Coyotes

On Friday, Marc and I went out to do the morning feeding and discovered that a coyote had gotten into the main goat area and killed a silver buck. The coyote could not get it out of the fence, so it ate half of the goat right there among the rest of the goats and left what it did not want. We have had goats and sheep wandering the open area for 7 years and never had a problem. Since the buck, that was killed, is the one I was planning on using as a herd sire next year, I am especially sick. I am playing around with textures on my loom. I had mentioned finding Jane Patrick's book on ideas for weavers. This was my first experiment. Very time consuming to actually make a rug that way, but a very cool effect for a small project. This will probably be a small bag.

This is a variation on Brook's bouquet. I am half done weaving a scarf using this pattern. Yarn size makes a huge difference when you are weaving funky patterns.

Friday was spent putting all of the goats and sheep into pens. I was planning to put a lot of them in pens on Saturday for breeding, but all are now in pens after the coyote incident. The picture of the hole in the top photo is of one of the three holes that a coyote dug during Friday night. We do not think it actually got in, since this hole was the largest and nowhere near as large as the hole from the day before. We have gone around and reinforced all of the fences and the llamas and alpacas are now spending the night inside the area to keep predators out. I am letting the llamas and alpacas out during the day - as long as they come in willing at evening feeding.

The common goat area is very bleak looking with all of the animals penned up. I sheared five sheep this weekend who will be sent to the UA meat lab on the 12th of October. If anyone is interested in lamb/sheep, please let me know at jmarckathy@aol.com, 520-572-3758. There are too many animals in the pens, which I consider unhealthy, so I am scaling back.

I received a special order for spinning and creating something from Eskimo dog hair on Friday. The dog hair is a lot like llama in that it has a short under coat and guard hairs. There was only enough fiber to knit a scarf. It turned out rather nice and can be worn next to the skin, if the person is not sensitive. If you look closely, you can see that it is going to shed for a while.

Is Fall Here?

Marc has been planting pieces of our front yard organ pipe cactus in other places as the branches broke. The main plant died this summer, but we have lots of lovely one new ones. They only blossom for one day and I was lucky enough to catch this one as it opened.

I have been playing around with weaving techniques. This is similar rot the southwestern one that I am turning into a ruana. In an escape to Barnes and Nobles on Saturday evening, I found a book by Jane Patrick on weaving ideas. It is written for heddle looms, but can easily be adapted to what I am already doing on my Cranbrook Loom. The book is probably the most interesting one on weaving that I have come across. I can already envision take offs on her ideas.

These are the yarns that I spun last week. I was not as productive, since I had to shear a few animals and finish sorting the ones that went to Michele in Oregon.

I had to do some dyeing this weekend. I had run out of the moss green kid mohair that I love to throw into rovings. I have plenty of the green in the not so nice mohair!

Mounds and my "$500" ram were lured into a pen last evening. I hate restricting their movement, since I think it is healthier for them to be able to run around, but the ram was chasing all of the does who are in heat. It is too hot for that and I could see him injuring one of them. At 3 1.2 months old, he is bigger than they are. He will get weaned this Saturday, when I move his mother, the other Rambouillet and the Merinos to the far out pasture. All of the goats will be sorted for breeding, since the adult bucks are in rut. I am so glad that they do not smell like dairy bucks.

I mentioned Michele above and thought I would share with you what happened when the sheep and goats were delivered to her Saturday night. Only three goats had made it off the truck, when Michele fell and broke a few bones. She is seeing the orthopedist today and is likely to end up in a cast. It was an accident and not the animals' fault, but I feel really bad about it. She has not even been able to go out and check them out. Fortunately, the animals will be on pasture, so it will not be as much of an ordeal to feed them.

Marc is now in a panic about what we would do, if something happened to me. I don't have the luxury of a pasture, so I have to feed twice a day. And, as stupid as the animals have been this summer, they have to be checked on a few times a day to be sure that they have not gotten into trouble. If you know Michele and would like to drop her a line, please email me at jmarckathy@aol.com and I will send you her email address.

Progress

Our monsoon is almost over and it has been pitiful. They listed the rainfall totals for the different areas of Tucson and our area has received 1.5 inches, where other parts of Tucson have had 4 to 12 inches. Trees are losing branches and leaves and we just have to watch it happen. My friend, Holly, was here last week and I was joking with her about our lack of rainfall. I mentioned that there is always a blue patch of sky above the ranch while all around you can see nasty thunderclouds. As she was leaving, I looked up and there was our patch of blue, so I had to run back in and get the camera.

We have a flock of black birds hanging out to steal the dogs' food. I thought that this picture was rather cool. There were two birds on the float, but this was the better picture. I love the reflections in the water.

I finished the black, white and grey scarf!

I finished a felted bag..

and, I put the strap on a woven bag from the 15 yard warp. I have decided that Sundays are good for finishing projects, because I can run back tot he main house to use the sewing machine without worrying about leaving the shop unattended.

My most recent yarns spun over the past five days.

North Carolina and My Fiber Fix

I am playing catch up again. Marc and I went to visit Kristie and Abe in North Carolina for a few days in mid August. Notice the green grass! I visited one yarn shop (the other had gone out of business), but was not inspired. I did get a few ideas on things not to do! Abe has started law school at Duke and is hitting the books pretty hard. Kristie has 10 piano students now and is hoping for a few harp ones. She does have weddings lined up, so she will be busy.

I do have some green in my backyard. A tiny bird was perched on my basil polishing off the seeds.

I finally finished off my first pin weaving as a scarf. I ran out of yarn and would have had to do something free formy to make it longer. I felt like it was done, so I have photographed it.

I knitted up one of my freeform yarns while at Kristie's. I took the yarn to show my relatives in Rocky Mount and just got weird looks.They are traditionalists and did not get it at all. The southwest appears to be more open to abstract art.

I also began this scarf while on the return flight. I have spun up the rest of the yarn, so I will finish it this week.

I really missed spinning, so I made up for it by spinning 60.6 ounces (3.78 pounds) of yarn in the 8 days immediately after my return. The picture below is a different view of the same yarns.

I had to go to Urgent Care this morning to get my thumb checked out and they have referred me to an orthopedist. Too much stress on the thumb from turning water on and off out at the animals. I barely hold the roving/batts with my thumb, so the splint is not slowing me down. If it did, I would only wear it at night!

Moss Garden Shawl and shows

I finally wove in all of the ends and pushed the novelties to the outside on the moss garden shawl.

I did not block it, since the way it is knitted causes it to drape nicely regardless of which side you put at the neckline. I used about 700 yards of novelty yarn and none of it was an unembellished single. I really loved working with the color combination.

I used quite a few bead variations in addition to the texture. I took 30 close up photos, so I can remember the details. Not that I could ever repeat it! Will spend a week thinking about a anew colorway for the next one. 4 skeins is a lot!

I head out at 3 a.m. for North Carolina to visit my daughter, Kristie. I have two friends watching my shop and someone else watching the animals. It is a good thing that cell phones are so common nowadays. It relieves a lot of the stress, since I can call if I remember something or if they need help. I got tired just worrying about the animal details.

I got word today that I am in the Patagonia Fall Arts Festival. I am also doing the San Diego Festival over Thanksgiving, Tempe, AZ, the weekend after that, and hopefully the 4th Avenue Street Fair here in Tucson the weekend after that. And - November 6 is the Tucson Wool Festival here! I will post the dates on my website next week. Any classes that are normally scheduled will be cancelled, but the shop is likely to be open for spinners and felters.

I plan to attend the Stitches West as a vendor in mid February. That is not a juried show and I have talked to the organizers, so it is just a matter of sending in the contract - and a lot of money. Several Californians have suggested that I try an actual fiber show. I have been doing large street fairs. I will have a chance to see what others fiber artists are doing, as well as show off my own work. If you live near Stitches West and want to work for fiber or can put me and a friend up in exchange for fiber, let me know. I am looking forward to trying out new things!

Another week

Herd started barking in a weird manner last week. I went out to check and discovered a garter snake in their water area. I let the dogs have the run of the pool area until it moved out.

Last week I started out on a red kick and then switched to a blue purple. I am spinning the one at the center back and just pulled off a 525 skein. I am spinning all of it at the weight of the green crochet shawl and the current red one, so I will have batches of yarn to go with the patterns. I am going to spin the roving that is currently on the carder and take those same colors and add black (and I do mean black) Rambouillet. Tor dropped off his last bags of Rambouillet two weeks ago. He has just sold all of of his sheep, so only llama will be coming my way now.

The goats opened the gate on Friday and decided to take a stroll. I let them run around till I fed and they followed the wagon right back in. Three years ago, I would have had to chase them all down. Absynthe is in the center. Her daughter is to the right and has deformed ears, but I will keep her for her gorgeous fleece and not breed her unless someone comes looking for a pet. I am going to Kristie's next week and figured it would be nice to have a few shirts that were not t-shirts. Marc and I went to the mall on Saturday and I saw some lovely shirts. If the print or design were nice, the fabric felt horrible and vice versa. I came home and pulled out my patterns and then went digging into my fabric boxes (another stash.) I came across a lot of beautiful material that my mother and I had collected over the years. I know a lot more about drape now, so some of the material that I would have used for clothing years ago, was put back. I can't remember whether I bought this material 15 years ago for Kristie a dress or me a shirt, but the wild colors and the abstraction really appealed to me. I had to run to the store and buy black thread. While there, I glanced at fabric currently for sale and figured out that my material would now cost about $9.99 versus less than $2. I plan to dig in my stash for material for another shirt with a different style. After watching several seasons of Project Runway, I am a lot less afraid of taking a pattern and modifying it! The pattern for this shirt had a very wide neckline.

New design

I am tired of cleaning and reorganizing. This is my fiber room and it is stuffed. There is enough room to walk around the 3 racks in the middle of the room. All of this fiber is washed, some dyed and some carded into roving. If you are a spinner and want large batches of fiber, please email to set up an appointment. jmarckathy@aol.com

It seems like I always come up with a new shawl design when I am planning on visiting Kristie. She would never wear one, but I think of all of the time on the plane and how much I can get done. This one might be finished before I leave, since the design has been established, so it has become mindless. Of course, I could get bored and then have to take it to finish it. I was intrigued by a few patterns that I saw that seemed to have ripples in the design.

Some of the Shetland rams for sale. Only the ones with perfect horns get to be sold to breeders. I am no longer registering the Shetlands.

We have had awesome looking skies this month, but no rain. The clouds travel around us all of the time. I have told Marc that God is waiting for him to quit complaining. 50% chance of rain and we got a few sprinkles. I am so glad that we are on a well. Each of the animal areas have swimming pools and they are emptying them more than twice a day. They have automatic waterers, but the water in those does not stay as cool.