I have created a new facebook page.  Some of you who follow my blog have got invites.  I decided since my blog doesn't get alot of traffic that I am going to use the facebook page of my farm instead and see how that works.  Seems facebook has been very popular as I use it quite a bit.  If you want to follow, the address is www.facebook.com/LivingWaterFarm.

See you there!!

Dyeing again

Well I tried dyeing some of my angora again.  I got a new dyeing fiber and yarn book and I just followed some instructions there-in.  They instructed to soak the yarn in a vinegar-water mix and then squeeze out the water.  Add the dye and heat.  I spot-dyed this fiber and I think it turned out just like I wanted it to.  I wanted to keep some of the grey but still have the blue.  Can't wait to spin it!  This is just a half ounce of Black Giant angora, compliments of  Jan's Giants.  I also dyed another half ounce and have it drying.  I fluffed this up to get it dryed faster.  Next post will be of the spun yarn.  Cool huh??

Pink and Blue

Here is some yarn I've been working on.  The blue is 100% Suri Alpaca.  I bought it already dyed and spun it from the lock (no carding done) and that was quite difficult.  I think that was because it had been dyed so it didn't want to draft well.  The suri I'm working on now is right off the hoof and it is drafting much better. 
the pink is 100% german angora that I dyed supposedly red.  It turned out pink, dyeing 101 gone wrong but still turned out quite pretty.  It is a varigated pink and white from where some of the angora didn't take the dye.  Still awesome!  Both these are available in my etsy store.  There is a link to get there from my blog.
No photos of new bunnies because I still just got the one.  She is doing well and is happy with her new house.

Sheepish

This is a pretty cool book.  Learned quite a bit of history about sheep and wool.  It pretty much states it correct, "two women, fifty sheep, and enough wool to save the planet"  The title is what got me interested in purchasing this book.  It talks about farming, the environment, livestock, wool and more.  It's a view of farming thru the eyes of women along with the ups and downs of it all.  I especially liked her journey thru the wool and yarn.  She finally got it!!  Enough said.

The Building is Gone!

 




Well this is the spot where the building was.  We got alot of rain so our burn ban was lifted and we burned the building last weekend..  We did it over two days and actually in the rain.  All that is left of it is the pile of ash in the yard.  We do all our burning here and have since we moved here.  My husband plans to put another building up and on the burn pile location so we will have to pick another spot to do our burning.  We get alot of branches from the trees around the house and in the horse pastures so we burn that a few times a year.  Lots of wind here.

Interesting Day

Yesterday I planned on going to Cabin Spring Farm's journey to fiberart's spring show and sheep shearing.  It was a real nice day and I made some new friends.  The farmer only has about 10 sheep so I got to see the last sheep being shorn.  Nice black cotswold cross I believe is what they told me.  She had a lovely fleece.  I am still sticking to my guns sort of.  I didn't buy anything at least there.  They had about 3 vendors and one had the most beautiful yarns and another had lovely dyed spinning batts and roving.  But I didn't buy anything.  They were letting people try spinning and carding on a drum carder so it was quite nice.  I didn't take my camera so no photos.  I ended up doing some errands and as I was getting the milk it was pouring rain. 
I also had quite a productive week, I got two alpaca fleeces sorted and ready for carding.  Unfortunately the suri fleece, I will have to wash it a bit.  She had a lot of hay in parts of her fleece and I am going to try to wash it out by hand.  I am also spinning some satin angora because I am thinking about entering a fiberarts competition in May.  It is turning out lovely and I am inspired by it's beautiful color.  I definately will post a photo of it later when it is done.  I ended up buying some more Satin angora on etsy just because I will be entering the competition and that will be one of the skeins entered.  I am also thinking of spinning the pink dyed angora I have in my etsy store and make a art skein out of it to enter.
I have a stash sale going on in my store and am offering free shipping on anything in my stash until May 31st so if you buy those items the shipping is on me!

Autumn's New Cage

This is Autumn's new cage that I got for her about a month ago.  Tractor Supply special and I can move it around if needed.  It is right outside the back door under the shade of a large tree.  Don't worry!  If it gets too hot outside I can bring her in the house.  I also have sides to protect her from the weather.  A nice cage except when windy the top blows up.  Put some hooks on it to discourage this.  Yes, the top is hinged so you can get into the entire cage. 
The pile of wood is where Autumn used to live.  The building was falling down and I am glad I got her out of it.  It didn't blow down, we pulled it down and are taking it apart to cart away to the landfill.  We have a burn ban here so we can't burn it.

Etsy store update

Just listed some new stuff in my etsy store.  Got a stash sale going on....

Kinda busy...

Been spinning...  (wish my camera took better pictures, "sigh")  guess I will have to re-read the manual.  Working on some alpaca that I have, actually I have 6 alpaca fleeces to process, the black is one of those fleeces but the white is some roving I bought at Sedalia 2 yrs ago.  My goal is by the end of the year to have most of the fleeces processed either by me or by Wooly Knob Fiber Mill.  I won't be buying any more fiber till I can get this task done.  That would also include whatever rovings and little bunches of fleece I have in my stash.  I am also going to list some of my stash in my etsy store.  Gonna have a pretty good sale going on by the weekend.  I also decided to get rid of some stuff I don't use anymore.  Going to list it on Ebay and hope it sells.  Got quite a few things to sell.  I'm going to be pretty busy going thru stuff.

New yarn

Have been spinning all week and just finished spinning this wonderful cormo/angora blend I bought from Dustin quite a while back. Beautiful color and was a joy to spin, very soft and easy to draft. I listed it in my etsy store if anyone is interested in purchasing it. tlrobertson.etsy.com I am working toward attempting to spin what I have in my stash before I will buy any more fiber by the end of the year. I also have to decide if I want to send out some fleeces to be processed into roving to make it easier to get them spun. I only have two more bags of bought roving to spin and then I need to make my own. I might drum card some batts and list them on etsy too. I still need to card some more black alpaca and spin it to be able to finish the shrug I am working on. I have spun up one skein of that as well this week. Started on the Cormo because I got tired of black!

Spinning and things

Here is a project I was working on. I built my own skein winder. You can buy these for the babes but I can't seem to get one this small. So I made one for myself. Now I can wind my skeins into balls without having a "helper" and in this case they are few and far between at my house. It works great!

Autumn

This is Autumn, my chestnut agouti German angora. She was given to me and had the summer ear when I got her. She looks like a fuzzy french lop but she isn't. These are before and after photos. I put all my angora in grocery bags to store it. She gave me a total of about 10 ozs of prime and 2 ozs of seconds and matts. She has more of a blue undercolor but has black tipping and some shades of brown in her fiber. But not much brown.

She's quite a pretty girl.

Lots of changes....

Well I guess it's time for me to update this blog! Poor neglected blog. I have had a lot of changes in my life this winter. They all happened so fast, it seems one right after the other. First my daughter moved out of the house. She decided to move in with a friend and help share the rent and so on. So I became an empty-nester. That first weekend was hard and so was cleaning out her room of all the things she left and didn't take with her. Then three months later my husband loses his job. Pretty scary but we were able to get unemployment and that helped. Then I find out that I am going to lose my job! My facility closed down and they had no where for me to go. I ended up with two parttime jobs. Also my daughter informed me that she was going to move to NC to be with her new marine boyfriend. All I can say is "when things hit rock bottom, the only place left to go is up!" So up we go and the Lord provided, my husband lands a great job as a welder. Then another problem, I lose one of my parttime jobs after just two weeks of working in it. Just wasn't a good fit, they said. So I was upset and my husband said maybe this is the Lord saying he doesn't want you there anymore. So my career as a phlebotomist has come to an end. But now I have more time and I am enjoying myself. I still work parttime and learned how to be a DCA (direct care aide) for a assisted living facility. Pay isn't the same but that gets better too. Since my daughter started college, we ended up getting a tax break on that and when we filed our taxes we got a really nice refund! So all the bills that we were able to pay in full we did, my husband bought a motorcycle to help on gas expenses, and since I don't work as much I do not have to pay so much for gas either. We can afford for me to work parttime and him fulltime with overtime and make it quite comfortably to say the least. My husband is also home every night as opposed to being gone for two weeks at a time driving a tractor trailer. I have time to spend with him and also to be able to play with my horses and do things I was too tired to do when I got home from work. I can keep my house sparkling clean and even catch up on all that spinning I need to do. My daughter is doing well and has a fulltime job (in NC) and is also taking classes online at Liberty University. I also can keep up better with my etsy store so look for more to be put on there. All in all I can say we are doing better than we have in the past few years.