Happy Labor Day…..Sept. 5, 2004

Labor Day Weekend has been a weekend of labor. The kitchen is progressing……slowly, but steadily. The new sheetrock is up, the cabinets are here (stored in the barn) and the ceiling has been patched. Reonovating an 1800 farm house is a challenge. The windows over the sink are not what I would love to have in this old house, but given everything else that we have to replace……they are ok. The rest of the kitchen windows fit more in the time period of the house. As you can see from the pictures, I have had the fun job of shopping for paint colors, tiles and floors and my DH……..well, a picture says a thousand words..LOL. Gotta love those legs!!!!! Ken has been a good sport. He is doing the bulk of the hard work and I get to do the fun finish work.

While my DH was laboring in the kitchen, I was out in the barn working. I am on time for my September shearings in the bunny barn. First on the list was Mr. Peter Hoppit. I have always thought that Peter was a fawn rabbit with rufus. He exhibits the usual agouti patterning, as you can see from the picture. What you don’t see in this picture is the strange coloring. He has rings of 3 colors, which is most unusual. In this next picture, you can see a hint of grey as the first band, the second band being a creamy fawn color and the third band is a darker, rufus fawn color. Have any of you angora folks seen this before? I am not sure if he is a incorrectly marked fawn, a very poorly marked chestnut (I don’t think this is the case) or a copper without the correct amount of extension. Very unusual, but that fiber is going to make a yummy heathered yarn. I am saving it to be spun separately instead of blending it with merino.

Next on the list was Peter’s mother, Irina. Irina is from the new German Import lines and I am so pleased with her. She was long overdue for a haircut this time as she had had a litter and it threw her off of her shearing schedule. She was somewhat matted from having babies who enjoyed climbing on her back. However, even with the loss of that fiber, she still gave me a good 8 oz of fiber. That with the unusable fiber weighted out to almost 15 oz!!!! These new German Imports are simply amazing in what they are capable of producing. Next week will see me dyeing all of this angora that I will be shearing, getting it ready to be blended for sale at the upcoming fall fairs and festivals 🙂

Waves Are Finished!
Yippee……….my waves socks for the six sock KAL are finished! I really enjoyed these socks. I don’t know if it is because I really loved the yarn or if I just enjoyed the easy mindless knitting of the pattern? Whichever the reason…….they were fun and I am looking forward to the next pair of socks.

I have also been plugging along on my Flowerbasket shawl KAL. This has not been so mindless. I have done many lace patterns in my lifetime, but you would never know it..LOL. I can’t remember the last time I have worked on a project that I had to tink back so many rows on a regular basis. My DH, told me last night that he can’t wait for me to be finished with this shawl, so that he can talk to me again. Every time he starts to talk to me, I tell him “ssshhhhhhh……..I’m counting!…..haha!!

Secret Pal 2 and 3
I am soooooooo bummed out. For my secret pal 2, I spent time, as I mentioned a while ago in one of my blog entries, going down to The Elegant Ewe and Patternworks, for her 1st present, and she tells me that she has not received it :((((. She is a college student and recently moved, so I am hoping that somehow it just got misplaced at the post office………but still, I am bummed. I had so much fun shopping for her and am disappointed that she did not receive her present yet. She has not posted to her blog in a week now, so I do not know if it ever showed up….but I am hoping it has. One thing I did learn is to make sure that you put your correct return address on it. Silly me, I put Secret Pal, Anywere In the USA as a return address, so if I do have to have my post master do a search in the dead letter place, it is going to be a challenge :(.

I have heard from my Secret Pal 3!! I am hoping that I have not bitten off more than I can chew, being a part of both of these….LOL. It really is fun though. Yesterday, I was a wee bit bored, so I hopped into the car, with one of my younger daughters and we headed down to Patternworks. Have I told you all how happy I am that they moved here to New Hampshire, from New York…..:-)))))))))) Anyhoo…..the trip was with my secret pals in mind. I bought 2 new sets of presents that will go out in the mail on Tuesday. No pictures as my darn digital camera was stubborn yesterday and did not want to work, and I don’t want to give too many hints…..but I can say that both are yummy, soft with lots of luster 🙂

It is so nice to be a part of the blogging community……..it is a big world out there, but somehow it seems a bit smaller, kinder and definitly more interesting now 🙂