Marigold and Indigo

COLOR! Using alum mordant, natural inidgo and marigolds from my garden I've got the blues...and greens and yellows and golds. Wool, mohair and silk have found the way into my dye pots and I love the results..... Using a Louett motorized carder, I blended some of the wool, mohair and silk into batts which I then spun into a sportweight 2 ply yarn. Thoughts of gloves and socks are entertaining as I work in the 95 degree heat........... Visit the Milk House Fiber Studio (at the Dahmen Barn, Uniontown, WA) if you would like to purchase some dyed fiber for your own creations.

Milk House Fiber Studio

At long last, we have opened Milk House Fiber Studio at The Dahmen Artisan Barn in Uniontown, Washington. The Artisan Barn is a funky (in a good way) old beautiful barn donated for use as artist studios. You can read the whole story at http://www.artisanbarn.com/.
My friend, Judy Lalonde and I transformed the old milk house into a working studio. We spent over 70 hours remodeling, and with the help of other barn volunteers opened our studio in early May.

We offer locally grown fiber from our own farms. Judy's alpacas are offering up their roving, fleece and yarn in amazing natural colors, along with her fine finished knitted goods and knitting patterns by local knitters. I offer washed fleece, roving, handspun and mill spun yarns from my spinner's flock of sheep, along with Earthues Natural Dye extracts.

We are ready to receive visitors on Friday and Saturday when we are there working.

color my world

After years of growing, spinning, knitting and selling sheep's wool in the wondrous natural colors of white, silver, gray, brown, black, oatmeal and more, I have discovered an extended palette.

I attended a 5 day dyeing conference at Earthues Natural Dye Studio in Seattle, and am thrilled to dye wonderful colors with natural dye extracts. These are concentrated plant dyes, when used alone and combined, provide an unlimited range of colors. After April's lambing season, I move to a new studio, Milk House Fibers at The Dahmen Artisan Barn (http://www.artisanbarn.org/).

I will be joined by Judy LaLonde of Big Meadow Creek Alpacas

(http://www.bigmeadowcreekalpacas.com/). We will demonstrate fiber processing, teach workshops on spinning, knitting, felting, and dyeing, and have fiber, roving, yarn, and finished goods available to purchase. Keep in touch for dates and events.

Thinking Spring

It has been a mild, open winter and the signs of spring are showing. Can my favorite season be far off now?

Rudy, one of our favorite (really, they are all our favorites!) SanaanXNubian dairy goats had triplets last Thursday, Feb. 11. She is a wonderful mother, calm and easy, had three kids without assistance on a sunny day. The two white kids are doelings and the black and white is a buckling.

There are four more does to kid, pretty soon the goat pen will be active with the boing and spring of cavorting baby goats jumping and playing.

A very shiny day

A bright frosty morning sparkles with light, frozen dew and sunshine.

These two photogenic guys are Cyrano, a brown Merino, and Steenie, a white Bluefaced Leicester.

The rams have been turned in with the ewes November 1, and will stay until mid December. I keep back the 2009 replacement ewe lambs, away from the rams until they are over a year old and fully grown. I separate the ewes by color, breed, and fleece type, then pair them with a ram that is unrelated, and well matched. The ewes are bred for fleece type, purebred blood lines, growth and vigor. This is the last year I will use multiple rams, since I have so many really nice ewes I will keep them and change rams every two years instead of replacing the ewes.

These lovely girls are a couple of the brown, or moorit, ewes I especially love for the color of their fleece. I keep covers on the sheep year round to keep the fleece free from sun damage and fading. Handspinners appreciate the naturally colored clean wool to create beautiful yarn with.

Lambing will begin around the end of March 2010, and I will be dreaming of dancing lambs throughout the winter months. I will begin shearing in mid February and work my way through the flock in three weeks. As I shear each sheep, I take time to trim hooves, replace missing or damaged ear tags, replace the old coat with a fresh one, then skirt and label the fleece as soon as it comes off the sheep.

A Wonderous World

Every fall I remember how much I love this time of year. It is a special treat to me, a surprise bestowed upon my world. I so love spring and the regenerative growth it brings, I tend to forget the twilight of nature before winter's deep sleep. Spring is like early morning hours I love, promising new ideas and projects I have not yet imagined. Fall is like early evening when the day's work is complete and I enjoy warm, quiet time reading, spinning or knitting by the wood stove.
Hawthorn, blackberries, and wild fruit trees create a palette of fall color beyond compare. I am surrounded by beauty and abundance which astounds and humbles me.