shepherd's harvest

It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend here in Minnesota. We hope to see you in Stillwater at the Washington County Fairgrounds for Shepherd's Harvest. Crosby Hill Farm will have a stand, please stop by and say hello and check out our fleeces, natural and dyed combed top, hand-painted yarns and mohair.

Happy knitting and spinning everyone!

XOXO

Jillian

yarn rainbow

 

I made it up to the farm this weekend to help my mom and sister with some fiber painting. We're trying to get a full spectrum of colors for Shepherd's Harvest. Lots of busy work to do! Everything still needs to be labeled and then packed up for the big show.

Even the little ones love hugging and carrying around the fiber - as you can see. Good old Jack was exhausted by all the hustle-bustle and slept in the sun for most of the day.

full moon farm

Up home to the farm this past weekend to get ready for Shepherd's Harvest Festival. We were working so hard that we only had time to make some farm fresh eggs and sausage, instead of our usual large family meal. (No one complained.) We're trying out some new things this year, like fiber batts with our extra wool and mohair. A lot of work, but well worth it.

My mother is on spring break from work, because her ewes are delivering their lambs this week. I hope she sends me some fun photos to share with you all. I started to spin some new fiber on Saturday - we call this colorway "Zinnia." The pale pastel colors in it's twists remind me of the faded zinnias from my garden.

Can you believe tomorrow is the first day of spring?  I'll believe it when I feel it and see it.

thank you

I just wanted to thank all of our wonderful supporters (and customers) for such a successful Shepherd's Harvest for Crosby Hill Farm - and I want to give another shout out to the hard-working people who organized the weekend. They had to choreograph animals and vendors and make sure the right sheep and the right vendor ended up in the right place.

And it felt like most of them did.

I took a quick stroll around with my camera yesterday afternoon and tried to capture some of the 'flavor' of the event. None of the alpacas would strike a pose for me, but several of the vendors let me take photos of their wonderful work. I really like the needle felted turtles above. They definitely need to be stacked.

The top shot is some handspun Ashely and I spun up at turbo-speed over Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. It was a sampling of fiber from many of the shops at the festival. There was some angora bunny, alpaca, every breed of wool imaginable - in all shades imaginable - all packed into a plastic bag and free to spin for anyone who was willing to donate the finished product to a silent action, the proceeds of which went to a worthy cause.

Adventures all around.

I also want to thank all of the kind people who told me that they read my blog - thank you.

Thank you, so much. 

shepherd's harvest

We've been busy preparing for Shepherd's Harvest this weekend. We'll be selling our beautiful fleeces from our covered CVM Romeldale sheep, as well as our combed top, the spring collection of our hand-dyed yarn and hand-dyed combed top and finally our line of Hetty Yarns in several weights and natural colors.

Please ask us about our 2013 breeding stock. 

We hope to see you there!

this year's lambs

It's unusual for us to capture one of our lambs in a pretty pose--they're usually tossing their tails and running away.

But here Capri and Gem are, mugging for the camera.

This year's lambs are racing up and down the barnyard at Crosby Hill farm and we're very pleased with their fleeces--we can already imagine next winter's sweaters.

shepherd's harvest goodies

barn raising CVM romeldale painted top 40z

My mom and I are getting excited for Shepherd's Harvest Festival this year. It's coming up next weekend at the fairgrounds on Lake Elmo, near Stillwater, MN. All winter long we've been dying fiber--both wool and mohair. My mom also has a luxurious wool/mohair blend that has been washed and combed and made into top.

morning glory CVM romeldale painted top 4oz

Please stop by the Crosby Hill Farm booth, as well as the Winterwind Farm booth--we are happy to be collaborating with Sandy again this year. It should be a great time.

hillbilly harvest CVM romeldale painted top 4oz

The images in this post are a preview of the painted and naturally colored top we will have available for sale at the festival. CVM romeldale wool is known for its next-to-the-skin softness. We hope we can share some of our wonderful wool with you.

prairie mix CVM romeldale painted top 4oz

In another post I'll preview our dyed and naturally colored mohair as well as our naturally colored wool that we've had made into top. We will also have skirted, unwashed wool available for purchase at the festival. Please inquire at our booth, we'll be happy to set you up!

zinnia CVM romeldale painted top 4oz

paintbox

The winter sun sure does look good on this hand painted yarn, doesn't it?

I love the streaks of bright blue and rose. My mom and I painted this yarn yesterday morning. Shepherd's Harvest must be just around the corner, because my parents' household is a flurry of activity that revolves around fiber.

I haven't been much help this season.

My mom's the one who's cleaned all of her fleeces and packed them off to be washed and combed. Look for a new combination of wool and mohair from Crosby Hill Farm this year at the festival.


Here's another color combination that's all my mom. I don't know what she's calling it yet, but I've already pirated twelve ounces of it to make something for myself. I'm of spinning it double-ply, worsted weight and knitting it into a cute little cardigan with some flashy buttons.

Something to knit this summer and snuggle into this fall.

julia & julie

Things were so hectic after Shepherd's Harvest Festival this past spring, that I didn't get a chance to write a post about my mother's success in the fleece competition. 

This year we entered the fleece of a ewe named Julia. The story of my mother (Julie) and this particular ewe (Julia) has been unfolding over the course of the history of this blog. Julia, the sheep, was bottle fed as a lamb, making her one friendly critter to visit in the barn. 

You can't walk ten steps across the pasture without sensing her trotting presence behind you, or crouch to mess with anything in the barn without turning to find her fuzzy nose pressed into your ear. 

Julia has a soft, stone gray fiber that spins up beautifully and knits up well in cables and patterns. Remember the cabled Bella Mittens I made this spring? 

That was Julia. 

At Shepherd's Harvest, Julia's fleece won a first place ribbon in the pure bred class category and took second place all-around. We knew Julia's fleece was beautiful, but that's more than we expected. 

Congratulations Julia and Julie!

That's Julia grazing up above with the other sheep in the pasture. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to get her to stop pestering me and to pose prettily for that shot. Above is the basket of prize winning fiber, which was shipped off last week to a fellow fiber enthusiast. 

I'm currently spinning a batch of chocolate-brown fiber for a still-as-undecided project. Despite the fact that I'm a bit fuzzy about what I'm going to do with it, I will be posting photos of the resulting yarn soon. 

fest fest

It's down to the line here at tendril/twine and Crosby Hill Farm. The living room is a maze of overturned boxes spilling out fiber, hand-wound balls of colored roving rolling about and spinning wheels set to warp speed. 

We're scrambling to create some sort of card that describes our farm, fiber and animals. My mother has been scanning the National CVM Conservancy and the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association looking for a good one-liner.

I still have to bake a few dozen chocolate chip cookies, and pack some other goodies to snack on while at the festival, not to mention gather all my clothes and spinning paraphernalia. Plus, I'm scheduled to sub choir later this afternoon, so I'm sorta in a tizzy. 

We'll make it to the festival, I'm sure about that. I'm just not certain what I'll be wearing and if I'll have my head screwed on straight. Cheers!

bold knitters from fierce climates

I'm impressionable. One of the things that really struck me my first visit to Shepherd's Harvest three years ago was the women walking around knitting socks as they perused the booths at the festival. 

Walking and knitting at the same time. And socks no less! 

How did they do this? Many of them had children in tow, or perhaps a baby fastened to their back. How did they manage to look so serene and confident while completing a task that took me hours of steady concentration while planted firmly on my bottom with minimal and no distractions? 

How did they keep their fingers and stitches in order whiles somehow not dropping one of their needles, or, worse yet, dropping a stitch? (Or even worse worse yet: the baby.) I mean, I can see knitting a scarf, or a dishcloth, but socks? And every single person I saw was knitting a sock, I made sure to check. 

Is there some unspoken rule that if one chooses to walk around and knit at the same time, the best thing to knit is a sock without losing face? Some unspoken code amongst knitters? 

To discover these answers for myself I'm joining the throng this year. I'm going to attempt to walk around and knit a sock . . . well maybe for a little while. The moment I crash into someone or collide with a sales display I promise to stop. 

Here's a preview of my project, some hand painted yarn I made at my last knitting circle. I'm calling the colorway Mandan Bride, after some colorful corn I'm growing in my garden this summer. 

I started the toe sitting down, but I plan on knitting the rest standing up. 

(Maybe I'll be bumping into you at the festival this weekend.)

I'll be in the yurt

Rumor has it (and also the event's schedule) there will be a real Kazakh Yurt at Shepard's Harvest this year. This little fact has intrigued me ever since I browsed the events schedule in mid-January. 

I was happy to learn that there would be spinners galore at the festival, plus an assortment of of natural fibers and yarns. I'm interested in procuring one of those devices that holds my bobbins so that I can spin triple ply yarn. I'm excited about the fiber sandwich and all of the wonderful food, but a real Kazakh Yurt -- that's just over the top. 

It really captured my imagination, is what I mean to say. When I was a kid, my brother and sister and I, and several of our cousins, built this tepee-like structure out in our woods. Here's what we did, we took a bunch of fifteen foot, fallen tree branches and leaned them all up against the central trunk of one large basswood tree. In that manner we got a circular structure with a steeply sloped ceiling (made from all those branches.)

I think everyone was happy with the result, but I was fascinated. I really wanted to live out there. I wanted to build a little fire, fry up some eggs and snuggle into the curve of the tree roots for the night. I could bring out some blankets and perhaps that recliner that my mother was threatening to throw out anyway, and stay until the frost hit and snow blanketed everything. 

In case you're wondering, the structure still stands. I visited it about a week ago. Some of the  larger branches have fallen, and all of the sticks have acquired a silver patina of age, but I can still fit inside of it. 

There are bluebells on the floor and a carpet of spongy moss. 

Again, I considered living out there, but the acquired prudence of comfort that comes with age stopped me pretty quick. It's a long way out for an internet connection. 

So anyway, I'm highly curious about the yurt that will be set up this weekend at Shepherd's Harvest. The kid in me might want to stay all day, scramble some eggs for dinner and camp out that night under the stars . . . 

This project is made from some shetland roving purchased at last year's festival. I pot-dyed it in various shades of green, teal, aqua, moss, rust and tan, then spun it into a single ply worsted weight yarn. 

The pattern comes from Spin Off magazine Summer 08, titled Morning Surf Scarf. 

Mine is more of a wrap . . . a forest wrap.