I plan to get back to work tomorrow but I’ve been completely focused on other things, including major cleaning and  reorganizing the house with the help of my daughter who is here from Texas and doing other family things. (We saw Riverdance in San Francisco last night–what a fabulous show!)  Christmas gifts to my kids and other family members included flash drives with labeled and organized photos. I have been busy scanning photos and then trying to keep them organized. I sometimes wonder if it’s only me (as a mom) who loves these photos so much. I don’t know if anyone else can really appreciate them.  I had to include a few of my favorites the 1992 photos that I scanned.

Chris, now 18, taking his first steps.

My mom, who died a year ago, helping Chris with his 1st birthday celebration.

Katie, now age 21, when she was about 4.

Katie with one of Matt’s (older son) cows at the fair.

My mom with Chris and Katie.

Milking.

Chris & tractor.

Katie is lining up dirt clods on the disc.

I just finished two twin size blankets using a customer’s natural colored yarn and her yarn that I dyed. This will be shipped tomorrow  along with the king-size blanket. I’ve had the heater on in my shop all day so that I can get these dry. I also finished a couple of v-shawls.

The blankets have the same warp. This one is woven with 2-ply light brown weft.

I didn’t have enough of the customer’s yarn for weft in the second blanket so I used some of mine. I took a chance on using 2 strands of singles yarn wound together on the pirn. Normally I wouldn’t try to wind 2 together using an end-feed shuttle, but in this case the yarns wound around each other and I didn’t have any trouble at all.  So this weft is one strand of light gray and one strand of dark gray yarn together. I think it gives a nice depth to the blanket.

I have one more custom order, a king size blanket in several colors, but it will wait until after Christmas. The last time I did that (last year) I broke my arm before I got the left-over weaving finished.

I’m making progress on the weaving orders but I’m not finished yet.  I need to get these in the mail by the middle of the week.

This is a king-sized blanket for a customer in Oregon. I don’t know what kind of sheep she raises, but the yarn is beautiful and the blanket is very soft. It measures 90 x 100″.  The only place I can spread a blanket this size to dry is the floor of the shop, so I have to plan my finishing around classes, open hours, etc. The shop is too cold right now and after leaving the blanket spread out overnight I needed to get it off the floor (partly because I’m teaching a chenille scarf class tomorrow).

The blanket is folded in half and hanging over the loom on which I’m weaving a v-shawl for a customer in Nevada. This customer has Jacob sheep and I’m using her mill-spun yarn and handspun yarn. The blanket below is for the same customer. The stripes are handspun.

Here is a detail from the king-sized blanket at the top of this post. This customer also wants two twin blankets and she wants some of the yarn dyed. Here is the yarn for the next warp.

The next two blankets are woven with singles Jacob yarn. These were in a previous post while still on the loom. They are for sale at the Artery right now and will be on my site shortly.

Many of you will probably be able to tell what this is since it is so large in the photo. But when I first found it on my sheep’s foot I wasn’t sure (need new glasses). Diamond, my oldest ewe, was walking slowly and not looking quite right.  When I took a good look at her I found this stuck on her foot just above her hoof. It was so tight that it was starting to dig into her skin and I had to break it to get it off.  Diamond is fine now.

We are in a record-setting cold spell. It’s predicted to be in the low 20’s tonight. As I was wrapping pipes and my husband was fixing the pipes that broke I caught this photo of Molly.

What is she watching?

OK, did you guess what the mystery item is? It’s the trimming from a donkey hoof. I don’t know when it got caught on Diamond’s foot but as it dried it shrunk and hardened.

Wednesday was Display Day at the Artery, the artists’ coop where I sell my handwoven pieces. We expand into the Gallery area for the month of December so all of us get a little more space for our items. Here is my area:

Those are all chenille scarves on the left, v-shawls in the middle and a couple of Jacob blankets on the wall.

This is my newest idea–pet leashes. Here is a close-up:

Now I’m working on custom weaving orders.

This blanket is for a customer in Nevada. The gray yarn is her Jacob spun at Yolo Wool Mill and the stripes is her handspun. This blanket will be finished tomorrow and next on the loom is a king size blanket for another customer.

I have weaving orders to finish in time for Christmas. I thought I would have plenty of time after the Crocker Show. Now I’m feeling a bit panicky. Before starting other people’s blankets I had to get my own blankets off the loom. Here are 2 of the 3 blankets as they were being woven.

This warp is Jacob singles at 12 epi. I have learned that if I’m using a relatively loosely spun singles for warp to wind 4-6 extra threads at the edges so that there will be extras when those edge warp threads break. Those extra threads hang off the sides and I pick up one of them when one of the threads at the selvedge weakens and breaks. This was more of a problem in the first blanket and I was ready to cut the warp off. I changed shuttles and the next two blankets went better. I love these 16-H twills. Here are close-ups:

There will be lots of fringe-twisting before I can wash these. That may have to wait, although I’d like to be able to get these blankets ready for sale this season.

The title implies that I dealt with the high winds that we had this weekend. I didn’t really spend much time in the wind. I was inside at the Art & Craft Holiday Fair sponsored by the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. I was surprised at the number of people that came through. Not as many sales as I’d hoped for, but it will be worth going back next year.

These are some of the v-shawls I had for sale.

You may recognize some of these scarves from previous blog entries. I meant to count the scarves. I think I ended up with over 50.

These are 3-D wire pieces that I liked.

And this is an example of another artist’s work that I liked. All his pictures have a time theme and are made from watch parts.

A friend visited me at the show on Saturday and look what she brought. This is a sheep from the WoolPets felt kit that I sell and she knit a scarf to go with it. I wonder if she used toothpicks for knitting needles!

So what was with the wind? It howled all weekend. We hadn’t had any significant damage from the other winds that we’ve had this fall. This wind took the top of the big tree in front of the house. Fortunately all that is damaged is a fence board.

This is upside-down and used to be…

…up there.

The tree is lopsided now–used to have 2 tops that looked like one.

I thought that maybe I would switch jobs and be a wildife photographer. Here are some photos I took in the pasture the other day. This marsh hawk (birder friend, Claire, tells me that it is a northern harrier, but marsh hawk is the name I remember) was flying around the pasture, would land, and then as I stealthily snuck up on him, would take flight again.

Same with the egret. The hawk is on the ground and the egret comes in for a landing.  I don’t have a very long lens so this is the best I can do before they take off again.

So I guess I’d better keep at the fiber business and just use wildlife photography as a side-line!

Some of this weeks scarves:

These first three have supplementary warp of various odds and ends.

More log cabin scarves:

These are the same except that one has a bleached white yarn and the other has an ivory yarn.

A friend and I did an impromptu dye session this week.

She dyed yarn and I dyed fiber.

We sheared on Saturday. I used a new shearer this year and he did a fabulous job. He was fast (70 + Jacobs shorn before noon) and the fleeces and the sheep look great.

I am grateful for all the help I had. Linda gathered up and bagged wool all day. Other friends weighed wool, answered questions from visitors, etc.

My son, Chris, made sure that the shearer didn’t run out of sheep.

We also sheared Colleen’s CVM-cross sheep (while she took care of my shop) and…

Diane’s goats. I have to admit they are stunning in full fleece.

These are Chris’ goats and don’t need to be shorn, but they never miss a chance to sneak some a meal.

I didn’t skirt nearly as many fleeces as I thought I would. We just barely kept up with the fleeces that people wanted to purchase. I missed my friend, Joan, who usually spends all day at the skirting table.  I think it might be worth switching shearing back to Sunday so she can be here!

Here is one fleece spread out.  People asked about how to tell a good fleece, which is better than another, etc. I honestly answered that I don’t have any sheep whose fleece I don’t like.

The sunny day certainly helped make shearing day pleasant and I’m sure the sheep appreciated the warm sun.

Take a look at this shorn lamb. There was some discussion earlier this year about tri-colored Jacob sheep (if such a thing exists). I didn’t know this lamb had those gray spots until she was shorn! I’ve never had another like this.

Here is another pretty lamb.

This is Violet, loading into her van. That’s a cooperative sheep! Violet lived here until about a month ago. She is a wonderful friendly ewe and I’m so glad that she has a great home now with two other Meridian sheep at Aimee’s place.

Rusty’s brother, Jake, came to visit at the end of the day. The dogs were not too happy about posing for a brotherly photo.

But they were going to make sure these lambs stayed put.

There are more shearing photos that can be accessed on Picassa by going to my website and clicking on the photo in the shearing article.

I’m trying to get my shop ready for Shearing Day on Saturday. I’ll be spending my time in the barn, but my friend will staff the shop and I need everything organized, labeled, etc. Here are new scarves.

This one is rayon chenille with a supplementary warp using a ribbon called Luna.

Same basic warp, but a different supplementary warp.

Here is another “left-overs” warp. The blues.

Another left-overs warp. This one is deep purple, but I can’t get that color on my screen. Maybe it will show up purple on your computer.

I carded some sample batts using the Ashford drum carder and the new Wild Carder. Lots of fun! I wish I had time to do more of this.

The top two batts are using fiber that I dyed for a Color Wheel class. Those will be fun to spin. The white batt is from Jacob wool–it is thick and soft. I have a new packer brush on the drum carder and it really lets you pack in the wool.

Last, but not least, is a pony from the Wool Pet pony kit. I love the look on his face. I am also needle felting a donkey, but she is not finished yet.