jacob wool

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Shearing Day 2012

Posted by kenleighacres on November 19, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, shearing, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 6 Comments

We used a different shearer for shearing the sheep this year and I am really pleased!  He was fast (in fact, so fast I wasn’t able to take photos during shearing),  the sheep look great, and the fleeces look wonderful!

Mud Ranch’s Susannah

I love the stark contrast of black and white when the sheep are freshly shorn.

Precious

With the wool gone, you can really see the bellies on the girls.

Rolling Hills Veronica

When I checked on them last night, they all had dug little beds in the straw.

Kenleigh’s Azera

We were all happy to see the sun this morning.

Liberty is still among the biggest of the big out there and udders are starting to develop!

I can’t believe little Emeline is old enough to be having lambs of her own this coming year.  Such a sweet girl with great horns!

Huntsberger Venus

A few of the older girls weren’t sheared.  A couple are on the thinner side and they don’t need to use the extra energy staying warm.

Dolly is another one that wasn’t sheared.  Here she is with her new buddy, Banshee.  The ewe lambs were with the retired girls during breeding season and these two have been stuck together ever since!

The fleeces looked much cleaner this year when compared with last year’s.  Right off the top of my head, I don’t have an answer for this, but I am very happy 🙂

Here are a few of them…

Mud Ranch’s Hyacinth

Kenleigh’s Avalon

Kenleigh’s Canby

Timber’s Hallelujah

We couldn’t have done all that we did without the wonderful help from friends!  Toni and Nancy helped me skirt fleeces, Kelly grabbed/pushed/sweet talked the sheep into the chute for the shearer, my husband caught the sheep after they were shorn and trimmed feet and Bethany helped give them vaccinations.  A lot to do in just a couple of hours!  My hope is to go through the fleeces again and have the ones that will be for sale, listed on my website in the next week or two.

Jacob wool wins the Black Sheep Cup!

Posted by kenleighacres on June 28, 2012
Posted in: family, Farm Life, Felting, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 5 Comments

As I mentioned in the previous post, my Fiber Art’s entry did very well, but I think what I am most excited about is the fact that something made with Jacob wool won the Black Sheep Cup!  I love the versatility of Jacob fiber and I want to share it with everyone 🙂

I love that I got to share this moment with my husband, son, and numerous friends.

The Fiber Arts division was full of inspirational, beautiful pieces of art – here are some of the other entries…

Love the colors and textures in this woven piece.

These Pembrokes are so cute!

This sweater was made with Bluefaced Leicester yarn.

 

The colors and shading are beautifully done in this wall hanging.

The consistency in this yarn is amazing!

The size of this wall hanging and the details in the border were really something to see.

The pattern in this sweater is so intricate.

If I hadn’t seen this in person, I wouldn’t have believed it was needle felted and not drawn.

I love the facial expressions – so sweet.

This one is my favorite…

or maybe this one 😉

This is my son’s favorite.  He is so excited that it gets to live at our house for the next year.

Never in my wildest dreams, did I think that one day my name would be added to the plaque!

I am going to enjoy its presence every day it’s here.

Transformation of a fleece

Posted by kenleighacres on June 13, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Felting, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , . 34 Comments

Black Sheep Gathering is just around the corner…just 8 days away to be exact.  Each year, for the last 5 years, I have done a project for the Spinner’s Lead event.  I strive to come up with inspiration for the next year’s project fairly early on and let it mull around in my mind and then cram it into the couple of weeks before the event.  I really wanted to get away from the stress this creates, not to mention the fact that last year I ran out of time because my original plan didn’t work.

I started this year’s project a couple of months ago and the first step I had to take was deciding on who’s fleece I was going to use.

I decided to use two different fleeces –

Infiniti is one of my favorite girls and she has a lovely fleece.

I also used Hector’s fleece.  His lamb fleece was so soft!

After deciding on what fleeces I wanted to use, I had to wash them.

I separated the black from the white before washing the fleeces.  At this point I still didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, but I knew it was going to be some kind of jacket.

I started carding the white wool and decided that I wanted to add some color.  After carding the white, I dyed it various shades of green.

From there I carded the green with the dark charcoal.  I had input at this stage because I was really struggling with how to blend it, do I do stripes, half green/half charcoal, fully blended???

The final result was kind of a combination of all the possibilities.

After carding and carding and carding some more, I had 15 batts to work with.

At this point, I had a pattern picked out and had a rough idea of how much felt I would need to make for the jacket.  I laid the fiber out and created 4 pieces of felt that were approximately 30″ x 36″.  I wet felted it and did a lot of soapy, sudsy rolling.

I lucked out in the weather department and had a sunny afternoon to dry the felt sheets.

Next, it was up to my mom’s to make sure I was measuring and cutting and sewing it the right way.  I would have really been in trouble if I didn’t go up there because the jacket pattern I was using was one I had used previously several years ago and I left one of the pattern pieces up there.  By some miracle, she still had it and we are now calling her closet the ‘magic closet’ because we opened it and there was the pattern piece!

The jacket fit, but it didn’t really ‘fit’ the way I wanted it to.  It needed to shrink a little…why not felt it some more!  I wetted it back down and rolled it some more and it did exactly what I wanted it to.  Unfortunately, the collar area shrunk a little too much – oh no…what to do???  I had extra felt and thought…how hard can it be to add a collar?  Felt is so forgiving, so adding a collar wasn’t very difficult and I am much happier with the result.

Now to add the little touches to really finish it…

The celtic knot closures came from a local company that I have ordered from before.  Nicholas and Felice have beautiful jewelry pieces.  These were originally earrings, but I could see the potential of using them as a closure.

I can’t put into words, how happy I am that this is done well before it needed to be.  Now to finish everything else that needs to be done before the big event!

Dusting off my spinning wheel

Posted by kenleighacres on May 16, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, Spinning, whippet. Tagged: , , , , , . 3 Comments

It has been quite a while since I have sat at my spinning wheel and I had to dust it off – literally and figuratively 🙂

Just like riding a bike, it came right back and I was spinning away in no time at all.

I was excited to spin the roving I recently got back from being processed.

 Here are the large bags of roving – a little over 4 lbs. of each color!

I was curious to see how the different colors spun up.  I was delighted to find that all three colors were lovely to spin.

Dark brown/charcoal

White

Gray

I have small sample packs made up and available in my Etsy shop if you would like to try Jacob wool.

Always willing to lay in the sun, Paisley kept me company while I spun away.

I have now made a goal to spin once a week, no more dust on my spinning wheel!

Rainy day projects

Posted by kenleighacres on March 21, 2012
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , . 6 Comments

I have been singing ‘Rain, rain, go away…come again another day’ all day long, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Today is the first day of Spring, but it feels more like a good ol’ NW winter day…cold and gray.

Part of me would like to crawl into bed and stay there until the sun is shining again, but that really isn’t an option, so I am trying to keep myself busy with fun stuff – inside!

I set two fleeces aside for myself to work with and washing them sounded like fun.

Here is one of the fleeces…

Byeburn Hector is the donator.

Here is his fleece separated and washed.  I still have the mixed section, black/white, to wash.

Infiniti’s is the other fleece I washed.  Here is her mixed section…

and her black fiber in the sink.  I am starting to run out of places to dry them!

Another product from our sheep – horn buttons!  My husband cut a bunch for me and I sanded them, sprayed them, and drilled holes in them.

Here is another type.

He also cut some bigger pieces and I was experimenting with what I could do with them.  I’m sure someone who is good with wire could do something very cool, but it was fun!

 

I also started laying out my Black Sheep Gathering Fiber Art project.  This is my pile of goodies that I bought at the Spring Fiber Sale last weekend.  I don’t usually buy much at the fiber shows, but I had a list of colors I was looking for and I was delighted to see that Dicentra was there with her beautifully dyed Bluefaced Leicester roving.

I used some of her roving for the background of this wall hanging.

For my Black Sheep Gathering projects, I chose…

Maritime and…

Sienna.  These colors are vibrant and bright and different than outside today – just what I wanted 🙂

These poor little guys need some sunshine to play in, who knew the lambs born in January would have nicer weather than the guys born in March!  They seem quite happy to romp and play inside.

 

I think the chickens are starting to morph into ducks…they don’t even seek shelter from the rain anymore and I found them in the creek eating tadpoles and little snails.  True northwest chickens!

Shearing Day!

Posted by kenleighacres on December 6, 2011
Posted in: Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, shearing, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

What a weekend!  We had 43 sheep sheared, fleeces were skirted, fleece samples were taken from each fleece, sheep were vaccinated and wormed, lambing pens were cleaned, the sheep area had a fresh layer of straw put down, fleeces were put in my shop, and lots of fun was had!

I finally felt prepared enough to have an open invitation for shearing and I am so glad I did.  We got so much done!  Three great ladies and my husband helped with shearing on Saturday.  We rotated through the various jobs that needed done.

Here is Annette (all the way from California), Bethany, and Toni skirting a fleece.  Skirting a fleece means to remove all of the undesirable parts of the fleece before packaging it up for use or sale.  This can be done at shearing time or later and usually it is later, but it is so nice to have it done at shearing time.  Now I don’t have 40+ fleeces sitting there staring at me telling me that they need to be skirted!  I threw lots of terms at them and I did my best to answer all the questions.  They said they learned lots, I hope they were telling the truth 😉

The whole day was possible thanks to our shearer, Jenny.  She handles the sheep gently, the fleeces come off beautifully, and she has some pretty cool stories – I think that last statement is part of the job description.

As a whole, I am really pleased with this year’s batch of fleeces.

Here is a sample from one of the ewe lambs!  The length is about 4 1/2″ and so pretty!!!

Here is about 1/4 of the fleeces.  They are now piled in my shop and I desperately need some shelves in there to organize them!

I love the crisp, black and white look when they are freshly shorn.

With the bulky wool gone, you can really see the pregnant bellies!

 

Veronica is already looking big and she still has 6 weeks to go.  She is the one that had triplets last year, I wonder if she will have triplets again???

Chevelle still has her girly figure, but I am hoping there is a lamb hiding in there.  She hasn’t lambed for the last 2 years, but there is a hint of an udder developing.  We drew blood from her and a couple other girls and have sent it in for pregnancy testing.  Patience isn’t something I am really good at 😉  Keeping my fingers crossed they all come back as confirmed pregnant.   We should know on Friday!

Little Emeline is still cute as ever and losing her fleece made her horns look even bigger!

On Sunday another friend came over and we cleaned the lambing pens, creep area, spread straw, and spruced everything up.  We had a great time chatting as we worked away.  20 days and counting for the lambing to begin!

For those that are interested, fleeces will be added to my Local Harvest store in the next week or two.  Please send me an e-mail if you are looking for a particular type of jacob fleece…there are many to choose from!

Gearing Up!

Posted by kenleighacres on October 21, 2011
Posted in: Farm Life, Felt Scarf, Felting, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , . 10 Comments

I have been madly preparing for a couple shows coming up in November.  The first show is Fiber Mania in Grants Pass, November 12-13.  I am really excited about this one because my friend Joan from Mud Ranch is going to come up from California and share a booth with me.  The second event is a Handmade Holiday Sale in Eugene, November 26-27 at the Spencer Creek Grange.  This is the first time I have done any shows in November, I am trying really hard to stay ahead of schedule (instead of putting things off until the last minute) so I don’t feel overwhelmed with Christmas just around the corner.

Here is what I have been working on…

Felt Soaps – If you haven’t tried these, you need to!  It is your wash cloth and soap all in one.  Wool is an excellent exfoliant.  Your soap will last longer and you can reuse the wool scrubby when the soap is gone.  The scents I have done so far are – Lemongrass, Honey Almond, Lavender, and Jasmine.

Dyed Silk Scarves – I have been dyeing these silk chiffon scarves that will then be nuno felted.

Here is what the finished scarves will look like.  The wool is felted through the silk resulting in a very lightweight scarf.

Awhile ago I sent a LOT of wool off to Zeilinger to have processed into Batts.  The Batts are VERY large, so I have been sorting them into smaller, 4 oz. batts.  I have approximately 20 of this dark gray and…

20 lilac packaged.

I haven’t started on them yet…but I have a lot of bag ideas circling around inside my head 😉

and last, but certainly not least…are all of the little felt sheep that are occupying my office!

We have the natural colored crew – all made with wool from jacob sheep.

The colored crew – made with wool from jacob sheep and wool from a friend’s border leicester and a little bit of dye.

and the ones that wanted to be a little special.

A little scarf to keep them warm this winter 🙂

Please come say ‘hi’ if you happen to be at either of these events!

Tour de Fleece and favorites!

Posted by kenleighacres on July 9, 2010
Posted in: Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Spinning. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 Comments

At the end of June, I made the goal to spin some yarn this summer.  My handspun jacob yarn is almost gone and I was thinking about buying some at Black Sheep Gathering and that just seemed silly, so it inspired me to spin some of the wool I have here at home!  After I made this goal, I read about the Tour de Fleece on Punkin’s Patch’s blog.

Here is a simplified description from Ravelry:  The Tour de Fleece is a spin-along during the Tour de France – July 3rd through July 25th.  The concept is simple – they spin, we spin.  A real spinning themed spin-along.

Sara at Punkin’s Patch started a group through Ravelry called ‘My Favorite Sheep’ and here are the guidelines –

This TDF group is open to anyone who has a favorite sheep, wishes they had a favorite sheep or didn’t even know you could have a favorite sheep. While we’d prefer your Tour de Fleece challenge is spinning wool, we’ll still let you join in if your challenge involves spinning other fibers…but might make you sing a silly sheep song to prove you are worthy of ‘sociating with Miss Ewenice and her Punkin’s Patch friends at Equinox Farm ;-).

Your challenge should be a true personal challenge of any level and anyone completing their challenge will be entered in a drawing for a special needle felted Miss Ewenice sheep at the end of the tour.

Enjoy the ride!

Great motivation!!!  I love her felted sheep and Miss Ewenice is so cute…

look at her all dressed up 🙂

I definitely have some favorite sheep and a LOT of wool to spin up.

Here are some pictures of both…

Progress!

It is so hard to say which one of my sheep is ‘my favorite’, but Infiniti is high up on that list.  She loves to be scratched and is so sweet.  She out did herself this year by producing one of the prettiest lambs ever 🙂

Lulu is another favorite.  She may not conform to the breed standard as well as she should, but her sweet demeanor and excellent mothering skills has earned her a permanent place in the flock.

Chevelle was born a few years ago when we used car names as a naming theme.  She was one of my favorite lambs and was given the name of one of my favorite cars – having a fast, muscle car would be so much fun 🙂

This yarn is from the following roving.

It is a lamb fleece from a daughter of Wrangler.  It is delightful to spin and such a pretty color!

Here is what I have accomplished so far – it is amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.  There is a little over 12 ounces, 2-ply yarn in charcoal, lilac/white blended, dark gray, and a yarn I am calling lumpy, bumpy, and chunky in light gray and dark gray.  My personal challenge was to spin every day and I am happy to say that I have done just that! 

Last but not least – one of my original favorites, Holly.  Such a good girl.  She isn’t pushy, stands patiently at her spot at the feeder (an uncommon thing in our flock), great mom, beautiful fleece, and loves to share quiet moments having her ears scratched.

Next on the spinning wheel is Wrangler’s fleece from this year – a favorite to spin!

Puppies, a colt, and a cat

Posted by kenleighacres on May 19, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Felting, Jacob Sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 6 Comments

Our neighbor recently invited us to her house to play with her Aussie puppies and new colt – who could resist an invitation like that???  They were all born within a couple days of each other and are 6 weeks old.

My son was in heaven.  He LOVES dogs.  ALL dogs.  No matter what the breed.  Just in the last couple of days he has wanted a Husky, a Boxer, a Saint Bernard, a Border Collie, and now an Australian Shepherd 😉

They all clamored for his attention…

but this mellow guy was his favorite.  I couldn’t believe how laid back he was.  He didn’t care how he was sitting on his lap, just as long as he was the chosen puppy!

This puppy was a little shy, but very sweet.  He is making me tired!

The puppies started to nod off and we made our way to the barn where the colt was.

Such a handsome guy! 

He is a big boy for 6 weeks old and my son was a little intimidated.  The puppies were definitely more his style, but he soon realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. 

and look… Whiskers is finished!

He did such a great job and is very proud of his cat.  This is going to be his Black Sheep Gathering spinner’s lead entry and he can’t wait to carry Whiskers around while he is walking his lamb Precious 🙂  Whiskers is made completely out of our Jacob wool.

A Felting Challenge!

Posted by kenleighacres on January 11, 2010
Posted in: Felting. Tagged: , , , , . 13 Comments
If you follow my Studio blog, then this will be a little repetitive. 

I don’t believe you should ever stop learning new crafts, so I have entered a felting challenge over at – My life under the bus – The premise of the challenge is to make something based on the Felt Wee Folk book by Salley Mavor.  It does include felting, but I am not familiar with making the adorable fairies and dolls.  I have an idea in my head and I hope it translates well!  I will post pictures once the challenge is finished.

 This inspired me to do a Felting Challenge of my own.  No previous felting experience needed – I will even provide the materials!!!  I have been tossing around the idea of a felting kit in my head and I have decided on my little felted sheep. 

  

They are so fun to make and easy for beginners.

 Here is how it works:

 1.  You must have commented here or are a follower on my Studio blog – if you don’t fall under either category and really want to participate then please leave me a comment.

 2.  Leave a comment saying that you would like to participate.  I will contact you and find out where to send your felting kit. 

Once you have entered, this is what you will get –

A piece of felting foam, 2 felting needles, 2 colors of Jacob wool, 2 beads for eyes, yarn, and instructions.  You will need a little bit of glue and a yarn needle.

 3.  Send me a picture of your completed item – everyone will be starting with the same project, but they will be judged on creativity.  You can photograph your sheep with a prop or at a fun location, add an accessory, turn it into something else – a hanging ornament, a mobile, etc., let your imagination go wild!!!

 4.  The contest will end February 5th at noon – please have your picture to me by then.

 5.  I will post the pictures on both of my blogs on the 6th and they will be judged by the people 🙂  I will close judging on Sunday, the 10th at noon and announce the winner.

 6.  The winner will recieve one of my Fabric and Felt totes with colorful wool inside!

   Good Luck!