Join me on my adventure! Part One: The Drive

 Intro: 

So after many posts of just patterns, I decided I'd start a short blog on my latest adventure - farm life. I'm from Northern California (near the bay area) and have recently moved up to a small town in Washington State near Bainbridge Island with the primary goal of learning the process of knitting from step one. This includes taking care of the sheep, watching the birth of the babies, shearing, carding the wool and then spinning and dyeing it. I'll also learn other fiber arts such as weaving and machine knitting! 

 In addition to this side of the farm life, much more will be learned! Milking the goats are a huge part of life here. The milk is used for many things; it's bottled and sold to the public along with cheese and soap manufacturing. After the babies are finished with the mama's milk, we'll then get to start these processes! And of course there's the everyday farm chores of feeding all the animals - rabbits, chickens, sheep, goats and the doggies -as well as collecting eggs and vegetables for our own consumption.

The Drive:

 So I'd like to start this collaboration of photos with a few cool things I saw on my 3 day drive up here.

 First was the Avenue of the Giants in Northern California and the field of elk! 

 Early morning overlooking Portland in the aerial tram. I had gotten up at 5:30 and made my way up to the tram in hopes of seeing the sunrise, but unfortunately it was too cloudy.  So to make my morning even more interesting, I took a one hour ride in the street car through the streets of the West side of Portland.

Followed by my trip around Portland on the street car, was venturing to many of the yarn shops in the area. And what better timing than opening day for the Rose City Yarn Crawl! I went to Angelika's, Twisted, Happy Knits, Urban Garden and Pearl Fiber. Here are pictures of my two favorites!

HappyKnits

 Twisted

And then I reached Seattle! Here's a photo of the gorgeous view from the Bainbridge Ferry!

And of course I had to visit Churchmouse! What an amazing store!!

Go to Part Two: The Farm to read more!

Join me on my adventure! Part Two: The Farm

So if you read my Part One: The Drive, you would have read my introduction in regards to the fact that I've adventured up to Washington State to live on a farm for a few months. My reasoning you may ask? Well, to be closer to what I love, duh! Fiber, yarn, and of course the animals who feed my addiction; knitting! But working here with the sheep is more than just that. I'm learning about self-sustainability, the importance of a healthy diet and how to take care of something other than myself [and my lovely mother of course ;) ]

So here we go! 

Part Two; The Farm!

Animals

Alpine Goats (look at all the babies in the background!) There are also a few Nubians which are quite cute themselves!

 

What's a farm without chickens? One of my favorite daily tasks is collecting all their eggs! It's like Easter every day. :)

 

Sheeeeepies!!! (Shetlands)

 

Meet Mr. Caesar. Isn't he handsome? And a sweetheart too!

 

The first baby!! A little boy! He's about a month earlier than the season for sheep babies, but I'm happy and he's healthy!

The process of making yarn: 

So it's not shearing season just yet, but here's an earlier fleece that we laid out for a quick clean up. 

 

And then it get's the real deal! Dawn dishwasher soap is used to get most of the grease (lanolin) out of the fleece. 

 

The next step after the fleece has finished it's bath and has dried and been sorted, is to card it. This is an electrical carder, but there are several devices to do this step.

And vwa-la! My first two bats! (And a grungy me... Hadn't showed in two days! Amazing for me.)

 The first stage of spinning. This is a drop spindle (the easiest way to learn to spin.) just a single ply. This will later be plied together with another yarn for more durability. Pretty good job for my first one! They were impressed. Nice and consistent. :) Later, I'll move on to the wheel.

 Another favorite daily task that I do is collect greens from the hoop house. Got stung by stinging nettles the first few times. I'm now much more careful!

So it's been 5 days on the farm. I'd say I've learned a good deal so far and can't wait to learn more! Stay in tune!

:) Alisha