Sunday, May 27, 2007

Yellow roses and a sock




This is the first time in many years that this yellow rose has bloomed, but it was worth the wait. Rosa hugonis, a species from China, is supposed to be tolerant of difficult conditions. Our soil is mostly sandy glacial till and doesn’t hold water well.

The sock is my first foray into short rows. I spun the yarn from Carol Lee’s white wool roving that was dyed using an assortment of dyes including annatto, Cushing’s garnet,
as well as blue and green food coloring. Then I plied the colorful strand with my own Finn wool dyed to a cotton candy pink.
There is an abundance of short row instructions online which seemed to me to add to my confusion. I wound up following the instructions in the new Knitpicks catalog. I did the toe and heel exactly the same and then kitchenered the top of the toe to the rest of the foot.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Lambs and daffodils!







The daffodils are out along with the shadbush and plum trees.

We had five more lambs from our new colored ram. The rest will be from the white ram we had. I think that one of the ram lambs will possibly be grey. His fleece is completely different from the other black lambs. Some lambs turn grey within a few weeks of birth.Should be interesting! His twin is white with grey skin.