The Fiber Fair

Well we made it to the fiber fair, in spite of multiple issues and our van leaking fluids halfway there. It was a nice day though it was so windy I ended up putting alot of my things back in the van so that they wouldn't blow away. The vendors were great! So many and selling tons of great stuff! I forgot my wallet in the rush to get out of the house, so I didn't get shop as much as I would have liked but I did pick up a nice french doe. All in all in was a pretty good day, but I do have to say, Where were all the people?!? a great turn out of vendors and products, but fiber people? not very many, most of the people who stopped to talk to me were from right in town and had no real interst in fiber related things at all! They had just wanted to see what was going on. Did people just not know about the fair? Is the cost of gas the reason? I don't know but either way it would've been nice to have some more of the people that the fair was for actually show up. But on a lighter note, I have new spindles posted in my etsy shop, and new fiber will be up as soon as my camera batteries are done charging.

Beaded Headstalls

It has finaly stopped raining, I got some time in on my boy, the picture is of him last year, he's still a bit shaggy in spots now but he is starting to look good. I am working on hand beading a nice wide browband for his bridle because I just found out that we might be in a parade this year. I rode in it last year too but I ended up riding sunny instead of buddy because buddy is a bit of a fruit cake when it comes to crowds. So anyway I am making this beaded headstall, if it goes well I may be offering a few others on Etsy. I still haven't decided what other color to use, I am doing the black parts right now but by june he will have shed out to a not quite black bay color and I can't decide what color would really go well with that, if anyone has any color suggestions I would love to hear them, I need to buy him new ribbons for his mane also and I don't want to buy them until I figure out the perfect color. I was thinking maybe gold, or burgandy.... It's so hard i have tried every darkening shampoo and stuff on the market, he is just never going to be black!




Here is a picture of me on sonny last year, I did burgandy ribbons with him. Either way I am so excited about this summers riding possiblities, last year we tackled the water, at the beginning of summer bud was so scared of puddles he would do a dance as soon as you started to get close to one, and by the end of summer I actually had him swimming neck deep in the big river. This summer, well, there is a very large pasture full of unsuspecting cows and now that the last of the longhorns are safely in the freezer they are looking a lot less intimidating. Last year before the big pasture was finished we had to ride past the cows every day to get to the trails and buddy was so scared he almost tossed me a couple of times. Now we can ride into the cows with no issues, so I am thinking, how hard would it be to teach him to work the cows? Now, I really know nothing about teaching a horse to work cattle but it's just too tempting, I think that we could do it, the bull is the tamest of the group, none of them have horns, and I spent alot of time last year riding among them to get buddy over his fear that the cows were going to eat him. I am still doing research online but I think that this might be this years project.

Rain.... uck

All this rain is killing me, though I did have fun teaching my daughter to throw mud balls yesterday. We saw some of the neighborhood boys starting up a mudfight and just had to join in, though I was probably the only parent who was laughing about it. We had so much fun! I haven't had a mud fight since I was little! But it's been three days straight of on and off rain and while I should be geting things done around the house, I've done little but browse etsy and dye wool.... which has come to a temporary halt because it's too wet outside to dry it. On a better note my lilah b. is looking about ready to pluck, hopefully in the next few days and then maybe carmella will be ready before the marshfield fiber fest, call me greedy but I would really like to get the wool off of her before she goes.

Standing over the dyepot

I hvae been standing over a dyepot for the better part of two days now I've got a huge amount of roving, some corriedale cross, and an unknown but really nice wool that I have been using to perfect my color recipes. I am mostly working on getting that really awesome look with tons of different shades of the same color. I think my favorite is the moss green, though the salmon color is my 2nd favorite, it just doesn't have as many different shades. These two and many more will soon be available at my etsy shop and I am even considering selling some of my preblended dye (in powder form) so that you can do this at home. I've got a really nice purpleish color in the dyepot right now, it's more of a solid color though if it comes out how I want it to it will have a slightly darker shade in spots. The girls and I are having so much fun, we are even considering doing up a bit of angora, I just can't decide what color to do it!