At the age of 30 shouldn’t this “it’s almost my birthday” excitement wear off?

Well…it hasn’t. My birthday is coming up in May and as usual I get very excited…I don’t really know why, we don’t have huge celebrations or gifts, but I just love birthdays.

In Sweet Sheep tradition I usually hold a sale. However, we just finished a sale. So, I will be holding a contest for a $31 gift certificate to the store!

Leave me a comment here by May 14th (my birthday!) and let me know what one of your favorite birthday memories are and I will enter you into the random drawing for the gift certificate! The winner will be drawn on May 17th.

And because no post is complete without a picture, here is a basket of my recent dyes gettting ready to go up into the shop!

Happy Monday!

So sorry for the blog silence last week. On Monday my grandmother passed away at the age of 91. I am so thankful that she lived a long life and passed without sickness or pain…I don’t think we could ask for much more than that! As always it was difficult to say goodbye, but I know in my heart that she is where she wants to be.

Knitting and life pretty much stopped last week, but I’m happy to say that this week there has been much knitting. Soon to include my first “Knit Though The Shop”  project.

While packing up all of your orders for the Bye Bye Winter sale, I once again fell in love with the Oceanwind Knits worsted weight and STOLE 4 skeins of the rainforest to make myself a Mara Shawl!

I am totally in love with this yarn…it was so hard to pick just one colourway…they are all fantastic!

If you want some make sure to grab it by Friday before the sale is over!

I’m planning on casting this shawl on soon. I was hoping to finish up the baby blankie first but I have decided to make it a bit longer than I anticipated and I seem to have a very short knitting attention span lately. I work on the blankie almost every night but the last few weeks have left me exhausted and going to bed very early and leaving my “early to bed” husband up watching TV by himself! Such a strange turn of schedules for us. I’m hoping that after the baby arrives (and we get through the first months) I will be able to stay up at least until 10 and resume even a few of my night hawlk habits which included hours of uninterrupted knitting!!

I am excited to be vending again this year at the DKC knitter’s frolic!

If you are going or in the area come see me on May 8th…I will be there all day! My booth is upstairs from the main room.

Looking forward to it!

Despite being blessed with a short winter this year I am more than happy to say Bye Bye to Winter, Hello Spring!!
The return of the sun has been such an inspiration that I have decided to have a Bye Bye Winter Sale!

The sale will run from Today April 6th to the 23rd and includes discounts on the following fantastic yarns/kits:
Fleece Artist Thrummed Mitt and Sock Kits
Malabrigo Worsted Wool
Ocean Wind Knits Worsted
Shelridge Farms DK and Worsted Weight
Dream in Color Classy!

Stock up on these fantastic yarns as they won’t be back until the fall with new stock!
Welcome to Spring, I hope you are looking forward to this summer as much as I am. I have new Summer knits on the needles and am anticipating our own summer baby addition to the Sweet Sheep Family!

Bye Bye Winter, see you next year!
xo
Michelle

Free Shipping is still valid during the sale!!

I realized a while ago that I have not knit with every yarn in the shop…tisk tisk…so I have taken on the grand task of knitting my way through the shop. While I admit I may take years to accomplish this task, I still would like to attempt it!

I will knit a skein from each category in the shop…possibly not in order (I’m quite fickle) but it will all be knit! What type of criteria or information would you like to know about the yarns?

This is a knowledge growing experiment so I would love to hear any feedback you have on what you want to know about how the yarns knit up!

It might take me a while to organize myself, but I will be picking a first project soon…could it be this beautiful skein??? There are so many to choose from…this may be harder than I thought!

Chris has been hard at work getting a room ready for our little girl’s arrival. Since we already had a pink room in the house (my office) we picked out a pretty lilac colour which actually looks  periwinkle in the evening. I adore the colour, and am thrilled to now have 2 rooms in the house painted in my favorite colours!

Now begins the rest of the long and fun list of getting ready for baby! Tomorrow is my 6 month mark…I just can’t believe it.

As a knitter, this doesn’t leave me much time for my grand plans! I dyed some Sweet Sheep Tight Twist in the Candied apricot colourway months ago when we first found out the I was pregnant. I thought that any child of mine would have at least one hand knit blankie to welcome them into the world.

The colour is a bit light on this photo, it was a very bright day (yay sun!)

I worked on the blankie all weekend and am just finishing up my first ball. I fully expect to knit almost 3 balls worth in length. I would really like to have this blankie for longer than the newborn stages.

The pattern is available on ravelry…I wasn’t able to find a non rav source. Basketweave Blanket

I have an almost finished sweater for the wee one and many big plans! I would love to do a few more blankies, but am hoping some of my knitter friends and family are blankie knitting/crocheting too. I don’t think I will get done more than one before she arrives, but I know she will be well loved with hand made goods.

Hope you all have beautiful sunny skies today!

xo

Michelle

The spinning has gone well! Before and after the chaos of Ryker’s emergency I was able to spin up and ply the Forlorn fiber.

I love to see full bobbins! As I mentioned in the first spinning post I split the 4 oz into 2 equal parts and spun them on 2 bobbins…here they are hanging out on my lazy kate waiting to be plied…and I can never wait too long to ply! It’s like knowing you have a big chocolate cake in the fridge…you just have to eat it or it will taunt you!

So ply I did!

I have a big fun plying bobbin on my lendrum which I ply EVERYTHING….the regular bobbins are just too small. I spin quite tight yarns so I almost always ply on the lowest ratio. This is probably one of my more relaxed plied skeins.  If I am plying something much bulkier I will move up a ratio just so I don’t over ply, but to be honest I usually control my plying with my treadling speed.

So here she is..Forlorn all finished! She’s a worsted/bulky weight yarn with 186 yards. All washed, set and ready to knit! Now just to find a pattern.

In the comments Kate asked:
If you were to pre-draft the fiber after pulling off the long skinny pieces, then that would give you thinner yarn, right?

Yes, if you pull off long skinny pieces pre drafting would help you spin thinner, but thicker pieces would still be thicker..for me anyways. I know lots of people that can spin laceweight from a thick sliver!
When you are working on a thin yarn the most important part of spinning it it your finger control and how much fiber you draft out.

Happy Spinny Monday!!

ETA: I just updated the Yellow Brick Road Stocking kits and noticed the Wicked Kits are low…I will dye more this week and they will be re stocked next week! Thanks so much for loving the kits!

and then I will get back to knit/spin/shop info.

Our planned/canceled trip was not only a vacay of opportunity, but also one last hurrah as a three some. Around July 22nd The Sweet Sheep family is growing!!

Meet our little sweetie at 16 weeks!

We are so excited to be expecting our first child!! I promise this won’t become a baby blog….a baby knits blog possibly as there are just so many cute patterns.

I am just barely into my 23rd week starting tomorrow and things are going along very well. Our last ultrasound revealed that She’s a girl! Good thing because we all know there is no lack of pink around here! However I am keeping in mind that until her daddy was born he was supposed to be a girl too

Anyways, we are very excited and have recently decided that our first family trip will be to Rhinebeck…we have to raise this baby right…first fiber festival at 3 months…it’s a good start!

Almost as soon as it was announced out trip was canceled.

On friday night my dog got into the fridge and helped himself to almost a week’s worth of groceries. This might sound like a familiar story to many of you, however, Ryker is a bit different. He came to us last year at the age of 3 with some serious seperation anxiety. We have spent the past year working with him and managed to progress him from being in a crate when we would go out to having the freedom of roaming the house. He was doing amazingly well, but for some reason had a relapse on Friday. Most of the time you can just wait for all the food to pass, but Ryker being a deep chested large dog is at serious risk of bloat. Bloat in large dogs can happen when a dog gorges or eats and drinks too soon after exercise…the stomach will expand causing it to flip over and trap all the gasses inside killing the dog if left untreated…Bloat doesn’t go away on it’s own. Ryker ate a deadly combination of pancake in saran wrap and lots of margerine causing a plug in his stomach…the gasses started to expand his stomach and caused the incoming and outgoing valves to swell and close off. When I arrived home on friday night he was in serious trouble. His stomach had expanded to over 400% larger than it’s normal size. He was knocking on death’s door.

An extremely fast race to the nearest 2 am emergency hospital resulted in a major surgery. Trip canceled! We are SO VERY lucky to still have him with us. I am grateful for the hours of research we did on his breed which enabled me to identify his emergency within seconds of seeing him…it saved his life…as did my wonderful car with a heck of a lot of get up and go!

Anyways, he is now home and slowly recovering

Lots of love, snuggles, a new padlock on the fridge and we should all be ok!

All three of us were going on the trip together, but I would much rather we all stay home than be one less in Florida.

After some very unfortunate felting accidents this winter, I am left with a few less handspun hats. I must admit, both losses were very upsetting. The first was a handspun merino/bamboo hat that I threw in the wash and had full intentions of hanging to dry…however when it came time to flip the laundry, I just threw everything into the dryer. The folding of the laundry revealed my horrible mistake. My second handspun hat death was a result of a poor BFL hat getting trapped in the hood of my sweater after a long cold walk. I didn’t notice it there when I pulled off my sweater and threw it into the laundry. I found it after the wash, but it was too late. For such a mild winter I sure did lose some good knitwear.

Both hats were mourned for a few months and then I decided that I could not keep resenting my store bought hats…I must make new handspun hats…out of SUPERWASH! The nothin but superwash fiber club has been great for increasing my superwash fiber stash.

Here is January’s selection. Superwash Corriedale in Forlorn.

I almost always split my tops in the same way ( I like routine!)

First I find the middle and rip the top in equal halves so that I know I will have the same amount of fiber on both bobbins. I put the second half aside and repeat the process on the first half so that I have workable lengths.

So in essence each top is ripped into 4 equal pieces before i break out my spinable lengths. Some people split their top the second time…some don’t. I like to because I don’t like working with pieces that are too long…especially with superwash i find that the longer pieces get stuck to my pants and i end up losing a lot of fiber…I don’t like fiber loss or walking around in fiber pants!

After I have pulled second half of the top into 2 pieces I then pull off spinable lengths and make a little fiber pile.

The width of the pieces are pulled of thicker for a bulkier yarn and thinner for a dk/sport yarn. I am looking for a pretty quick hat in a worsted/bulky weight so i pulled off some bigger pieces. If they are too big when i am spinning them I will split them again.

A little note on predrafting….I don’t do it *gasp* . Yes I know most people pre draft their fiber (for those who don’t spin pre drafting is pulling the fiber length wise to put some extra “air” in the fiber to help it spin more smoothly.) There are very few fibers that i will actually predraft (straight merino.) I just find that spinning directly from the top produces the smoothest yarn for me.

Off I head to put this fiber on my beloved lendrum (penelope!) Pictures and report of bobbin progress soon…I  should have a new hat just in time for spring….and might I mention a new WASHABLE hat…just in case!

Feel free to leave a question in the comments…I am by no means a master spinner but I will do my best to answer them!

Lots of exciting things have been going up in the shop! I am so thrilled so see so many of you excited about the Starry going up on tuesday!

Today I have a few things for you from my wheel and studio.

First up are some Art Yarns that I have spun. I really love spinning these yarns because each skein is so unique and really has a character of their own. I love to spin yarns with sparkle and flowers in them and knit them up into scarves for spring and fall wearing!

Here are a few of my most recent Art Yarns!

and some new spinning tops!

and certainly not to be forgotten are a few new skeins of Sweet Lace.

All of this updating has been fun and even inspired me to get back down in the dye room and work on some spring colours!

Updates as promised!

Today I have for you some Sweet Sheep Soft Spun

As well as a few skeins of Tight Twist

And of course the absolutely stunning Dream in Color Starry with real silver!

I am so thrilled with these colourways, just so rich and of course my inner magpie adores the sparkles!! The hard part is picking a favorite!

Over the rest of the week I will have some small odds and ends going up in the shop. Some Sweet Sheep lace, handspun art yarns and a few Sweet Sheep spinning fibers.

Any suggestions on what I might make with a skein of the Starry? I  am dying to cast something on!

I was so inspired this year by the Olympics. What an honour to be the hosting Country and to see and recognize places you have been that are now hosting the world!

Last night I was glued to the TV as I watched 2 amazing hockey teams battle for gold. What a game! Both teams deserved Gold for that performance…simply fantastic!

Alas, I did finished my knitting/ravolympic sweater. We had our ups and downs, but made it to the finish line a day early!

I spun the yarn from 1.5 lbs of Hello Yarn Falkland top. I absolutely (as you probably know) love handspun sweaters. This one will be perfect for the winter/spring transition that I firmly believe is at hand!

How did everyone else enjoy the Olympics….love it or glad it’s over?

Also, on a shop note, my appologies for not getting the stunning Dream in Color Starry up last week. I have been sick and am luckily just starting to pull out of it. Photos have been taken and it along with some Sweet Sheep sock yarns will be going up in the shop over the next two days!

Welcome March…I look forward to your start on spring!

March is sneaking up on me…quite quickly!

As always we will be doing our March Sweater Madness dash and this year have decided on a knit along instead of a race due to the olympics being so close.

So pick out your yarns and patterns and knit along with us over at the March Sweater Madness Blog. No rules, just knit a sweater in a month with some friends!

If you would like to participate with us and are not already an author on the blog just shoot me an email or leave a comment here and I will add you!

Now…to pick out my yarn!

My olympic sweater is growing!

The pace in which she is growing at however is not quite fast enough. I blame frogging!

After the first 3 days I realized that if i kept knitting at the current gauge I would run out of yarn…boo…so I frogged her back to the neck band…6 full inches and started over. I kind of fell out of love with her and gave up, but my second wind has come around and I am knitting full steam ahead in hopes to get as close to finished as possible (or run out of yarn).

I love handspun sweaters, but unless you have more than enough yarn it is always a juggling act. Note to self…buy more fiber next time!

How are your olympic projects moving along?