Sheep Shearing

Last Saturday, Emily and I went to one of the city parks, which is also an old farm.  The playground has farm themed play structures, you can rent a plot of land in their community farm, and they have some animals in some old farm buildings, which are about 100 feet from the playground.

This is from last fall, so the sheep only has about half the fleece it had last week

One of the types of animals they have are sheep, and this last Saturday they sheared the sheep.  A local sheep farmer comes and shears the animals, and they have a pancake breakfast beforehand, and you can buy sheep feed to give to the animals.

This is also from last fall; the sheep like to go stand as far away from the humans as possible.

We got their early, and got some seats right in front.  Emily was very antsy before it started, and kept on trying to leave.  But once they dragged the first sheep out, she was hooked.  (And I do mean dragged; they grab the sheep near its head and near its rear, and force it along.)  The sheep farmer then manhandles the sheep around so they are sitting on their bums, and starts shearing them on their tummy, and works his way all around the animal, moving the sheep around as he does so.  The sheep are surprisingly complacent about the whole thing.  Sometimes they jerk if the razor pokes them (it was like a large version of what you would use to cut human hair), but they didn't move besides that.  And we only heard one "baa" the whole time. Sheep do not seem very ambitious.

I drew a picture on the ipad, since I did not have a camera with me.

Most of the wool comes off the sheep in one giant swath, which probably makes it easier to shove into the big plastic bags they used (about 30 gallon sized bags).  We watched a couple sheep get sheared, fed some sheep, visited the old farmhouse, played on the playground, and watched another sheep get his haircut, and then fed the goats (Emily didn't think feeding the sheep was very fun). 

This picture is also from last fall, but I don't think the goats looked much different.

They gave us some wool from a couple of the different sheep.  The first two sheep had white wool, and the last one we saw had gray wool.

The gray wool is on the left, and I grabbed some that was mostly clean.  The white wool is on the right, and the ends are dirty, which is how all the outside of the wool looks.  Except some of it is dirtier.

I asked, and the wool from one sheep makes about one sweater.  So, not too much wool.  Apparently, farmers in the United States don't make much from the wool their sheep produce.  Most of the money comes from the lambs that those sheep make.  The farmer who did the shearing said that most sheep bear twins, although this year most of his sheep had triplets, which meant he had to bottle feed some, because sheep can only feed two lambs.  Apparently, you will probably not get rich being a sheep farmer, but you can make enough to live.

We also learned that most of the wool from the United States gets shipped overseas to be made into things, after it is processed here.  So, if you buy woolen clothing that was made in Asia, the wool might be from the US.  But, some farmers take their wool to Frankenmuth, which is a German settlement north of here in Michigan (and one of our tourist destinations), where they process wool and make it into things.  Apparently, this is not cheap.  But you can get your own wool back if you want, which is very cool.

Slipper Boots

So, I've been pretty good about getting posts done before hand, and having them publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  And right now, I have a bunch of ideas for posts, but I need to write them or add pictures.  Or probably both for most of them.  I was looking at all my drafts, and I found this one from last year.  I knitted up some slipper boots for Emily, and was going to share how I made them.

Umm, yeah, so, the boots I knitted up didn't turn out quite big enough (you can see in the picture that one of them is falling off; also wasn't she a cute little stinker?).  I think this may be one of the last things I knitted; perhaps because it didn't fit?

Here's the post from last year:
Just before Christmas I got a box of yarn from my Granny, who was cleaning out her yarn collection.  One of the partial skeins I got was an awesome red boucle.  At first I was going to use it for a baby sweater, but after winding it into a ball, I realized there was a lot less than I first thought.  So, then I started on leg warmers for Emily, but decided to add feet for slipper boots.

I don't know if you've noticed the slouchy slipper boots for girls and women?  These slipper boots are meant to be like those, only with a loose leg and a snug foot, since I read somewhere that babies need socks that hug their feet.

My inspirations for the boots were a couple different knitting patterns I've seen online recently--different references to and patterns for knitting leg warmers and a pattern for knitted robeez.  Also, I downloaded a pattern for baby socks awhile ago, which I used as a guide for the feet.  (Find free patterns here).

Baby Slipper Boots

These will fit a baby with size 4 feet (9-12 months) [since the slippers were too small, these will probably fit size 3 feet; or you could add a couple more rows to the foot].  Babies feet are not necessarily the same as their age or the size clothing they wear, so if you are making these for someone else's child, you might want to check what size their feet are. 

Materials:
I used a thick boucle.  Since I got it from my Granny, I don't know the specifics.  Any thick, soft yarn would work.  (I used a regular acrylic yarn to finish the pom-poms because I ran out of the boucle.)

One set size 6 double pointed needles
One set size 10 double pointed needles
A crochet hook
Scrap yarn (in a contrasting color)

Gauge: 4 stitches per inch on the size 6 needles.

This pattern is worked in the round

Cast on 30 stitches onto the size 6 needles

Work in a 1x1 rib for 5 rows
Knit onto the larger needles, knitting only
Continue until the whole piece is 7 1/2 inches
Knit onto the smaller needles following this pattern: *K2tog, k2* (you should end up with 22 stitches)
Knit one row
Knit 11 stitches onto your scrap yarn (this will be your heel) and then continue in the regular yarn
Continue until the foot is 3 inches from the heel yarn
Start the toe (it helps to separate your work onto two needles instead of 3 at this point):
k2tog, k7, ssk, k2tog, k7, ssk
Continue in this fashion (decreasing the number of knitted stitches between the decreases) until you have 10 total stitches

I use a crochet hook to weave the end of the yarn through the last stitches, alternating stitches from my two needles.

Unpick the scrap yarn that held the place of the heel.  Pick up five stitches on the needle you will knit onto first, 11 on the next, and 6 on the last.  Knit until the last stitch on the third needle.  Slip this last stitch onto your next needle.  Continue to use the same needle to knit onto (so that the number of needles holding stitches decreases, and you will have only 2 segments to work with, as in with the heel--except that the stitches are split differently).

Decrease the next stitch, and then knit until the end of the needle.  For your next needle, knit 5, decrease, and knit until the end.  For the next round *knit 4, decrease, knit 4* twice.  Continue in this fashion, keeping the decreases in the middle of your needles, until you have 6 stitches on each needle.  Knit 2, decrease, and then introduce a new needle (increasing the number of needles back to the original 4).  Knit 2,  knit 2 from the next needle, decrease.  Using the last needle, knit the last 2 stitches.  I slipped these last two onto the needle with the first stitches.  Finish as you did with the toe.

I attached two pom-poms to the outside top edge of each boot, and then puff-painted dots on the soles (as recommended here).

Another sweater

I made Emily another sweater because her ducky sweater was so small. It is nice and loose on her, although the neck is perhaps too big. People have suggested adding a band of the darker pink yarn to the neck, to help it stay on her shoulders better.

Maybe I will. I have other stuff to work on as well. My sister-in-law Amy has already requested a sweater for her little one on the way.

And now the picture!

  Here is the ducky sweater I made Emily last spring. You can kind of see the duck, and the soap bubbles. It has definitely gotten too small--at least, the arms and the body are too short.
It is still the right size around.

The Ducky Sweater Finale

So, I finished the ducky sweater I have been working on. This involved staying up very late at night, so that I would get it done. Also, the ducky morphed into a rubber ducky, complete with soap bubbles, which made it take a little longer, but was (hopefully) very cute.

Phil told me it wasn't a rubber duck, and then he tried to cover by saying it wasn't made of rubber. And Dan is always biased.

Also, I have no picture for you to see. Emily got all dressed up in her sweater, with Jean shorts, and a orange hair bow, to match the sweater. But I didn't take a picture then, and now the sweater is at our house, and we are sleeping at Earl's.

Maybe you will get to see it later.

On Orange

Still working on the first sweater. It has morphed into a ducky sweater. I was going to do a baseball-T sweater with orange arms and a white body, and now it has yellow stripes and a duck on the front. I was inspired by Emily's very cute ducky onesie her Nana bought her back before she was born. The sweater still has orange arms.

Also, I bought some paint for our new place. We are definitely going to be living in Earl's duplex, which means we are moving to a new ward. Earl is in that one, as are Kate and Andrew. So that will be nice. Not so nice is the fact that I will have to make new friends. I suppose I could not make new friends, but that might not be as fun.

Back to the paint. I got green paint for the nursery. I thought about doing orange paint for awhile. I changed my mind after I actually looked at the fabric I was thinking of matching the paint to, and realized that it wasn't how I remembered it, and I didn't like it nearly as much. So I choose green, which matches the knobs on her dresser (the knobs are white with "flowers" on them with green petals; they might just be a cool design, not flowers) and a blanket (with ladybugs in pink and purple and green leaves) I got at one of my baby showers. So, someday we could add either pink or lavender accents. Which is good, because I like lavender alot, but little girls usually really like pink, and I didn't want to pick the wrong color for her. This way someday she can choose.

Has anyone else noticed the abundance of orange clothing in stores? I keep on seeing orange shirts. Dan has a couple orange shirts he bought from Meijers, around when we got married. Does this mean that Meijers is fashion-forward? Maybe. Orange and navy together was popular back when I was in high school. So the orange shirts could have been a trickle-down effect from that fashion movement. Probably not; it's been a long time since I was in high school, and these don't have navy. Maybe the designers for mens clothing at Meijers don't care which colors are fashionable. Or maybe orange is always a cool color choice for men.

I had an orange and navy shirt (it was mostly navy) that I really liked in high school. I think I wore it until it died a sad death. I loved that shirt.

I can remember my clothes from high school, but I don't remember much about most of the people I went to school with. I guess that is sort of revealing.

The bug strikes again

So, before Emily was born I spent months knitting. After finishing up my Christmas projects, I decided I needed a rest. Then recently, my little girl started getting too big for her only sweater that fits her right now. And she doesn't have many winter clothes in her current size (since she is growing so much--now she is, at almost 2 months, almost 15 pounds). So, I am going to start knitting again. I have plans for a couple sweaters for her. One sweet and girly and one fun. We will see what happens.

3 Months and counting

So, Dan's back in school. He's studying accounting at Indiana Business College. This makes me happy, as accounting is one of those good, solid, job-getting majors. And Dan seems to like his school and classes, so it works out. Paying tuition does not make me happy. If we lived in a socialist state, we probably wouldn't have tuition. Of course, there might not be an Indiana Business College around for Dan to go to . . .

I'm about six months along, and I mostly feel great. Except for the last few days, when I caught whatever bug Dan had, and now I'm spending quality time in bed. Besides that, I've been busy working on craft projects, including curtains for my bedroom, and I finished a really cute pumpkin hat for my niece. I got the idea from one of the free pattern links on Knitting Pattern Central which is a site similar to Crochet Pattern Central. I use them both to find patterns and ideas for different projects.

Christmas is only a few months away (woohoo!) and I've already started working on things. Right now I am trying to finish a sweater dress for my little girl that I made up a pattern for, from a couple baby sweater patterns I found and from measurments of one of the 3 month sleepers my mom bought me. It is going to be yellow, to match the blanket, booties, and mittens I already made. Of course, I also found a pattern for baby mary janes, which I might make to match as well. We'll see.