Yellow Springs

Well, I am back from a quick little trip to Yellow Springs Ohio and Young's Jersey Dairy for the Wool Gathering put on by the Midwest Festival of Fibers.  I just love this show!  Not only does it have a fine selection of fiber vendors and is only 3 hours away from me pulling the trailer, but....  It's at a dairy and oh my goodness are the fried cheese curds to dye for!  Pun intended!

The 'Wall 'O' Wool' at LunabudKnits.

I needle felted this little clutch purse from my merino fibers.  Yes, it is COMPLETELY needle felted and no, it did not cause me to have carpel tunnel ;)

My little painted sheep adorns the fairway of the 1/2 red tent.

Full shot of the booth.  I find the red canopy leaves a little to be desired for when selling dyed fibers.

Heartfelt Handworks, the vendor next to me hand felted the skeleton marionette!  Her craftsmanship is out of this world!

One of my customers and a fellow vendor of That'll Do Farm blogged about my fibers after the Mid-Ohio show.  And, here are her lovely batts she was selling at Yellow Springs.  How awesome is that!!

We had a wee bit of time to check out downtown Yellow Springs too!

A bit hard to see the fine print, but check out the link if you are interested in learning more about Yellow Springs.

One street was full of lamp post art work and yarn bombing.  How cool is that!

Yarn bomberific!

Not sure I should tell my Brother-in-law that an all LEGO store exists in a land close to us....  hehehe

As the sign says...  Bikes are for sale not rent.

How cute are these mail boxes on the side of a building.

I love the shabby charm of old paint chipping.

Out of no where....  A red door.

More lamppost art.

I loved this one.

Walk down an alley and you might find a small lion guarding a door.

Or a huge sea of dancing blue.

Or a juice joint you just can't miss!

Hunter-Gatherer

I suppose that is what I have become now that the natural dye bug has set in.  Today I took the camera with me as I was visiting with the horse and totally neglected to take a single picture.  But, I did manage to come home with a bounty of lichens and fungi for dying.  

Walmart bag half full of lichens and spider stow away.

Mystery fungi.  Anyone know if it will give dye?  There are plenty more small ones growing where I found these.

  

Pretty sure this is a lichen of some sort.  Found it on the base of a rotting log.

And what is this?  Well, I'm working on a free pattern for a new lace yarn.  Let me tell you this is one yummy little number!  More details coming soon!

Like sheep among the wolves

And Lions and Cougars ......

Say hello to the happy sheep of Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge in Nicholasville, KY.  Not only do they have Lions, Cougars, Wolves, Wolfdogs, Foxes, Turkeys, Deer and a few others, but they are also home to 3 rescue sheep who have the run of the property.   In the picture above, the cute little fat tailed one closest to me is extremely friendly and came over for a good chin scratching during my visit,  the fat happy sheep up the hill a ways is blind and the brown sheep(not in the picture) was a wee bit leery of strangers. And to the left of the sheep, you guessed it, a little pack of friendly Wolfdogs.

What prompted my visit to the Refuge was a phone call from my Mom.  She said 'I want to feel the Lions'.  She went on about how she was cleaning out the freezer and since they had way too much meat she wanted the excess to go to feed the lions and it clicked...lol  While I was at it, I cleaned out my fridge too!  Here are a few of the critters I said hello to while I was there visiting.

On the other side of the path behind a double enclosure were two lions.

This is Simba, a full grown lion sans the mane.  He was neutered at a young age thus the lack of a mane.

This little girl was so very happy to say hello to me.

And these two were bouncing for joy.   As I walked around all the little packs of in their enclosures would run up to the fence and bark or wroo at me until I stopped by long enough for everyone to come in for a sniff and say hello.  

Your eyes are not deceiving you.  That is a white deer on the left.

She came straight up to the fence to check me out.

And enjoyed licking the salt from my fingers.

This sweet boy had to get a few licks in as well.

And after this picture, I am vowing to never eat deer meat again.  These are such gentle and sweet animals and he was very insistent on having his chin scratched.  I'm sure I wouldn't be saying that if the two little bucks in the run were in rut, but right now, they are affectionate little guys.

Two cougars.

Bobcats or as we call them in Kentucky 'Wildcats'.

Last but not least the resident donkey with a volunteer who thinks he should be allowed to eat the wolf food too!

If you would like to learn more about the Refuge, I encourage you to visit their website.

They are always in need of donations which can be given via Paypal.

Are you local?  They told me that they can take meat that is past it's expiration date with freezer burn, etc.  As long as it is not rancid or rotten give them a shout.  This is a great way to clean out your fridge;)

Waveland

After dropping Bill off a few weeks ago, I took a little short cut past Waveland State Historic Site.  I haven't checked out the garden lately and thought why not stop by and snap a few shots with the little camera.   If you would like to read a bit more about Waveland, check them out HERE.

Little Weaver That Could

Let us see, I have made the transitions from knitting to spinning to dying to carding to felting to natural dying and now drum roll please to weaving.  In all honesty, I have done one prior project on a borrowed triangle loom.  I enjoyed it so much that when I saw this little lovely 4 inch square loom, I couldn't help but snatch it up.

Yes, the bottom one is knit;)

I have very much so enjoyed weaving on it, but there are a few little changes I would make to it such as the nail spacing and not forgetting a nail when making it.  But those are little things easy to ignore in the grand scheme of mini loom usage;)  These pictures were taken a few days ago and since that time, the unused sock yarn has been turned into more lovely little squares that I am thinking would make a fun little lap blanket if I ever have enough!

Natural Dying #3

Yep, you guessed it, I am doing yet another natural dye on the blog.  I just can't help that the natural dye bug has sucked me in and in a big way!

Today I finished up my third go round with natural dyes using lichens I gathered from around my horse's paddock.  And here is how I did it......

I reused the mordant from Tuesday's go at carrot tops, by adding 10 more grams of alum and close to 250 grams of yarn.  The yarns used here are:  100 grams of heavy lace wool, approximately 75 grams of superwash merino and the rest was a superwash merino, bamboo blend.  This time about 1/2 way through the 2 hour mordant, I dropped in a couple of glugs of iron to the mordant.

Picture of the dry lichens I am using.  These were all collected from fallen branches.

Crammed my little nylon bag full to the brim with lichens.

Yarn moved from mordant to dye pot.  Lichens are under the yarn in the mesh bag which was periodically moved around.

And here is the resulting yarns!  From front to back, Lace Merino, Superwash Merino & Bamboo, & Superwash Merino.  I am in LOVE with how these colors turned out.

Another shot of the same.  Don't you just love the rich earthy browns!  I have to admit, I am supper impressed with how well the dye did on the Superwash Merino & Bamboo yarns.  Maybe next time, I will try an all bamboo yarn to see how it fairs.

I think I was suppose to keep the dye pot going until the lichens disappeared, but after 24 hours, I was happy to only have a couple of small handfuls of lichen left.  Saving these for another little dye experiment for a later date:)

All dye experiments to date.  From the bottom....  Lichen, Carrot Tops, & Black Bean.  Out of all the 3 the black beans were the only ones I found disappointing.  They have since started to fade which is faintly visible in the photos.

I have had quite a fun little time with the natural dyes, but this weekend is of course the big Labor Day Holiday.  Thinking it might be a good idea to lay off the dye pots for at least a few days:)

I hope everyone has a happy and safe week end!