Ducks and Donkeys

Well its been ages since I have posted, so have decided to start to post a little more regular now. I have a new Laptop so its much more easy and quick to upload pictures, and thanks to my coming second in a competition I now have a very cool Flip ultraHD video camera! Never had one before so I have been experimenting, and below is my first movie!

The 3 drakes that are on the beginning of the movie have been removed from living with the ladies as they are a little too amorous and keep leaping on my ladies! The other 2 drakes still living with the ladies are much more sedate.

I am making this year my year for charity knitting, and although I have only made one I have decided to make lots of knitted donkeys for The Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth, in the South West of England. I love donkeys and when we lived in England I used to go and see them, now whenever we visit family down in England we make a point of visiting the Donkeys. I have until the End of August to knit a whole heard so watch this space!!

Long time, New arrivals and Learning New things!

Well its been a very long time since I last blogged, I can't believe where the time has gone really. Since the last blog I have taken on some new sheep, 2 lovely Blackface ewe's called Olive and Minty, 2 Hebridean ewes called HS1 and HS2 (Hebridean sheep 1 and 2, and also local post codes!) and 3 Hebridean Rams, PopEye, Brutus and Kevin! Taken from a friend that could no longer look after them they have settled in well and are super friendly (able to give them a cuddle, friendly!)

                                          My 4 New Girls (Olive is at the front, as usual)

I have also decided that I get 'second Sock syndrome', now for those of you that have never knitted socks its the feeling that you get that once you have made one sock, you have no desire to make the other, leaving one very lovely but sad single sock.

I decided to remedy this by getting the book, Toe Up 2 at a time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes and give it a try. It is also a first for knitting toe up too and to me seems like the perfect thing to do, as you don't run out of yarn, you just knit the leg as long as the yarn let you as the toe and foot are done first.

I have cast on and done the toes tonight, and I'm already addicted to doing it this way. The increase for the toe looks really neat and both socks will turn out the same. I would recommend this book! Pictures to follow of socks in progress!

We had last night very high winds, some parts of the Island recorded 101mph. The power was off for 16 hours and has been on and off all day, all OK, but glad the powers back on so the heating works!!

Pictures of sheared sheep, at last!

Finally got a few pictures of the sheared sheep, our friendly sheep, Timmy, was not too keen to come up and have a cuddle this morning as he usually does but none the worse for wear after their eventfull day yesterday. Timmy is the one with the T on him, it is harder to tell now they have been sheared so we sprayed him!

The Shearing is Done!

Today in the post the clippers came, just on the perfect day to start the shearing of the sheep. This is the first ever time we have done this, but my sister is a dog groomer so had a good understanding on how to handle the clippers!

It has been the most beautiful day here today, blue skies with a few white fluffy clouds, so we thought we would start. We didn't know how many would get done as the last time we caught them 2 got out and we could not get them back in the pen. We caught 4 to sart with, the black on evaded us but after the white ones were done, and with a little pursuasion with a bucket of food we got him too, we got them all sheared in under 3 hours, and I have 5 lovely fleeces that are ready to be washed for spinning.

Take a look at the pics, there is only one of them sheared at the moment, and as you can see they are not too keen to get too close at just yet, it will take a day or so for them to come back down and let us get near!

From This

To This!

As you can see, they are not too keen to come too close!

The Black sheep has faded over time, the ends are brown and the underneath is grey!

Pictures to follow of the sheared sheep, when they like us again! There was no one spare to take pictures while the shearing was being done, it was all hand on deck. The sheep do look very cute now they have their summer cuts, they look like lambs again and were running and playing after being sheared, I bet they feel better with out all that fleece on now.

Its Been a While....

Well hello again!

Its been a while since I have posted, I have been away on holiday, then we have had family visiting us up here on the Island. It was their first visit up to the Island since we moved and the weather was kind.  Well it was chilly but the sun shone and the rain stayed away.

I have been busy with weaving, just recieved another 2 tweeds today so will be tying in and starting weaving today, so will be kept out of mischief!

I have popped a few pictures that I took of various parts of the Island below.

Carloway Broch

Black House Museum

Our Naughty Cat, and a Kitchen Roll!

Busy, Busy

Well its been a month since the last post, I have been busy weaving and I have finally managed to finish my first proper lace project. I dont do things the easy way, I could have produced a bookmark or coaster but I decided to make a full size adults scarf! I did it in two halfs and kitchener stitched the two halfs together. The middle is plain stocking stitch as I didnt want to do the whole scarf in lace ( I get bored easily!)

The lace pattern was from Ravelry and is a simple 12 row pattern which when blocked looks beautiful.

Im off on holiday for a few weeks now so have lots of packing to do!

Tweed All Around

On Saturday we took a trip down to Harris, to buy some Harris Tweed. Although I am a Harris Tweed Weaver, the little left over bits I get are not useable, as they are unfinished. Once the tweed has been woven by the weaver it gets taken back to the mill, washed, shrunk and pressed, then stamped with the Orb mark to make it Harris Tweed. I bought some to make myself a new handbag, mine is looking a little worn now, after being used every day for 2 years, thing is I need to learn how to use a sewing machine so I can make it!
Look out for my finished bag in a future post (im not giving a time limit, the sewing machine looks quite complex to use!)

Below is the tweed I bought, the orange and brown dogtooth and the plain orange is going to be used for the bag, not sure on the others yet, I just liked them! They were bought from Tarbert, at the Harris Tweed shop (http://www.harristweedandknitwear.co.uk/shop.html ), any one comming to Lewis to visit should take a trip down and have a look at the shop, it is wonderful!

On the way back we took a walk on the beach wit the dog, the picture below was taken on Luskentyre Beach, and the hill in the foreground is the Isle of Taransay, where Cast Away was filmed back in 2000.