A Pause...

During the last few months I've been reflecting on things and re-examining priorities.  Available time has been channeled into addressing the fact that a slow economy is turning my studio into a warehouse.  This can be ok up to a point.  When it gets hard to find things, there's no place to work on projects, and only narrow paths wind through equipment and wool, the situation is out of hand. 

I hadn't sold raw fleeces in years.  But since I have far too much clean, carded wool waiting to be dyed or sold as is,  I decided to sell the results of the last shearing at a very reasonable price in the Fleece Market forum on Ravelry.   Fleeces have been making their way to California, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut, and Canada.  I've also started listing roving in the same forum.  These listings will continue until I can move around a little in my studio!  I've added a page, listed on the sidebar of this blog, for photos of fiber that is for sale.  If you're interested and don't see the link it may be because you're reading this in Google Reader and haven't actually clicked through to this blog.  Click away!

It's not just a wool problem: I have more fiber equipment than I need.  So I'm looking with a critical eye at the equipment situation.  The Wolf Pup went to the home of a new weaver this week and The Big Wave will hopefully go to its new owner this weekend.  I'm trying to get to the point where my equipment better reflects the type of fiber work that I enjoy doing.  Not an easy goal for me!

I don't enjoy blogs that skimp on photos so it's time for one:

Japanese Indigo

I decided early this spring to dip try some dyeing with plant materials.  This is a small patch of Japanese Indigo, started from seed in my sunroom.  This month I'll be taking a three day workshop on the subject of natural dyeing at New England Weavers Seminar; indigo dyeing will one of the subjects covered in the workshop.

Finally, here's a farm shot of a few girls in my small kitchen flock.

Kitchen flock

And if you've stuck it out this far, you might enjoy a little video of my backyard chickens, produced a couple of weeks ago with my iPad:  Free-range chickens