I've just posted a picture of a scarf I hand painted last summer.  It is 100% silk and the process I used was very simple.  You do have to use special paints made just for silk.  Otherwise its a snap.  Wet the scarf, paint and let it sit covered with plastic wrap for 24 hours.  When you take it out you will be very surprised at how the paint has spread and made your wonderful 'picture'. 

 This one I named 'waterlilies' and its the first one I did.  I have another one not finished but will post the picture at a later date.

This one below a friend did and I remembered to take a picture while she was doing it.  The pic on the left is right after she finished.  It is still wet and in the tub with the plastic wrap covering the top.  After it set for 24-hours, it was rinsed in cold water, hung to semi-dry, then ironed to get the silky shine back into the fabric.  I think hers turned out just beautiful!

Her colors were so much more vivid than mine and she used a little more paint.  I think I am going to try that the next time I paint one. 

 My New Year's resolution for 2014 is to weave more.  This is such a pleasurable experience for me!  I guess that's why it just might work, rather than trying to diet or exercise more which I always fail at.

This is another scarf like the red one I did for my niece for Christmas.  It is a rayon yarn, slightly nubby that was on sale at my favorite yarn and fiber store, Paradise Fibers in Spokane WA.  Very aptly named I must say.

I started purchasing this yarn (on sale) sometime last fall, it is now nearly sold out much to my dismay.  I love the feel, the look, how it works in my loom.  Its so soft, so vivid and the drape is just beautiful.

I hope this one turns out as well as the red one as I'm making it for my daughter.  She picked out the colors and we talked about the structure and pattern.  I tried working a twill pattern but it makes it a little too dense, and the color showing was mainly the weft, which in this case is the stone color. So that was all pulled out and a simple plain weave is being used instead.  It will be a little larger in width but not quite as long and the red one.

I have so many ideas in my head for new things to weave.  And I have so much yarn with which to weave.  Some is hand spun, some is purchased yarn.  Its nice to combine them in a project just to see how it will look.

Stay tuned for more pix!

Here's Jet with her human mom (my niece).  She just got her first bath at our house.  The breeder was kind enough to give her a bath just prior to us picking her up in December.  I didn't think she was dirty yet, but apparently her momma did.

They have so much fun together.  They both love playing in the snow, chasing each other around in our fenced yard, which is around 2-1/2 acres around the house.  I am not fast enough to catch her so she stays on her leash when I have her outside.  She is so sweet, so funny, so attentive to us.  What a wonderful little dog.

The class for agility trials begins in February and they are both perfect to start then.  These dogs are the ones you see on TV running, jumping, running through the tunnels, over the bridge-type structures in the arena.  My niece loves to run so she will be much more able than I to help Jet learn her paces.

They are both such good girls and really deserve each other.

Its almost New Years, less than four hours to go until 2014.  I for one, am glad.  Usually I get very sentimental and thoughtful when I think about the year gone by, but not this year.  It has been a very good year in some regard, but in others I am saddened by so many angry, hurtful and non-believing people.  This life is hard at times and if you don't have faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you have nothing.  Only faith in yourself and that's a pretty poor comparison.

We've got just about everything we need in this world, He has blessed us so richly.  We are not fancy and we drive older cars with lots of miles on them, but they run well, are pretty good on gas and when we need to we have a wonderful mechanic that is able to fix them without charging an arm and a leg.

Our house is comfortable, our fire is warm, our fields are fenced and our animals are all loveable and fat!  Just like us.  Loveable and fat.  One more little cupcake after dinner tonight and I won't be fitting into my sweat pants any more.

My one resolution for this coming year is to weave more.  I always feel guilty weaving.  I guess because I enjoy it so much.  And the rest of my 'work' is left undone and I don't even care any more.  So weaving it is.  I'm hopeful I can have a few more pictures to post.

Our little puppy is so adorable.  She just found her voice tonight.  So far she hasn't barked at all.  Now all of a sudden she is a big girl like the other dogs (except one of them is a boy!).  She's still tiny compared to them but I know one day she will hold her own in a game of chase or ball or whatever they decide is fun for the moment.

So I say to all of you, Happy New Year friends and family.  May this next year be a blessing to you and your faith in Him becomes stronger.  God bless you all and Welcome 2014.

And guess what?  Its only 359 days until Christmas.

Christmas has again come and gone.  We had a wonderful, quiet Christmas and celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I waited until the day before to do my Christmas shopping.  Things just got away from me this year.  We had a Christmas before my niece left on her trip so spend a lot of time getting ready for that.  I gave her the red scarf I made, which she loved.  It really looked pretty on her.

And ... we have a new addition to our household.  A four-month old American Shepherd puppy that she has named Jet.  This is the most gentle and quiet little pup I've seen in a long time.  She will be able to train for the agility trials they are so famous for.  Much like the Aussie shepherds but she is black and white, and looks more like a border collie without the wide head.  So cute!  Here's a picture of her, jingle bells and all on her feet and neck.  Not sure she likes it as much as we do.

We've had some beautiful sunsets in the past, but this one tonight was just awesome.  Merry Christmas everyone, may the Lord bless you and keep you in the coming year.  God bless you.

I just heard the most beautiful song.  Here is is for you.  Merry Christmas everyone.  May God bless you and may this video be a blessing for us all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E-9Z8sFyRs

I finally finished the alpaca yarn for my sister's friend.  It turned out so soft and has a nice hand to it.  It was put in the mail and shipped to her last week or so.  According to her, it did match the original yarn (thank goodness!) so now she can finish her sweater.

She promised to send me a picture of it when its finished.  I bet it will be just beautiful!

No description needed of this picture.  Notice the minus sign in front of the outside temp of -3°.  Boy that hurts.  The wind blew for several days very hard, 25-35 mph and with the temps below 0.  You sure didn't want to spend much time outside.  Even our goats and chickens declined to step foot out of their pens.

It was so cold and windy one night we put on our head lamps, big coats and boots and hiked up to the goat pen to close them in for the night.  Usually their door is open and they can come and go as they please.

We did hang a curtain of large, heavy plastic strips to shield them from the rain and snow when they are inside.  I know you have seen those things in grocery stores and loading areas, where the strips keep the outside cold from the interior of the store.

Farmers and stock men use them to keep their hay dry or keep the animals free from drafts.  They work great!

Bella loves sleeping in the house.  Actually she loves sleeping on MY bed.  Day or night, that's where you can find her if I'm not careful.  I have to sleep with my window open and the ceiling fan going all night because she gets too hot and starts to pant.  When she does that I wake up, she pants so hard.  

But she's a sweetie and I guess she's guarding me.  Every step I take she is right there.  If I go out the door, she's in front of me every step of the way.  Nice, but hard walkin'.

Christmas is only ten days away now and I'm just starting my shopping.  For some reason it just got away from me this year.  I cannot understand how we could have one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

I probably won't be posting until next year (lol) so everyone have a wonderful and Merry Christmas remembering the real reason for the event of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He's coming back very soon now and we will be joined with Him forever.

Merry Christmas everyone.

 I'm nearly finished blending and spinning more yarn for a friend.  Here are three beautiful, natural colors of alpaca from our herd.  The white is from Diego, the black is from our little Oso and the brown is from a sweet boy named Coop.

After sending the raw fiber to the mill for washing and cleaning, they do another service for me and make it into roving.  Roving is so easy to use for just about anything.  You can see from the brown roving it comes in a long thin strip rolled into the rolls like the white and black are still in.

After deciding on the colors, the roving is placed in the carder.  It goes under the small cylinder on the left and as the handle goes around to make the large cylinder turn, is fed in between the two cylinders.  It stays on the large cylinder due to tiny little 1/4" teeth and can be in any order of colors of you choosing.

Even though these colors seem very different, the carder makes them seamlessly blended into a pleasing  tweed, heather or however you want your yarn to look.  What I am making is called a 'batt'.




Here is the alpaca batt being taken off the carder by pulling it in the opposite direction it went on.  The batt will then be divided by pulling into long strips with lots of variation, spun into singles and in this case spun a second time or plyed together for a stronger 2-ply yarn.  I will post a picture of the finished yarn later when I have it all completed.

It just seems magical (to me) how beautiful it turns out.  I personally love a textured yarn, one that can be woven with the interest in the yarn itself rather than a patterned weave.  The white scarf I showed a couple months ago was a plain weave but the yarn was so interesting it won First Place at our north Idaho Fair. 

Here's our little boy Egypt, with GE standing behind him.  They were out in the herb garden eating weeds.  We named him Egypt because he has such an exotic looking face.  He has the most awesome nearly white cashmere fiber.  I can't wait to comb him this spring and harvest some of it.  You can only get about four ounces of fiber from each little goat, no wonder it is so expensive.

They have had the run of the property for several weeks now.  They are loving it and so are we.  They have successfully weeded nearly two acres!  Next summer when they are bigger we will be taking them over to the pasture to do some weeding over there.

Yesterday the wind starting blowing -- hard!  We lit a fire in the wood stove, made our dinner early, got enough water ready for emergency use and were all ready when our power went out about 7pm.  Boy, it is dark!  My daughter got out our Crank-A-Watt hand cranked generator and we had one light plus the ability to charge our cell phones, iPads or whatever else we might want.  Mostly we sat and talked or read.  It so nice, quiet and peaceful.  The house was warm, all the cats and dogs were inside, and chickens were in their new coop and the little goats had been fed and were in their shed for the night.

It was sure cold outside though.  The wind blew so hard it blew the roof off the old chicken coop out in the garden where we had had the chickens all summer.  We had just moved the chickens to the larger coop a couple days ago.  Just in time!

We still have a little work left outside to do, but on a much warmer and less-windy day than today.  So glad we got most of it done last weekend.

 I love Idaho.  Every morning and afternoon when we take my niece to or from school we pass by this beautiful herd of bison grazing on the left-over grasses from this summer.  They are raised by a large ranch at the bottom of this hill, just on the other side of where they're grazing.

They are so beautiful and majestic looking. Sometimes they are much closer to the unseen fence and we get a closer look at them.  Since this is on Hwy 41 its hard to stop and take a picture, but this is a pretty good one.

We not only see bison (or buffalo) but deer just walking along in the woods next to the hwy, and twice already this fall we've seen bull moose.  The last time he was a large moose, he ran out of the woods to my right and slowly walked to the middle of the hwy.  There he stood for several minutes, looking majestic and very uninterested in moving.  I stopped (of course!) a ways back as did the car coming the other way.  These are so large you can actually see underneath them up the hill.  After a few minutes, he slowly walked to the other side and disappeared into the woods.  Wow.  Beautiful!

Idaho has the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises.  This was taken last week in the late afternoon but through our car window unfortunately.  By the time we are in the midst of winter, we will be dark by 3:45 pm, and it doesn't get daylight until after 7 am.

With all that darkness, our chickens usually stop laying, nothing grows that needs to be tended and our temps stay between 0° and 30°.  But we love it.  A nice warm wood stove fire, homemade soup and bread ... what could be more comfy and homey.

Like I always say, C'mon up for a visit.  Any season is beautiful and unique.  Spring can be a little cold, wet and long, but fresh with rain and smells sooooo good, green from melting snow and in general a very pleasurable experience.

The picture at the top of the blog shows my kitty River in her full grown coat.  She was so miserable no matter how much I brushed her.  Last week we took her to our wonderful vet in Newport WA and had her coat shaved.  They always leave her lower legs, face and tip of her tail in the long fur.  So far she hasn't complained about being cold, but this picture shows her laying on my bed in the sun where she remains for hours and hours.

Usually I feel sorry for her and will cover her with the purple 'woobie' as we call the furry throws we all love.

She does go outside if the afternoon temps are fairly decent.  She stays very close to home, sometimes not even leaving the front porch or the back field if I'm out there working.

The last couple weeks we have been letting our goats out to roam the house property.  They are the most dedicated weed eaters.  They do eat some of my plants but so far haven't done any damage except to our newly stacked wood in the carport.  They love jumping on top and running back and forth on it.

If that's all they do I will be very happy.  About 2pm they decide its time to go home and will stand at the back door and cry.  Then I go out, get their feed bowls and they follow me back up to their little pen.  They eat, get ginger snap or unfrosted animal cookies and are ready for bed.

What a life!

Here we are in the middle of September already.  We've been busy the last couple weeks trying to get things ready for winter.  We got all the hay in last month or so, daughter cleaned up the carport and has been putting summer type things in the sheds for dry safe keeping.  We will not be using them until next summer.

Now that she has most everything put away we will begin bringing in our wood supply.  We've got two cord out in the field next to our house that's been there since early this spring.  It was already dried but this summer was so warm it will be dry and perfect for winter burning.  With our wonderful forced air furnace the house is usually warm enough, unless we have a power outage, or it is windy.  Then that wood stove sure feels good.  Its mostly just a safety measure these days but every once in a while its nice to feel that wood heat on my backside.

Its been so hot the chickens actually stopped laying for a few weeks.  Since the weather has cooled from the 90's down to the 60's and 70's they have started back up again.  Good thing for them!  I was about to start eating them.  We've been oiling their eggs for storage.  The claim is they are storeable for around a year or more.  We shall see.  Haven't tried one yet and its been only around two months.  But since they are 'fresh' eggs (not store bought) and still have the bloom on them they should be pretty good.

I've just started blending some more fiber for my sister's friend.  She gave her friend some alpaca yarn quite a while ago.  But the friend ran out so I'm trying my best to blend and spin this to match the old yarn.  Sure hope it comes out right.  I found a picture of the old blended fiber but not the yarn itself.  Darn.

My fiber area is always pretty messy, but I love it.  There's always something fun and interesting to do or going on.  And I know just where everything is.

Here's Bella trying to help me.  She (and all the animals) love the smell of the fiber.  Its all been washed and cleaned so I don't know what there is that's so interesting.

The baby blanket I had been weaving for my niece was a hit with her.  Here's a picture of it that I didn't want to post until after her baby shower.  It was fun and went fairly fast.  Now I'm ready to start another project as soon as I get this yarn spun up.












Almost forgot, I have been making goat cheese.  Just finished the third batch this week.  The first two were a firmer cheese by letting it hang longer.  This one only hung around four hours and is the consistency of cream cheese, just a tiny bit firmer.  We eat it with crackers, on toast ... any way we can get it.  It is really delicious!

The first one hung for 24 hours, the second one about 20 hours, both by mistake.  I just looked at the clock wrong the first time and forgot about it the second time.  But they all turned out very tasty.

I don't use rennet or any additives except spices.  I did learn not to salt it until I poured off the whey though.  First two times all the salt went out with the whey and the cheese still needed more salt.  The whey is very nutritious, the dogs and chickens love it.  We haven't tried it with the kitties or goats yet.  I have a friend who uses it in baking but I'm going to have to find a good recipe.  It actually tastes pretty good just by itself, surprisingly.

May G-d bless Israel.  This was too beautiful not to share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DyBToUaon2w

This is the IDF Chief Cantor and IDF soldiers singing the prayer "Unetanneh Tokef".  I don't know exactly what that means in Hebrew but since this is the Yom Kippur weekend I know it is about that.  Enjoy whether you are Jewish or not.

We found a new friend!  This little frog was hiding in an old tarp we were going to use to cover up the hay in the truck until we could unload the hay.  We have several of these frog or toads around on the farm.  We used to have one that was about as big as your hand, but haven't seen him in quite a while.

Dexter did find one one night while we were parking the car.  He was carrying it around in his mouth.  Ugh!  I'd think they wouldn't taste very good.  He dropped it but I think it may have been hurt, Dexter isn't very careful sometimes.

But we have several little ones up at the pool.  Sometimes in the pool.  Maybe its a 'she'?

This week we made some goat cookies for our new babies.  They are still awfully shy and don't want us to touch them yet.  That will have
to change soon if we are going to be able to comb out the cashmere when they start to shed their fiber in the spring.  They have to be able to stand and let us comb them, sometimes for quite a while. 

The other cashmeres we had were too friendly and would overwhelm me when I went into their pen.  They were very jealous and wanted to be the only one who got any attention.  These guys don't seem quite so needy but they are starting to eat out of our hands, that is if we have the right treats for them.

Animal crackers seem to be the favorite, so far.

Remember that picture I took of them in the pen right after we got them?  All green and tall, lush grass?  Well, check out the pen now.  It sure doesn't take them long to learn to like that grass.

They have eaten this down practically to the dirt in some places.  Fortunately, we are supposed to be getting around 4-5 days of rain this week.  I hope it greens up a little, at least.

These guys are so funny, they love chasing each other around in the pen, jumping up on or over the upside down wash tub I sit on when I'm out there.

And the picture at the very top of the blog was Smoky getting too nosy about my camera when I was feeding him this morning.  Ha!