One of those mornings

Friday morning...

Hubby and I got up around 7:30. (That's late for us.)

Dogs are put outside and fed. Coffee is on, we sit in our rocking chairs by the window and look out towards the pastures.

AHHHHHHH! there is nothing like the beginning of a brand new day...feels so good.

Hubby hears some commotion below the window and gets up to check

(Here you can see the pool deck from the window. We still have the winter leaf net pool cover on.)

and holy sh**, the dogs somehow got inside the pool area! And to make it even worse, one of them is in the pool, splashing around trying to get out! We have a out of ground pool with a vinyl liner...so no dogs allowed.

We ran down the stairs at break-neck speed, quickly ran outside to the pool deck, got the dog out of the pool and assessed the damage. Seems that the vinyl liner is intact and we have one very wet dog, happy as can be.

Ok, now back upstairs to our rocking chairs to continue on with our coffee and plan our day.

As we look out to the pastures, we can see the alpacas congregating around something of a light brown colour...what could that be? We thought that maybe the alpacas had not appreciated the presence of a groundhog in their field and had 'taken care' of it... But this was one huge groundhog so out came the binoculars. The binoculars could not help us identify this 'furry lump' so hubby thought it was best to go investigate this further.

He calls out to me that it's a cria.

SAY WHAT!!!

OMG! A cria was probably born during or shortly before the 'dog in the pool' commotion. He was not quite dry yet. This little guy is about 1 month early so we are quite concerned.

He needed a little help with feeding and we kept a vigil all day and part of the night.

He's become stronger every day...so far, so good.

This little male is so sweet. He's also strong and determined...reminds me of someone I knew. We are calling him Fernando...in honour of my father Fernand.

His mother arrived on our farm on Wednesday along with two other white female alpacas!

I'll keep you posted on his progress.

Have a good Sunday!



More of Mia

A few months back, I introduced you to Mia, our cat. Beautiful, indoor cat with lots of attitude.

At that time, it was January, and I showed you Mia's favorite spots in the house.

Now that the warmer weather is here, Mia enjoys our back deck. Since the deck has no stairs, she doesn't wander off in the yard or the wilderness beyond.

This deck is about 11 feet off the ground...it's pretty high.

Here is where she likes to go to check out the view!

 Two beams that extends beyond the floor of the top deck.

 Somehow, she put her legs on either side of it and just rests.

''Relax mom, I'm fine''

 

In this heat, anyway you can get a breeze to go under your furry belly is going to feel good!

Here I am!

All posts from the Woolyknitsnbits blog have been moved. I will now post from here from now on. If you are reading this, I'm happy you are still with me. If you are new to my blog, then welcome!

More to come this week.

ZENITUDE

There is so much going on right now that I'm having a hard time to keep up with a few things such as blogging regularly.
We are in the middle of a major reno in our kitchen and while we were at it, we thought well, why not redo both bathroom floors and why not repaint most of the main floor and why not sew new curtains for the living room and why not get new mirrors for the entrance and bathroom...well you get the picture, I'm sure!!!
But there has been time to do a few other things.
I've open up a new shop on Etsy under a new name.
I've been using the name Zenitude for a while now and thought it was time to make the transition.

Zenitude better represent what this hand dyeing journey means to me.
 It basically is a combination of the words 'zen' and 'attitude'. Zénitude is a word more common in French as I see it often in the french magazines, books and blogs I read.
It could be defined as: A total state of relaxation and serenity. This is exactly what dyeing yarns and fiber, knitting and spinning can do to me.

A new name meant a new look so I had a logo made with the help of Brandland on Etsy.

My Zenitude shop is now open on Etsy. I have listed a few merino tops at the moment. I've sold three so far!  As soon as we get our reno work done, I'll be adding my hand dyed yarns as well. In the very near future, I will also be offering alpaca yarn and fiber from my very own herd.

The WoolyKnitsNBits shop will eventually be closed.

Now, what will be left to do is move this blog under the Zenitude name. I have no idea how this can be done, so if you can lead me to a tutorial or to someone that can do it with me...please, please, let me know!

My local yarn store, Stix and Stones is now selling Zenitude hand dyed yarns, tops and handmade soaps! Rae has been a wonderful confidence booster for this old gal venturing out in the fiber world!
In her last newsletter, Rae had this to say about Zenitude:
We also have an amazing local hand dyer/alpaca farmer who goes by the label "zenitude." She has an incredible talent for hand dying yarn in fantastic colourways and if you haven't check out her selection of sock and lace weights yet as well as her hand dyed rovings- be sure and do so on your next trip to the store!
 Thanks Rae!

Our new little grandson is doing very well. Big sister is very loving towards him. Their parents are sleep deprived, as all new parents are but so happy with their little family!
After posting the beginning of this project a few weeks ago, a few readers asked to see the completed mural on the baby's room wall.

It turned out very well. Our little grandson will surely enjoy it.

Have a good weekend, ours will be full of sunshine and family time!

Mother's Day

Well, this year, Mother's day plans were cancelled, undone and quickly reorganized.

You see, this little guy decided today was the best day to be born...and why not, it is called mother's day for a reason. 

His entry into the world was fast and furious but oh, so welcomed.

And to make this even more fabulous,

his dad was also born on a Mother's day, 29 years ago...how cool is that!!

Our daughter and baby are doing very well and this grandma just can't sleep, she's too excited!!!

Tomorrow, we will meet him and introduce him to his big sister.

Best Mother's Day ever!

FO shawl

This post was written a few months ago and I never got around to publishing it.

I saw this hand dyed yarn of Etsy and bought it right away. The colours are bright and fun.

As of today, on Ravelry, the Travelling woman shawl is on 7177 project pages! It might be one of the most popular patterns around! It was a free pattern when it first came out.

Now it's part of a whole series of Travelling pattens.

It turned out to be a small shawl. I could have repeated Chart A once more.

Pattern: Traveling Woman
Yarn: 100% Superwash Merino Wool in fingering weight from Lola Doodle's Etsy shop
Colour: An Evening in Tucson

Harvest time

When you think of harvest, it's usually a late summer to fall activity but for alpaca farmers, we harvest our 'produce' in the spring before the summer heat.

This past weekend I was participating in a two day course on skirting and preparing alpaca fleece...perfect timing to ensure that all the information I acquired was still fresh in my mind. But since this course was hands-on, I've spend two full days on my feet skirting and preparing fleece, drove home last night (a 4.5 hr drive) and got things ready for this morning. Doing all this while our kitchen is torn apart because of renovations happening in there!

My feet and knees are killing me but my heart is so happy.

Today was our havest day...an exciting day for us newbies in the alpaca farming world!

We got a few friends together along with a professionnal shearer and started bright and early this morning.

One by one, the alpacas were brought in.



 Once they were let out, they kept sniffing each other as if to say: Hey, who are you?

In this picture, you can see Ginger sniffing Coco who is sniffing Aurelia, who is sniffing Ginger!

Without their fleece, their coat is like velvet.



Look at baby Fiona...so tiny now.



 And Coco sporting her summer look!

Now the challenge of the day was to shear our llama, Frankie.

Frankie is a huge llama and he's not wimpy by any means.

Llamas are usually sheared every second year.

The shearer told us he would shear him on the ground...that's right...lie Frankie down and shear him!

Hubby was a little skeptical but Tom (the shearer) guided the crew step by step to get Frankie down safely.

Frankie cooperated quite well. But mind you, I was not the one on the ground holding him!

So one side was done.

Then he was flipped over to shear the other side. The towel was put on his head at one point to make him feel a little calmer.

And look at him now!

 Doesn't he look years younger?

And now, look at what is waiting for my attention.

I'll be preparing this fiber to send it to the mill for processing very soon.

All in all, a wonderful day's work.

Now how about someone to rub my feet and make my dinner? Any volunteers?

I dyed this superwash merino top yesterday and the colours mixed and blended to produce something wild and loud!

I doubted anyone would look twice at it and decided I should keep it and spin it for myself to see what it looks like. (well...maybe I liked the colours too much to part with it).

So yesterday afternoon, I sat by the window and spun this wild top. The more I spun, the more excited I got with it. I was worried the colours would look like mud once spun but I'm liking it.

I kept spinning into the evening and spun all of the 4 ounces of merino fleece.

I usually wait at least 24 hours before I ply, to give time for the singles to relax into their twist. But I was eager to see it plied.

So this afternoon, I decided to do a three ply with it and VOILÀ!

61 meters of Bulky yarn.

I think this yarn wants to become a hat...

Healthy brownies

There are some chocolate lovers in my life (even though I'm not one of them). So a chocolate snack was in order.
I came across a recipe for brownies with a healthy bonus. Don't let the ingredients scare you from trying this recipe because they turned out super delicious...even for the non-chocolate lovers like me!



Metamorphosis

I love to paint furniture and transform it from old and ugly to fresh and beautiful.

Well...love might be a bit of a strong word...what I love is the finished product and in order to get to that I need to do the painting myself.

Sometimes I will put a lot of work into it by doing some decorative painting and other times, I will keep it very simple. The hardware is changed most of the time.

We've had this desk in our kitchen since we built this house in 1995. A simple pine desk that we bought unfinished. At the time, only a coat of varnish was applied.

It has a roll top that opens up to many cubby holes. A pain to paint and varnish...but it need to be done.

So after a week of sanding, painting and varnishing...here it is!

Paint is Paris Grey by ASCP.

I replaced the old brass knobs and pulls for a brushed nickle finish.

Even the cubby holes got a fresh coat of paint as did the roll top...many hours of sanding and painting but well worth the effort.