Labor Day Weekend is Behind Me & I'm Dyeing!

After a swim in the creek, a roll in the hay(field) is called for!

Yup, it's hard to believe Labor Day is behind us once again.  We had a great time with relatives from Grand Rapids, MI,  Lebanon, Dayton & Toledo OH and Pittsburgh, PA  all staying with us!  It could only have been better if my boys had been here from Lake Tahoe.  But its a long way from there to here.

Elaine

Saturday the weather was terribly hot, mid to upper 90's and humid.  We never even got out the volleyball net.  But eating and drinking and sitting in the shade were good options.  My brother also brought my niece and nephews' mini-bike and it was a popular item.  My aunt was a much more successful rider than her son, Matt.  He couldn't seem to stay on it!

Evening brought a battle of the sexes Cornhole tournament.  My neighbor Deb and I won 2 out of 3 against her husband Rick and Sam.  I am sure a re-match will be called for!

Sunday we spent a few hours up at the pond.  The zip line and diving board were a big hit with the kids (well adults too) and even Jack, my brother's yellow lab seemed to find the zip line fascinating.  He kept trying to retrieve it and getting wound up in the retrieval rope.  I don't know why I did not take pics!

Sunday evening the rain started.  We went from almost 100 degrees to a high of 60 on Monday.  It rained for about 48 hours straight and then we had an 8 hour reprieve before it started raining again Wednesday afternoon.  It has been cool and grey and very fall-like.  I'm just not ready for that yet!

On Monday, everyone had left for home by about noon and I was left with a very quiet house and lots of clean up and laundry.  I have to say I do not regret a minute of the time I get to spend with family.  We have been having everyone here for 13 years now on Labor Day.  Someone is always missing, but in general most of my family is here.  What wonderful memories.

So now with Labor Day over for another year, it is time to get ready for the next big event:  The Wool Gathering!  It is next weekend, the 17th and 18th.  I will be selling yarns, rovings, rugs and maybe some other hand made items.  But first, I have to get everything organized and ready to go.  I spent yesterday weighing out roving and packaging it into 2 oz bags and tagging them for sale.  I also got my yarn back from Morningstar Fiber Mill, just in time!  

The yarn is done up in 300 yard skeins, each about 3.75 oz.  I have a gorgeous chocolate brown and of course white.  It all needs to be washed and labeled and I will likely dye some of the white.  Behind the wheel is my 3-way swirl roving.  I took 2 years' fleece from Eclipse and dyed part of it teal and part lilac and left part natural, which is very light fawn.  I sent all 3 to Zeilinger's mill in Frankenmuth MI and they made a swirled roving from it.  It is very cool looking.  Next to that is a 50/50 blend roving of fawn alpaca and white wool from a breed of sheep called Blue-Faced Leicester.  I had that processed at Stonehedge Fiber Mill in MI.  I still have other rovings to weigh out and label and some dyeing to do.  I have dyed up 2 batches of yarn so far.

 I do not have large enough dye pots to do more than about 1 pound of yarn at a time.  Here are the 2  I have done so far.  They are drying on the towel warming rack my mom gave me for Christmas a couple years ago. I have never warmed a towel on it, but it has dried LOTS of yarn and roving.  I prefer to hang yarn outside, but this week's weather has not been conducive to that. 





Below is the purple yarn simmering in the dyebath on my stove.

In addition, I have been working away at the Spin-off and am almost done with that.  I finished the socks I was working on and currently have nothing on my knitting needles or on my looms!  But getting ready for next week's show is more than enough to keep me busy.

The alpacas are all fine.  Happy the weather is cooler, I am sure.  No new babies as of yet.  I don't really expect any for another 2 weeks, but ya never know.  

The chickens continue to amuse me.  They did just fine with the additional dogs this past weekend, although my cousin's pug really decided she had to catch one.  She was unsuccessful, but it was rather funny to watch her try to catch birds that were as big as she was.  One of our chickens, or maybe more than on,  who really knows? keeps presenting us with humongous double-yolked eggs.  They are so large they do not fit in the egg cartons. 

Hopefully I will have time to post next week.  Tari and I need to leave on Friday for the 3 hour drive to the Wool Gathering in time to check in and set up, so I will be loading the truck on Thursday after work.  I have to say I am really looking forward to this.  I have done a smaller fiber show (which is actually this weekend again in WV and I am not attending), but this one is pretty major.  I can't remember if I posted the link to it or not so here it is A Wool Gathering