Oh the pain of molting

Oh the pain, the nakedness of molting. My yard is full of half naked chickens in some extreme molt. Egg laying is down as they use their energy to bring in those new feathers. This poor girl has but one tail feather left!

This poor girl looks better in the picture than she really is, she has but only outer feathers with her new feathers erupting...

and this girl looks like she borrowed a small feather to look like a tail feather!

Big Bertha here is not looking so big these days! Her tail feathers are gone and she is but a fraction of herself.

A rooster without tail feathers is just terrible. I am finding my roosters not as manly as usual lately!

New England Fiber Festival 2016

This weekend was the New England Fiber Festival and we had an amazing time! I share my booth each year with my wonderful friend Naomi Allen. We laughed and had such a good time meeting new people, chatting with fellow fiber artists and spending time with each other.

Some of my booth area, set up and ready to go. By the end of the show many of these shelves were near empty.

My beautiful vintage body form with a hand knitted mohair scarf.

"Frankie" our new English Angora buck got a lot of attention this weekend. I think he was the most photographed animal at the Festival. He loved every minute of it.

This was part of Naomi's booth. She has some amazing wool for rug hooking. Her pieces are amazing! She was the only one there that does it like she does. Her booth was always busy with wonderful people!

My pillows were fondled often!

This was our neighbor's Wendsleydale ram. A woman was talking to him and he was quite attentive. He even tried to steal my banana! I miss my sheep and he was a pleasure having him next to us.

I didn't get a chance to see much this year, but I did happen to pass this woman doing some old world weaving.

She was using these amazing counter balances which were stone. so as I reflect on this year, how hard I worked towards this show, I must thank everyone who bought from me this year, who I talked to and who I may have inspired. I sure do get inspired by the many kind people I meet at this show!

Just by chance, a helpful discovery!!!

While getting ready for the New England Fiber Festival I had some last minute things to package and price. I had a few mohair fleeces that were taking their time drying. I pulled out my blow dryer and it died! I got to thinking and decided to try the dryer. What harm would it be for just a few minutes? Would it felt? Would it work? Would it get ruined? Well the chance was worth it so I threw in a small black dyed fleece I had done.

It came out amazing!!! It was fluffy, opened the locks, separated any remaining dirt and was amazingly soft too!!!

I tried another fleece, the same results! Soft and open locks and ready to be spun!

This is my Victorian inspired mohair fleece and this too came out wonderful! Open locks and soft! I love when you try something for chance and it works out!

Vicorian inspiration...

Last weekend I went on a lantern tour of a historical district that was primarily on Victorian homes. I just love living in New England because the history is so rich and each area tells a tale of old. Sometimes you can just stand there and imagine the times. We even toured an old Opera House that had my imagination in over drive.  I was busy all day preparing for my biggest show of the year. I zipped down for the tour and came home, I had my dye pot prepared but had no idea what I would do when I got back. I later returned and grabbed my dye box. I pulled out 4 colors and got busy dyeing the mohair that was sheared from my girls recently.

It wasn't until I began rinsing it that I realized I had dyed some beautiful colors that took me back to the Victorian times. Rich greens that were closer to olives (the pictures do not give it justice!) and beautiful mauves. It was as if my Victorian experience was channeled straight into my subconscious! I was amazed at the beauty!