Molly Had A Little Lamb

Mr. Bee kindly took me to A to Z Farm yesterday to see this spring's batch of new lambies. It's THE true mark of spring for me, more so than the first robin I see or the first time I step in mud up to my eyeballs trying to unwrap the dog from the tree out back. This year A to Z had a plethora of new babies to cuddle and coo over. I took a picture of their tally board so I would know how many they had this year, but it didn't come out and I can't remember, but suffice to say they were everywhere! Lot of singles as well as sets of twins and triplets. Some had just been born the day before and some were a few weeks old. And every single one was adorable! I'm not lying! Ask Mr. Bee, I had to welcome every one! And the baby piggies too!

The newest babies-born 3/29/08

A little bit older

Oreo Lambie!

Lambies in a basket

...Lalala...one of these things is not like the others. One of these things is kinda the same...lalala


There is always a spinning demonstration in a side room. It's one of my favorite parts. This guy,

Nels, is always there, feet clad in home knit wool socks, jaunty hat perched on his head, spinning on his Babe wheel beside the pot belly stove. He is every bit as sweet as he looks too. And I don't know what it is about him and that stove that makes me incredibly homesick for Maine, but it does. He kinda reminds me of my Poppie I guess. There was a lady with a small loom making a scarf, but I tried not to pay too much attention. That's just what we need, for me to take up weaving too! There was one other lady with a drop spindle and it was the oddest thing, she had a kind of hand knit 'holster' on her right hip and it appeared to have a shot glass or something in it. Her spindle was sitting in it and she was whirling it in the glass, building up twist, then she'd stop and release the twist up her roving. It was kind of slick looking. Now that I have my wheel, I can't imagine going back to much drop spindling, but I really examined how to knit that little shot glass holder dealie, lemme tell ya. That would be so much more fashionable than carrying my inebriant around in a plastic sippy cup every day like I do now...I could make them in different colors to match each day's ensemble.

A farm in Cambria set up a little booth selling yarn, wool slippers and assorted sheep enthusiasts' things like mugs and note pads. They also had some big bags of dyed roving but I resisted. I only gave into temptation a little bit by buying two small plastic bags of something called "All Mixed Up" which looks like some crazy person got let loose in a room full of dyed roving and just took a puff of this and a puff of that and stuffed them together. It's about 1.5 to 2 oz total. Should be interesting.

Last night I wound up my Mermaid Tail two ply onto my new niddy noddy. I ordered a pvc piping one from Mielke Farms. Up until then, I had been using two kitchen chairs put side by side. I read the instructions carefully. At least what I thought was carefully. It turned out to be not so carefully after all. I should have stuck with the kitchen chairs as it turned out. I wound an entire bobbin of lace weight yarn onto the niddy noddy incorrectly. When you 'cross over' you do it once in the front and once in the back. If you do both crossovers in the back, you weave the yarn together into a nearly untangleable mass. Ask me how I know. I dare ya. And, no, the lovely David Tennant had nothing to do with it this time. I wound the whole thing confidently, just like I was in my right mind.

Mr. Bee listened to me rant and rail about the injustice of it all. Then he dried my tears and put the yarn around his hands and patiently sat for about and hour while I untangled and rolled it into a ball. Then I spent another 30 minutes winding it back onto the niddy noddy correctly. Boy that's a mistake you only have to make once. Kinda like plying in the wrong direction. Or poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. During my seeming eons of wrapping and rewrapping, that Dyson Vacuum Guy comes on with his commercial about how he loves to make mistakes because that's when you know you're making progress. I was not in the mood. I wanted to slap the snot out of him. Hard.

But it was all wound, set, and hung to dry by 11:30PM. I checked at lunch today and it wasn't dry yet so looks like those photos will have to wait until tomorrow, but I'm happy with it. I think it's even lighter than sock weight. Even finer than my last skein. Since this is only the 4th skein on my wheel I'm calling that pretty good.

I have a little bit of singles left over that I wanted to try out on my new Handy Andy Andean Plying tool but I'm terrified because I'm apparently 'wrappingly challenged' and the directions for the Andean thing are way wrappy-like so I'm putting it by for now...for my own safety and that of others.