In the beginning

Hello, Woollydaze here…

Every year, come snow or shine, the lambs start to arrive. It’s the hardest work in our farming year, and the happiest time. Each year there’s a sense of wonder at new life, and the reminder that life is precious and precarious.

The weeks leading up to lambing are always hectic. There’s all the preparation, which on our farm means setting up the lambing pens in the sheds. We aim for the maximum number of lambs so we look after each and every ewe as well as we can; this means lambing inside, each ewe being put in a pen shortly before or after her lambs are born, and somebody checking up on them for as much as is possible of the 24 hours in the day.

A few weeks before the official start date of lambing is the time when problems start; ‘abortions’ (actually miscarriages), prolapses, twin lamb disease, and sometimes a ewe that is so large she rolls onto her back and is unable to roll over again. Sometimes a plucky little early lamb will be born alive and fight. Occasionally one survives.

Then suddenly there’s the morning where Mr Woollydaze goes to feed the sheep and comes home with some live, healthy lambs, and that is officially the start of lambing. This year it was three days before the official start date (blame the nice weather over the weekend). We usually have a slow few days where we can ease ourselves into the familiar routines and Mr Woollydaze can prepare for the idea of working until 5 a.m., but this year the lambs starting popping out like corks from champagne bottles on the day before the official start date. We have a willing and well-trained group of friends and family who come and help out, providing labour in return for cake and company. I do not know how we would cope without them. We also have vet students from various universities who come to do their lambing placements and uncomplainingly work 12 hour shifts. All the cogs work together and together we get through it, one day at a time.

And this, fellow wool-lovers, is how it all begins. Although wool comes to you as a product off a shelf in pretty colours, it has a living history. Our lambs are produced for meat, but some wool is spirited away at shearing by Woollydaze Two to be transformed on her spinning wheel. This wool made its way back again in the form of a felted draught-excluder for my parents-in-law, who have tended this farm for most of their working lives.

And to heighten the emotion of this lambing season, there’s been an added human element. Our farm worker and his wife had a baby girl on the crazy champagne-cork lambing day. She made a hastier-than-expected arrival and was therefore born at home. In our sleepy little village, such excitement is rare. We’re looking forward to meeting the dinky new arrival and welcoming her into the mostly fun, occasionally fraught, always special world of growing up in the countryside with a farm as your playground.

This post is dedicated to friends who recently lost their cherished baby girl shortly after birth:

A little soul scarce fledged for earth

Takes wing with heaven again for goal

Even while we hailed as fresh from birth

A little soul.

(A Baby’s Death by Algernon Charles Swinburne)

Not a completer finisher

Hello, Woollydaze here… 

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I love planning a project, I like doing a project, and I’m terrible at finishing a project. I lose interest just before the finish line and wander off, looking for a more interesting race to run.

Yes, the tractor rug is still under my bed. No, the drop stitch scarf isn’t finished.

At the moment, lying around the house in various places, I have various unfinished bits of craft work:

Some have been a WIP for longer than others. The most extreme of this bunch has been on the ‘to do’ list since roughly 1994. I’m determined to finish that one in the next few months, because it’s going to be a gift. For a baby. Who will not appreciate it for his or her 18th birthday.

My cold office cosy cardigan has suffered from this fate, only I’ve done the unforgiveable and started to wear it before it is finished. It was so close to being finished. I washed it, blocked it, sewed it together, tried it on, and decided it was too short.

Since I had spare wool and it’s not a precise pattern, I picked up the cast on stitches and knitted downwards for a few rows. I then bought some bias binding to sew into the seams to define them because the edges were a bit sloppy. In the process of buying the bias binding, I managed to find some ‘perfect’ buttons that were soooooo much better than the buttons I had originally bought (which were acceptable, really, just a bit plain).

I sewed in nearly all of the bias binding, and didn’t do the last tiny bit. I pinned it in, then took it out again when I wanted to wear the cardigan.

I discovered a problem with the ‘perfect’ buttons, all to do with the fact that I had bought three then WoollyDaze Too had reminded me that it’s wise, particularly when buying expensive ‘perfect’ buttons, to have a spare. The extra one I bought was clearly not from the same tube as the original three.

 In the past few days I’ve made an extra special effort to sort all of this out and officially finish this cardigan. So here it is:

Ta-da!

The irony is that the temperature in the office for the past fortnight has been hovering around the 24 degrees Centigrade mark, so really I should be knitting cotton summer tops.

Tofty bobbles

Hello, WoollyDaze Too here…

WoollyDaze promised you wool, and wool you shall have. More specifically, you shall have alpaca.

Cast your minds back to last summer, when Woollydaze suggested that we visit Toft Alpacas. (What do you mean you don’t remember … oh, wait … you weren’t there.) She didn’t need to suggest twice and so one sunny afternoon we bundled Little Woolly and our Mum into a car and drove to Dunchurch to admire the alpacas and stroke the wool. It transpired that Woollydaze had an ulterior motive as she and Mr Woollydaze visited the Alpaca Centre in Penrith while on holiday, and had been fortunate enough to have a good chat about keeping alpacas. They can be kept alongside sheep, where the young males will guard the flock, protecting it against predators such as foxes. If there’s one thing Woollydaze and Mr Woolydaze are not short of, that’s sheep. Our visit to Toft Alpacas culminated in my purchasing a lightweight felt beret kit (garments are available in kit form, or knitted up for those who prefer their garments less nascent) and a seconds bulb bag in fully felted form.

The beret pattern was simple to follow, and the yarn was a joy to use – so soft and smooth. The felting was accomplished in my front-loading washing machine (always a nervous moment), and I was pleased that the hat turned out exactly the right size (a tad on the small side for me = would fit my mum perfectly. Christmas present sorted!).

Version two [Ravelry link] of the beret, with added stripes, was embarked upon while still reeling from the success of version one. This second version used stash alpaca purchased from eBay about 5 years ago (green), and a complementary colour purchased for the occasion (cream). The intention was to present this to a work colleague as a Secret Santa gift, therefore the yarn had to cost less than £5 to satisfy the conditions of the swap. I did pay slightly more, but used less than a full ball on the project so reasoned that I wouldn’t get hauled off to account to Secret Santa for overspending! While knitting version two it became clear that the yarn, although allegedly DK-weight as the Toft Alpaca original, was thinner and once felted it was evident that the hat would best fit a child, and a young one at that (it has since found a good home with a four-year-old girl of my acquaintance, and a replacement Secret Santa gift was hurriedly procured).

When the photos were taken, shortly before Christmas 2010, daylight was in short supply (the oft-heard complaint of the knit blogger). I was fortunate to procure the services of a hat model at very reasonable rates (payment in honey), though the styling does rather remind me of Citizen Smith…

 

 

Hello, Woollydaze Too here…

Woollydaze promised you wool, and wool you shall have. More specifically, you shall have alpaca.

Cast your minds back to last summer, when Woollydaze suggested that we visit Toft Alpacas. (What do you mean you don’t remember … oh, wait, you weren’t there.) She didn’t need to suggest twice and so one sunny afternoon we bundled little Woolly and our Mum into a car and drove to Dunchurch to admire the alpacas and stroke the wool. It transpired that Woollydaze had an ulterior motive as she and Mr Woollydaze visited the Alpaca Centre in Penrith on a recent holiday, and had been fortunate enough to have a good chat about keeping alpacas. They can be kept alongside sheep, where the young males will guard the flock, protecting it against predators such as foxes. If there’s one thing Woollydaze and her husband are not short of, that’s sheep. Our visit to Toft Alpacas culminated in the purchase of a bobble beret kit (garments are available in kit form, or knitted up for those who prefer their garments less nascent) and a seconds onion bag in fully felted form.

The beret pattern was simple to follow, and the yarn was a joy to use – so soft and smooth. Once the felting was complete I was pleased that the hat turned out exactly the right size (a tad on the small side for me = would fit my mum perfectly). Version two, with added stripes, was embarked upon while still reeling from the success of version one. This second version used stash alpaca purchased from eBay about 5 years ago (green), and a complementary colour purchased for the occasion (cream). The intention was to present this to a work colleague as a Secret Santa gift, therefore the yarn had to cost less than £5 to satisfy the conditions of the swap. I did pay slightly more, but used less than a full ball on the project so reasoned that I wouldn’t get hauled off to account to Secret Santa for overspending! While knitting version two it became clear that the yarn, although DK-weight as the Toft Alpaca original, was thinner and once felted it was evident that the hat would best fit a child, and a young one at that (it has since found a good home with a four-year-old girl of my acquaintance, and a replacement Secret Santa gift was hurriedly procured).

When the photos were taken, shortly before Christmas 2010, daylight was in short supply (the oft-heard complaint of the knit blogger). I was fortunate to procure the services of a hat model at very reasonable rates (payment in honey), though the resulting styling does rather remind me of Citizen Smith.

More Woodendaze than Woollydaze

Hello, Woollydaze here…

So, what exactly is a sail shelf? Imagine you live in a family where the mother would like to display books, the father would like room for a subwoofer and the child would like somewhere for his toy boxes (if he were able to articulate his opinion). How do you cater for all the different criteria?

Answer: You stumble across this on the internet, steal the idea and as a consequence make these: 

Aren’t they great? I love, love, love them. Possibly more than the shelves in the bedroom, if such a thing is possible.

They’re made solid oak and yet look like they’re floating. This has been achieved by drilling some very large holes in the wall and the shelves and cementing in very large steel rods. Occasionally, living in a house with solid walls has advantages, although at least one drill was destroyed in the process. The ‘sail’ on the end is very visible as you walk into the room; whilst it’s mostly decorative it does make the shelves into a feature. 

And so, at last, my books have been unpacked and dusted and put on shelves. They have never been on display before, having spent their life in stacking boxes. When Woollydaze Too and I lived at home home we shared a bedroom, and in the centre competing piles of stacking boxes grew until my mum told us asked us to not buy any more books until we had our own homes to put them in. It’s only taken me a decade and a half to achieve this.

Mr Woollydaze, here’s a heartfelt ‘thank you’ from me. I know that you called in the professionals to help out, but you listened to my ideas, thought them through, designed the shelves, sourced the wood, directed the show, sanded and stained. I keep sneaking a peek through the doorway and thinking ‘wow’ at the finished result. You’ve done a fabulous job.

Coming up next time: back to wool. Promise.

Man crafting

Here, finished and installed, resplendent against freshly painted walls, is my Christmas present from Mr Woollydaze.

Doesn’t they look fantastic! I had a very specific idea about how I wanted these shelves to look: thick, rustic and (this was the difficult bit) with a ‘natural’ edge.

I think my brief provided Mr Woollydaze with quite a challenge. As most wood that’s sold to the general public is tidied and sawn, he had to go back one step. He phoned around sawmills as far away as Wales before finding one just a few miles from home that could provide what was needed. Apparently when the lengths of wood arrived on the farm, they looked like bits of tree. Sadly he didn’t take any photos so I’m not able to appreciate how scary this must have been.

After some drying out, sanding down and staining up, they were presented to me on Christmas Day. I was able to choose what order to put them in and on which side, and my wishes were carried out. Now, rather than having a pile of books next to/under my bed which have been borrowed and need to be read and returned, they are displayed and tidy. Mr Woollydaze has a ‘matching’ set of shelves on his side of the bed, but fewer book to put on them.

 

The shelves are exactly what I had imagined and exactly what I wanted, and full credit to Mr Woollydaze for bringing to life what was in my head. In many ways I think what he has achieved here is a lot more artistic that what I do when I craft: I take patterns where the finished result is pictured and work through the instructions to recreate that. This took a lot more thought and ingenuity.

As a result of his success, Mr Woollydaze has been commissioned to build the shelves for the newly redecorated lounge. The brief is similar: chunky and built to fit, but this time without the natural edge. Not to make things too easy, this time it’s a ‘sail shelf’ where the shelves get gradually narrower. There is already talk of having to reinforce the floor to support it. The wood has arrived, has been stained and is in the hallway waiting… no doubt soon a magical tranformation will occur.

Note: all the photos in this blog post were taken by my father-in-law, since neither my camera nor I were up to the job of taking decent photos in the current murky weather. Even the photos on the shelf were taken by my father-in-law. It’s great having a professional photographer in the family.

A soapy aside

Hello, Woollydaze here…

This was one of my Christmas presents from Woollydaze Too:

I can honestly say that it had not occurred to me that you could make soap from sheep wool ‘fat’ (which is, I think, an old fashioned name for lanolin). The information leaflet says it’s a traditional recipe and suggests that it’s good for sensitive skin.

I haven’t yet tried the soap as I’m too taken with the idea of it still, but I’m expecting it to be seriously good because it’s been around for so long and there’s got to be some reason why people are still buying it. That reason is certainly not the smell. It smells awful.

The branding reminds me of coal tar soap, which reminds me of the day Little Woolly was born. He was a planned homebirth, and as we got close to the crucial moment one of the midwives joked about how she had been at a homebirth once when a supermarket order had arrived during labour. Which made me remember that we had an order due any second. The order was late and Little Woolly arrived first, and one of the midwifes went downstairs to tell the driver to put all of the shopping in the scullery. My mother-in-law then put the shopping away in the cupboards. And for the next week I kept finding things in the cupboards that I hadn’t ordered, including some coal tar soap. We used it all up at the sink in the scullery but the sight and smell will always evoke strong memories.

Little Woolly certainly seems to have taken a liking to the Wool Fat Soap. ‘My soap’ he declares every time he sees it, and I keep having to reclaim it from amongst his toys.

FO: Jacket for Peg Leg Otto

Hello, Woollydaze here…

Way back when Little Woolly was littler, it was discovered that he’d managed to survive the first year of his life without a teddy bear. This did not seem right or proper so Woollydaze Too set about rectifying the situation, presenting him with Peg Leg Otto (original pattern by Ysolda Teague) for his birthday. Since then PL Otto has been cuddled and thrown out of bed in about equal measure, depending on the whims of a toddler. PL Otto, loyal to the end, never complains.

 

Now, Little Woolly doesn’t have that many soft toys and he’s fond of only a few of them. The most love has been given to Raggy Lamb, a fleecy square with a head (actually, there’s two fleecy squares with heads so one can be cuddled whilst one’s being washed). He has recently fallen from grace and been replaced by Dressing Gown; yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like. PL Otto is next on the list. He’s spent many lonely hours in bed waiting his turn.

The time had come to reward PL Otto for his devotion, and to make him more comfortable in a bedroom where the temperature has on one particularly cold occasion been recorded as twelve degrees Celcius. It was time to knit him a jacket. I found some aran wool in a natty maroon from the deeper and older depths of the stash, and set to work. A couple of days later, it was done. 

For the first time, Little Woolly was given the button box. Many of these buttons were liberated from my Grandma’s house in successive visits when one of the greatest pleasures was tipping out her big tin of buttons and sorting through for the most pretty and interesting. My button box is significantly smaller than Grandma’s was, but it’s still a treasure trove for a small child. We hunted through, ostensibly looking for three matching buttons but deciding in the end that two would do. We chose mouse buttons over the hippos, dogs and ducks, probably because my mother-in-law does a wonderful shriek when Little Woolly, with a twinkle in his eye, looks at her and says ‘mouse, eee-eee-eee’. She doesn’t like mice.

So PL Otto is now wrapped up against the cold and has been enjoying more cuddles for the past few days as his new jacket (with mouse buttons) is shown off. PL Otto needs to eat more marmalade or honey for his jacket to fit properly, but once again he’s not complained. This jacket was quick and easy to knit, but making it gave me much pleasure and continues to make me smile. Ravelry link here.