to get used to is the llamas walk around with their noses in the air like they own the world and the alpacas just sort of walk around quietly..........I am so afraid they are depressed, am always worrying about them, went out and had a few words with them.....they seem o.k. will just have to get used to it. Well back to sorting alpaca fibre.

Still running in circles

Well back to the windfence saga, Mr Windfenceman had said that he would be back in a couple days to finish the fence.........Did not show up........did not call, on Tuesday morning I was thinking maybe we should call and see what his plans were. When he left he had the poles in the holes he dug and had braced the poles in place but we had a wind and rain storm during the night a few days later and the braces on a couple poles had snapped and a couple poles were leaning over. Well at noon on Tuesday here he came with the cement truck behind him, so the poles and the pads with hooks in them for the guide wires are set in cement and he said it would take seven days to set up properly and then he will come back and put up the windscreen. When the wind was blowing the other days the poles were swaying.
Now that I figured out how to keep the gophers from eating the potatoes by leaving tastier treats for them I will not have to worry about them............the badgers have moved in and are trying to dig the gophers out!! When I looked out the window the other day I noticed this mound of freshly dug dirt which I had not noticed before?? Then the next morning there were a lot of mounds of dug up dirt, so went down and had a look this morning and sure enough...........badgers digging, what a mess!! Now how to get rid of the badgers?? What are their favorite treats....does anyone know?