Baby, It's Cold Outside (and Inside Too)

The temperature has risen to a balmy -10. I discovered my shower pipes are frozen again, despite having heat blowing on them all night from a portable heater-not good. I was grateful that my car started though. It did a little bit of rrrring, but then started right up. I took it for a little drive to get the battery warmed up, and it's supposed to get to the even balmier temperature of 0 today, so I think the car will be OK, I'm not so sure about the pipes. I think another space heater is going to be necessary if we are going to continue to have these freezing temperatures. Some insulating of the pipes would probably help too, but that would be entering a crawl space and that is not in my job description. I'll have to corral a child the next time one is home to help with that.

This frost is on the inside of my side door.

I'm very excited.! I have my first customer coming to my little shop in my living room.

The most exciting part is that it is someone I don't know. I have had friends come shopping, but no brand new customers. She is looking for wool for felting and I have a ton of that, so I hope she goes away happy.

I am working at getting some felting supplies to offer for sale. Living where I do, there is no one who sells felting supplies, and although they can be ordered online, there is nothing like immediate gratification and being able to purchase locally when you are in the mood to start a new project.

Spindies is officially no more. I packed the last of the fiber that was here to send back to the participating artists last week. I set the packages by the back door, left the room, and when I came back discovered that Gerard was making the final inspection to make sure the boxes were securely packaged. It's good that I have such helpful kitties.

BBBBRRRR!!!!!!

Right Now	Next 36 Hours

	Tonight	Tomorrow	Tomorrow Night
Clear	Mostly Clear	Scattered Flurries	Light Snow
-13°F	-32°	3°	-1°
Feels Like: -25° Get FREE weather on your desktop	Low	High	Low
Past 24-hr: Precip: 0 in Snow: 0 in	Chance of Precip: 10%	Chance of Snow: 30%	Chance of Snow: 70%
Wind: From WNW at 5mph	Wind: W at 7 mph	Wind: SSW at 5 mph	Wind: E at 6 mph

It's a chilly one!

Baby Sweaters Needed for Newborn Lambs

I have an online friend who lives in Kansas and is in desperate need of newborn to child sized baby sweaters for her newborn lambs. Here is her appeal and where to send the sweaters if you are able to donate. If you can help, I know Brenda and her lambs will really appreciate it.

Hi to everyone, I have been quite absent here, there and everywhere as I am up to my ears in lambs since Christmas and with the frigid temps I am in desparate need of used baby sweaters and I thought this might just be a good place to find some since I know there are lots of mommies here.

I normally have a stock of these but last year I didn't have much time to shop and with all the twins and triplets this year I am way short and its really harshly cold so these babies need sweaters. I normally buy these at local thriftstores but there just aren't any there now in the towns near my house.. The other used clothing stores i haunt are about an hour away and I just can't leave the farm for that long with all these bottle babies, I just don't have the time as I only have about one hour before I have to start the bottle cycle over again so.... my plea is this, if any of you young mommies have old baby sweaters - the smaller the better preferably preemie or newborn size, even 3 months is good and you want to get rid of them and would be taking them to goodwill or somewhere and want to donate them to a fiber worthy cause and warm up some sweet and very cute little lambs, I would be happy to pay the postage. I can use larger sizes as well, but am in desparate need of the tiny ones.

They don't need to be nice or fancy, so typical garage sale/thrift store stuff is fine stained, or damaged is fine too because i have to throw them away when they are done as they get pretty messed up. I would love to knit beautiful little fair isle felted sweaters for everyone but unfortunately its just impractical because they can only be used for a very short time and it would break my heart to throw them away when they get all lamby :o). I also have to trim away parts - so they can just be any old thing. Sweatshirts are fine too, but the heavier the fabric the better, some fleece is a little too thin to do much good. Just think below zero temps and they have a little bit of wool undershirt but not much yet.

Wool sweaters of course are the absolute warmest and best but are very hard to find - so I would love those in ANY child size and I can felt and shrink them into the perfect lamby sweater - I can usually only find a few of those each year.

The other thing is I need these pretty quickly so the sooner the better, and if you just have a couple, first class postage should get here soon enough. Please don't send priority because the costs will just add up too high for me to compensate you. First class or pacel is fine. Hopefully I will get a few quickly, so I don't need all of them immediately. If you will email me your postage costs and paypal address, I will paypal it back to you. Also if you need to be paid for the sweaters rather than donate them, just let me know as I can pay a dollar or two for each sweater if you want to be reimbursed for them, please let me know ahead of time so I can determine how many i can purchase.

if you just want to donate please send to

Natchwoolie Lambs

P O Box 523

Osawatomie KS 66064

and email your postage costs to wool at natchwoolie.com along with the exact paypal address you wish to be reimbursed.

Thanks to all and any help will be greatly appreciated by the lambs! Maybe I can do a flash mob lamb fashion show if i get a warm sunny day.

Brenda

Resolutions

Wow, it's been a month since I posted. I think about writing every day, but then time just whizzes by and the day is over with no blog post having been written.

I have noticed several knitting blogs whose writers are making knitting resolutions . I am not much for making resolutions, as I'm pretty sure I'm not going to keep them, but have decided to take stock of what is on my needles and make a plan with some nebulous deadlines.

I found two bags with abandoned projects in my Fibber McGee yarn closet when I went looking for yarn for another sweater I started this week.

The sweater is Rosemary's Middle Sweater from Green Mountain Spinnery made with Cascade 220 that I bought years ago. I have started and ripped out at least three sweaters using this yarn. I think it may be because the color of the yarn is outside my color comfort zone. It's an easy pattern, and I only have the sleeves and collar left to do. I think I stopped knitting it because I thought I wouldn't have enough yarn and I knew it would be hard to match. I'm going to be optimistic that there is enough yarn and knit fast, because somehow knitting fast makes it seem more likely that there will be enough yarn. I know that makes no logical sense, but so far it has worked. The actual color of the sweater is more the color in the tote bag above.

These are a few of about 60 granny squares completed for an afghan I abandoned at least a year ago. I guess I was just fickle and moved on to another project, although I know I will love the afghan when it is completed. There is a lot of blocking, sewing together and weaving in of ends in my future. I chose random block patterns from the book 200 Crochet Blocks, and much of the yarn is either Harrisville Shetland or Elisabeth Lavold Silky Wool. Both yarns had the color palette I was looking for and the tweedy texture that I wanted for this project.

The sweater that I started this week is a Knitting Pure and Simple Neckdown Cardigan for Women pattern. I am very fond of Knitting Pure and Simple patterns. They are well written and easy to follow. The yarn I am using was bought for another sweater that was abandoned last year. It is Peace Fleece worsted, one of my all time favorite yarns, both because of the merino mohair blended yarn and the idea behind the company. Their mission statement is that they are a yarn company committed to helping historic enemies cooperate and prosper through trade. They offer yarn made from a blend of Russian, Romanian, American, Israeli and Palestinian wools.

I hope to have all three projects completed by the end of February. Perhaps making this commitment in such a public forum will make me actually stick to the deadline.

I also have several pairs of socks using my Moonlight and Laughter yarn going at all times. I don't really count socks as part of my UFO's because as soon as I finish a pair I cast on for another pair, almost always with my handdyed yarn. Right now I'm working on a pair using my merino, cashmere, nylon blend and I'm loving working with the yarn. The colorway is called "Twilight Time" and is a beautiful blending of blues and lavenders, all the shades one might see as night is falling.

I'm also making a commitment to knit more with my handspun yarn. I tend to spin and not use the yarn, and my collection is becoming quite large and unruly. I thought I had it all contained in one closet, but when I was in the yarn closet searching for the sweater yarn mentioned above I discovered a whole bin of handspun I had forgotten about. Oops! Maybe it's time to start thinking about adding some handspun to the shop.

Here is a picture of my supervisors Seamus and Gerard. They were helping me fill some orders, making sure I didn't make any mistakes. Right now Gerard is supervising the writing of this post while lying on my arms, making it practically impossible to type, but he is very warm. I appreciate the warmth on this cold January day.