Cashmere for Father

Isn't that what every Dad wants in June??? The manly cashmere scarf did come off the loom and get finished, just in time to make the package out with the House Mouse Mat. No sense in Omar and Foxy not having their mat! I think I'll have to make a couple more as both Jack and Rodger thought it was just wonderful to sleep and knead on respectively. I have yarn to do a couple more of course. :-)

The scarf was done at a much tighter set than the light lavender one, 15epi and the blue stripes are actually lace weight alpaca. I love those soft sand and sea colors. Again I used fishing line as the selvage edge with good results. Next trip into town I will pick up more as I only bought small rolls of it to try. 

I am casting around for another project to put on the Barbara V loom. Haven't decided on anything at the moment. Ideas anyone?

Thank you all for your thoughts and well wishes for Gene. He is up and moving about, although slowly and in short bouts. He is able to work at his computer on and off and at the bench for longer periods every day but it is still quite sore and requires a fair amount of rest. I'm sure the meds make him tired too. Nurse Pogo has been with him just about round the clock.

I have a warp wound on for a few more prayer flags. These will be smaller ones as I want to try a couple of things. In my distracted state I should have made the warp a bit bigger as I wanted to do a closer sett, but must have gotten sidetracked in thought when I was measuring it out. It still needs to be threaded and sleyed but I will weave it as is.

Puck is still slinking around, I catch glimpses of him here and there. Juno has been leaving gifts for me in the barn. Mostly bird and chipmunk parts. They do catch mice but rarely do I find evidence. I will say since I've had the two cats I have not had any evidence of mice either in the tack room or the barn proper. Horses Boo and Cooper are down to their slick summer coats with the other 3 not far behind. 

The goatie girls are roaming about getting the first good spring browse. I see them off in all directions.  Sylvie wears a bell on her collar so I can hear them once in a while racing past the house. The dogs do too and love nothing more than streaming out the side door to the pen to bark at them. Thank god we don't have close neighbors!

Muddy Models

Well, if it would ever stop raining I would get pics of the boys modeling their new saddle blankets, but since this is spring in Oregon that picture will have to wait. No doubt when the rain finally stops we will bypass spring all together and go directly to summer. It is one thing here it rarely is and that's humid. My sinuses kind of like the relief from the typical dry air, my hair, not so much. ;-)

The yarn softened beautifully in wet finishing. I soaked these blankets for about a half hour each in Kookaburra Wool Wash, my favorite for all woolens and fine washables.

Stuck them in the washer to spin out and waited patiently for them to dry. They are just right for my saddles and horses. I'm not a fan of over thick pads and these have a little cushioning but will mold to the horses back beautifully. My saddles have wonderful felt undersides and mostly I use a blanket to protect the saddle from sweat and help the horse stay cool by soaking up all that sweat on the back. 

 A properly placed saddle pad will have an inverted V over the withers (shoulders on the top) so that it isn't tightly laid across cause rubbing and chafing. By lifting the blanket with your hand once the saddle is set it also allows for some air flow. Saddles are built with a center channel underneath for just this purpose. Look for good wide ones! The blankets are pliable enough to allow easily for that "skooch" room and dense enough to hold it. As you can plainly see, one of the skeins of natural dark grey was a bit off. I didn't notice until I was into it and these being for me and not gift blankets, I let it go.

 It is in the endless center body of the blanket that will be under saddle. It also shows just how much these weft faced blankets use. The two dark stripes are one skein of heavy worsted weight yarn.

There is another cashmere scarf on the warping board, ready to be tied up and taken over to the Murphy loom. The knitting project is almost complete and pictures will be forthcoming PDQ.

I promised Gene I would make stuffed cabbage today, so sauce will have to get on the stove to cook early. The dogs will all come into the kitchen in hopes that there will be fallen treats. They are all SO helpful you know. 

Puck, being the smart little kitty he is, has saved himself from weathering this rainy period outside by hiding on top of the stack of hay in the barn. Yesterday morning I had to finally get up there before feeding to heave some bales down and we had a Home Alone moment. He booked down that stack lickety split. In the afternoon he was back. Starting up Bob was the catalyst for sending him out of hiding into parts unknown. No doubt he is there this morning too although I won't go searching. It's pouring rain and no need for him to get wet if he doesn't have to. I've dragged my feet enough getting out there to feed as it is. Time to get moving!

Weaving Cobwebs

The cashmere scarf is off the loom and done. It was fairly hard to get it on due to it being so delicate. I had problems evening up tension and doing the last tie in the front. Very delicate stuff. The scarf itself though was worth the effort. Quite gossamer. I could probably pull it through a wedding ring. It's like holding down in your hand.

  Since I had put all my orphan bits and bobs together I had found some hand dyed mohair locks which I incorporated into the weaving with nice results I think.  I just love adding stuff that way, can't you tell! Someday maybe I'll figure out how to do a scarf with small somethings that as you find them tell a little tale. 

Anyway, back to the scarf at hand. The Habu cashmere warp as set at 10 epi and is fine enough to go to 20 epi assuming you wanted a heavier fabric. I didn't, however for the second gift scarf, which is for a man, I will probably go with 12 or 15 epi and skip the mohair. We'll see, that one needs a little more imaginary play time. For this scarf I used fishing line as a floating selvage, mostly to protect the edges from reed wear it was so soft. The fishing line pulled out just as planned and I didn't have a minutes problem with the edge threads suffering from abrasion at all.

I did get a few more rows done on the saddle blanket but it was hard to jump back and forth from beating a rug to placing cashmere in a delicate warp. 

On the farm news it appears that Puck has moved on. I haven't seen sign of him for at least four days. I didn't get a ride in but did manage to work with Imp who needed some reminding of lead line etiquette after a long winter off.  Something seems to happen to the adolescent male horse mind around the age of 3 and everything you've taught them seems to have packed its bag and taken a vacation to Rome. By 4 they have recovered some semblance of memory and thought and all those hours you think you wasted, pay off. In Imps defense it was awfully windy. Nothing gets a young horse going (or an old one for that matter) than having a wind blown day.  Nose into the breeze snorting, tail up and flowing, even the slowest horse can look like Pegasus waiting to take wing. You just don't always want to be on the end of the lunge line when they do!

And now, onto something completely different. We haven't been running the heat, which is a wood fired boiler outside named Rube if you need to know, as in Goldberg. Anyway, it's been a wee bit chilly in here a few mornings and I guess Rodger decided to be a kindly soul and help Peter out since there was no blanket available. They stayed like this for at least two hours yesterday morning. Peter put up with Rodgers kneading and Peter stayed cozy.