happy easter

This is my Easter bunny...CW Black Jack.  He is a little over a year old now, and has a beautiful 6 inch staple!  I am so happy with his coat.  I will shear him in about a week.  Spring is still very cold around the riverrim, especially at night.  We are still dipping into the twenties, and so Jack will need his coat for a little bit longer.

 

Jack was born at Countrywool, and his blood-line can be traced back to Bay Colony and Greenberry House, and I have to say how pleased I am with this buck.  Jack not only has wonderfully long, soft, silky hair, but he has the sweetest personality.  He is always happy and playful...and very inquisitive. As you can see by the picture, he is also a patient and tolerant rabbit to allow me to pose him with the Easter flowers and eggs. 

 

I just found this "bunny along" today...I may just have to join!  So many projects...so little time....Happy Easter!

 

spring grass

The snow is starting to melt around the riverrim, and the color of the grass underneath is quite close to the color of the yarn that I just made from the Wensleydale and Silk.  The Wensleydale roving was called "Juniper".  I spun a fine single, and then I used a Navajo ply method to produce a three-ply yarn.  I then took the Silk, and core spun it over silk thread, and incorporated the seed beads at random.  Then, I plyed the silk beaded yarn loosely around the Wensleydale.  The finished product was approx. 12wraps per inch.

I was anxious to see how this would weave up, so I made a neck/scarf on the 3 foot triangle loom.  I wanted to fringe the edges, but did not want to knot every tail of the fringe....so I used a looping technique to construct the fringe.  I did not measure exactly for each loop, so the finished edge is a little bit uneven.  Next time, instead of just estimating, I should make sure each fringe is the same size. I was pretty happy with the way the seed beads worked into the piece.  They are speckled throughout the shawl, and look like little sparkles of dew on the grass.  I also finished the "cut length" shawl edge with beads.
These were a little bit bigger than the seed beads, so I used them with the fringe.  They help to give the shawl some sparkle to play off the fireflash.

chick a dee dee dee

This little chickadee was first spotted by me as I was doing chores in the afternoon hours.  When I saw him, I immediately noticed that he was not in the least bit scared of me.  He was in my path, a few feet away from me, looking for something to eat on the areas of ground where the snow had recently melted away to reveal a brown patch of grass.  As I approached, I talked to him quietly, and bent down to get a closer look at him.  He seemed to be healthy in every respect of the word, and glanced back at me a few times while continuing to go about his search for a morsel or two.  He was very puffed up, like he was cold.

 

I have gotten to know the chickadees that hang around here.  After a snow storm, they will come very close to you at the feeders.  If you are patient, and stand with a handful of seed, they will visit your hand briefly while selecting a choice sunflower seed.  But, they usually keep their distance.  No so with this little bird.  He was letting me get very close.

 

I slowly reached down to see if he would get on my hand, and when he did, I stood up, talking to him the entire time.  I walked to the window, caught my husbands eye and motioned to him to come to the door.
When he saw the chickadee, he told me to wait while he got the camera.  The chickadee seemed content to sit in my hand, looking around and occasionally looking up at me.  My husband returned with the camera, snapped the shot.  After a minute or two, the chickadee flew out of my hand and continued to look around in the grass, and then he left.  I thought it was really nice to have had a moment with him.  I think someone, somewhere spent some time hand training him.  He was very polite.

 

I have started working on a Tartan plaid shawl.  My inspiration comes from the Graham Tartan tie seen hanging on the loom.  I am not duplicating it, and need to sit down with some graph paper and chart out the color changes, and number of nails need per color if I intend to get it exact.  This is a test run, and I am using up some old stash that is not even 100% wool.

 

The history of the Tartan is very interesting.
Here is a link to a great page that I found by google-ing TARTAN.