braided colors of New Mexico

Encouraged by some kind fiber enthusiastic friends on Instagram I spent the Sunday afternoon handling fluff, taking pictures, indulging in colors, naming color ways and sorting wool. 

Which was a good thing, considering our heat system failed on us and the only current heat source is the fire place in the living room. *sigh*

So my Etsy shop has been updated with lots of colorful fluff, some of the last mystery pencil roving, a blend of all kinds of fiber from alpaca to yak (you never know exactly what you get, cause my New Mexican fiber mill doesn't tell me!) and my personal current favorite, Churro lamb, which is fluffy with a bit of fuzz and squishy and super soft. 

Thank you to all of you sweet folks who already took the chance and shopped! One of the braids named "Ice queen" will even be traveling to Norway!

Now if I could just go and snuggle up in the wool like Ike until the plumber comes…!

Happy Monday, friends!

Farmer Brown is done

It is a beautiful thing to watch your kids grow, but I am the first to admit how nice it is to leave certain little-kids-stuff behind (no, I will not get into diapers, tantrums and such).

However, one of the things I never get tired of are the picture books and we will never let them go either. Again so many good memories and so many of them we have read many many times. 

Let me introduce you to Farmer Brown, a definite favorite, which I have read countless times with my kids as well as for school classes, because it is a very educational journey from sheep to shawl. 

Farmer Brown shears his sheep and because the are really cold, they stalk him and their own wool from washing to spinning to dye pots. When finally he realizes that the sheep are following him, because they are freezing, he sits down to knit clothing for them, which from then on awaits them every year when shearing time comes.

A simple and sweet story by Teri Sloat with super cute pictures and it is even told in rhymes!

You know that this whole process is what I love so after careful consideration of the various options for my niece's mittens, I decided on this:

Kinda like Farmer Brown I gathered my mohair, carded, spun and knitted the mittens.

I already mailed them and they got there on time to go with my niece on a ski trip!

They are perfect. And very fuzzy!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

knitting with a fuzzy purpose

While I crank out a ton of fingerless gloves and other stuff every year to sell at the High Desert Studio Tour and whatever other event I attend, what delights me the most is knitting for my kids. 

One item that tops the list are wool mittens.

I admit that I didn't make any for my children when they were little (*gulp*), all to quickly was I convinced that "purchased in a store" meant "of higher quality and better warmth". 

Boy, was I wrong. 

I am not sure what convinced me, I guess at some point I must have made some and when the kids used them it was the total lightbulb effect. To this day I am so delighted by this wool-mitts-miracle, that I have to document it every chance I get ("hold on kids, I gotta take a picture real quick"):

Crusted with ice and snow, yet dry and warm on the inside

And then they end up in a wet sheep smelling bundle on the bathroom floor until they are dry for the  next time!

The lightbulb-moment-mittens and fingerless gloves are a favorite gift for my kids. They are a fast knit (except when you go overboard and make something like this out of lace weight hand spun…)..

And a lot of times you can use that odd left over ball of yarn and still get a pretty result.

Or you can quickly spin that unique special yarn because finally your son really likes something that you make. 

I have some yarn requirements though, it has to be somewhat fuzzy yarn or they are just not right!

Anything else is optional, like the little loops that can be used to attach the mitts to a coat.

Neat.

 While I gladly give away most outgrown clothes, I have to keep the gloves and mittens. They all tell a story, you know, like the single one, whose brother got lost on the subway in NYC last spring.

 Then out of the blue it hit me the other day - I have a nine year old niece in Germany, who has to walk to school every single day for HALF AN HOUR…at least! She is freezing, suffering, crying, hurting from frost bite, because she has no wool mitts!! I got frantic, pulled out the stash, pulled out the left overs, nothing! Oh what to do? I'm thinking "fuzzy fuzzy" until I remember the generous amount of mohair samples from Kid Hollow Farm, one of my favorite Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival vendor.

I got to work and finished a first beautiful colorful oh-so-fuzzy bat, that just begs to be spun into mitten perfect fuzzy yarn!

Never mind that later the same day I found this very fuzzy loveliness in a basket in my bedroom!

 I'm going to have a really hard time to choose! All I know at this point is that there will be lovely and very fuzzy warm mittens soon!

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!