Lendrum Love

I love my new Lendrum. I've spent much of my free time making yarn.

Sahara, made from roving I bought at Black Sheep.

As a result, I have decided to enter in this year's Tour de Fleece. (Tour de Fleece coincides with Tour de France.) I obviously have no shortage of fiber. And as long as I work at the wool mill, it is unlikely I will ever have a shortage of fiber.

Some fluff with silk bits that weren't properly blended, which meant I could take it home.

I'm just not sure what teams to compete with. I'm definitely in the Rookie team.

Tweed yarn that resulted from the poorly blended silk and wool fluff.

I've also entered the Lendrum team. A bit of a no-brainer considering I plan on using my Lendrum wheel. But I'm not sure if I should also be in the Breakaway team (for art yarn) As of last night, I had my first success with making "beehive" yarn. I'm feeling pretty inspired especially after discovering this blog, Weird and Twisted, which has some impressive art yarn.

My first beehive yarn that I consider a success.

In other random news, this afternoon I stepped on a ketchup packet in the living room. For a brief moment, I thought I had stepped on a slug.

Black Sheep Gathering

I got to go to Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene with my lovely coworker Marcail! We saw all sorts of sheep and fiber. The stuff dreams are made of.

There was sheep judging. We caught the Jacob's Sheep part of the judging.

And cute little Shetland lambs. I didn't have enough sense to take any pictures of the many vendors. But that may have been because I was busy "petting the wool" as my Dad would say.

Marcail's Aunt Leslie very kindly offered us a place to stay while we were in Eugene. She has a cute cabin in the woods.

I even got my own room.

The cabin is right by a river.

I felt like I was in a fairy tale. Big trees enveloped the entire area.

Despite being at Black Sheep Gathering for extraordinary amounts of time, we got a fair amount of spinning done.

And now for the "Loot" shots. I bought plenty of fiber. But only two balls of yarn. I'm very proud of my self restraint. The official list: White Targhee roving from The Fiber Addict; Two balls of Meilenweit Wool color 711 from Woodland Woolworks; Orange/ Turquoise roving, color way - Sahara (there were two, but I spun one before I took the picture) and Lavender roving, color way 108 from Sweet Grass Wool; Bag of Teal roving From Barn To Yarn; Grey roving, color way Springtime (which I have spun before, but needed a little more) Schildt Ranch; and lastly, the variegated teal roving, color way English Garden from Eugene Textile Center.

And the crowning purchase. A graduation gift from my Oma and Opa. My very own spinning wheel. I did plenty of research and tried out a bunch of wheels at BSG. I settled on a Double Treadle Lendrum Folding Wheel from Woodland Woolworks. (The other bit of Sahara Roving is on the bobbin.) Oh the bliss.

Scooter Went To His Summer Home

It has gotten quite hot where I live, so I took Scooter to stay with my parents for the summer.

I'm going to miss the little guy. The way he would make little nests.

The way he had his favorite spots around the house.

I left his favorite orange blanket with him so he wouldn't be sad. I think it worked.

Instant Oatmeal

I was in need of some instant knitting gratification recently. Something easy. Something that would use up part of my stash. After looking in the yarn cupboard, I settled on using some of my hand spun "Oatmeal" yarn.

Four hours later I had my very first project out of my own hand spun yarn. I wish it was cold so I could wear it without sweating.

Llama Face

At work, we had to shear llamas. Taber, our friendly neighborhood llama shearer, came out to do the job. Of course we all wanted to save him some time, so Jessie went to get them in the pen. We didn't count on Aleister being able to jump over the very high fence. We did manage to get Tony into the pen. (Not pictured is me being butted by Walter while trying to separate the sheep from the llamas. We aren't friends anymore)

In order to keep control of a llama, you have to hold onto the neck right under the jaw. This is the picture where Taber and Jessie have the llama "under control".

Then you slip a harness of some sort over the head.

Then you shear the llama. For anyone wondering, Aleister got the blood lip by ramming his head into the barn ceiling when trying to shake Jessie and Taber off. He was fine once he was done being shorn.

An interesting note about llama feet. They have soft pads kind of like dog feet. Their nails curl over and have to be trimmed on occasion. The nails are more appropriately called Talons. It should be noted that when shearing a llama, you should wear pants.

This is Tony. He was much more calm about being sheared. I even got to clip a bit of his hair. Tony is not an intact male. Neither of the llamas were suppose to be intact. After shearing Aleister, we discovered that he is indeed an intact male. That might account for his very bad attitude.

Tony hung out in the barn briefly after being unharnessed. He creeped along the side of the barn, slowly. He wasn't sure if he was doing something he should be. As soon as he realized no one was going to jump on him, he took off.

The Sky Is Falling

At work the other day, I noticed that some of the chickens had gotten loose. They followed me, so I walked back to the pen.

What I hadn't counted on was that ALL the chickens in the pen would run toward me.

I tried running away, but they all ran after me. Logic would dictate that I would close the gate after getting all the chickens back in the pen.

That would have been a great idea if the pen had a gate. It didn't.

Eventually I called Jane (my boss) to help save me. She distracted the chickens until her son (the chicken owner) came to feed them. Just another typical day at work.