White Stuff

Look what we woke up to this morning :-

It was 3 or 4 inches deep in most places.  This is the first snow we've had for two years, and Bailey's first ever snow.

Apparently, this morning all the alpacas were standing around looking rather bewildered.  I don't think they could work out where the grass had gone!  By later this afternoon it was melting, but in the meantime, Tammy had been and cleared some grass for them to eat.

All the alpacas are looking pretty dirty, but Babycham (in the centre next to Hope) is absolutely filthy.  She's supposed to be white!  The cockerel wasn't too happy about getting his feet wet either :-

What's On the Bobbins?

Or rather, who's on the bobbins at the moment.  I'm currently spinning some of Jorrocks' first fleece and  must admit I approached it with a little bit of trepidation.  Wouldn't you? This is what he normally looks like :-

But actually, his fleece was surprisingly low in vegetable matter.  Jorrocks is now 18 months old so has only had one shearing so far.  I expected to have a lot of work with this fleece - picking out grass and seeds, carding etc., but I'm spinning straight from the bin liner it's stored in.  Just grab a handful and spin.  Brilliant.  These photos don't really do him justice as far as showing softness is concerned, but they do show the different colours.

He has quite a range of shades in there, but is classed as a rose grey.

The yarn is turning out really soft and I'm looking forward to taking it off the bobbin - I'll probably Navajo ply it so I can use every scrap.

The other projects to show you are made from some hand-spun wool I won in this year's Tour de Fleece on Ravelry.  This was a mix of black alpaca/Gotland/Finn sheep which came from Australia - spun by Sharon (Shazzapug on Ravelry).  She also sent a skein of black alpaca/Icelandic, which is rather dense, but very soft.

Not long after I received it, I started knitting a shawl, the Lonely Tree Shawl.  It probably took a few weeks to knit, but then it sat in the bag for quite a while because it turned out a bit smaller than I'd anticipated and I planned to pull back the border and knit another pattern repeat.  Needless to say, it just sat in the bag, neglected, and the extra pattern never got done.  In the end, just before Christmas, I washed and blocked it and, hey presto, it stretched out to a size I was happy with.

I still had some of the yarn left, so made a hat for Eric for Christmas.

Here it is in progress, and I was really pleased with how it turned out.  We call it his "rasta hat", but really it's an Anemone Hat.  Here's the grumpy old man wearing it:-

He doesn't look too happy with his new hat, does he?  But actually, he really likes it - just keeps saying how heavy it is.  I think that's probably the alpaca/Icelandic wool, which is what I did the "tentacles" with.  It's also rather warm, but perfect for outside in the winter : he's just got to learn to take it off in the house!!

In the Greenhouse

Lots of green stuff to feed us over the winter :-

Lettuce, watercress, rocket, salad leaves, pak choi, oregano,

More lettuce, round carrots, baby leeks,

Yet more lettuce and pak choi,

and look who's taking care of things for me while I'm not there :-

Hope he manages to find plenty of bugs!

Winter at Last

OK, so today we got the real thing.  No messing about with light salt pot dustings, today we had snowballs falling out of the sky.

This was about 10 o'clock this morning, and it's continued snowing since then.

Look at the sky!  We don't often get them like this :-

A little bit later, and all my footprints had been filled in, the cat refuses to go outside, and the washing machine won't work because the water supply feeding it is frozen.  We have two log burners in full swing, so we're keeping warm inside.

So, now that we've had winter, can we have spring tomorrow please?


This afternoon has been given to spinning my mohair and silk - it's too cold to do anything else.  I'm having to wear a face mask while I'm spinning though because otherwise it gets up my nose and down my throat.  This is as far as I've got, it's taking a while.

It looks thicker here than it actually is (honestly!) but it's spinning up nicely with a lovely soft halo which doesn't show up on these photos of course.

Will it be too thick for that cardigan?  Probably a bit.  Am I giving up on it?  Not a chance, I'll adapt the pattern, and anyway, I've got a reputation to keep up :-

Christmas present from Katharine, I think it's a napkin, but I'm not sure!

Snow

It's snowing!!  OK, so maybe the photos below aren't that dramatic, but it is snow. Probably not even enough for a snowball , never mind a snowman.  But there's more due over the weekend.  And it's -4 deg C today.  Chilly!

That might look like just frost to you, but I saw it falling out of the sky - definitely snow.

Pathetic isn't it, getting excited about a vague dusting of snow at my age!

The borage picked a bad day to decide to flower :-

As for us, we're huddled in front of a log fire keeping warm (no central heating), especially as I started with a cold on Monday as we were travelling home.  Lots of hot toddies for me!! (plus the occasional sherry).