Merry Christmas to Ewe (Horribly Late)

If you're very observant, you may have noticed that there has been a great gap in the posts so far:  the first in October and now a bunch here in February.  What can I say?  Such is my life.  And yours too sometimes I bet.

Here are some pictures of the sheep that were too cute to keep to myself.  We use a live tree at Christmas and after the season is ended, we feed it to the sheep!

Om nom nomnomnom...

They eat it completely away so that all that remains is this sorry stick with some side shoots.  They love their Christmas!

Rug Yarn Love

So I bought these two delicious bumps of rug yarn from Morning Star Fiber in Apple Creek, Ohio.  Apparently, you can now order it through their online store.  Awesome!

According to J.C. (the mill manager) one bump will make one 3x5 rug.  This is true if you weave your rug.  I don't weave, I crochet.  It took almost all of both bumps for the rug I made.  It's 2x3.

Crochet uses more yarn than weaving but it produces a thicker, plusher rug.  And, oh-my-goodness, is this rug ever plush!  It's divine!  You kind of sink into it...

Mmmm...

Where was I?

Oh, yes!  What did I do with the remaining bits of rug yarn?  I made sheep!  Icelandic sheep, of course.  Note the extreme cuteness of the spiral horns.

A Trip to Morning Star Fiber

Just before Thanksgiving our family took our wool to be processed at Morning Star Fiber in Apple Creek, Ohio.  We chose this mill because they also raise Icelandic sheep.  Icelandic wool is a primitive/exotic fiber so it's best to take it to someone that has lots of experience if you're not going to process it yourself.

We were led on a tour by J.C. Christensen.  That's him up there and down in the bottom right is my 2nd son, Alex.  We got to see all the (very loud!) machines and see all the great finished products that they offer.  Of course they make roving and all kinds of finished yarns, but they can also make huge sheets of felt and massive bumps of rug yarn.

I confess to falling madly in love with the rug yarn.

I mean, just look at the size of them!  They are huge!  That's my big size 11 foot next to them just so you can see the vast awesomeness of this rug yarn!

Ahem.  Anyway...

I allocated nearly half of the wool I took in for processing to be made into the wonderfully squishy stuff.  Obviously I couldn't wait for my own yarn to be finished so I had to buy the two bumps you see above to play with.  I'll show you what I did with them next post.