Despite the busy schedule we still keep in our homeschool, I managed to plug away at some of my projects and finish a few. My mother's socks are done.




Kurt bought me an envelop yesterday so I can get them off to her soon. Naturally I finished her wool socks just in time for the hot Las Vegas summer.

When I received notice my new tri-loom was finished and would be shipping, I decided I'd better finish fringing the shawl on my older, smaller tri-loom.




I started weaving this shawl more than a year ago and was glad to finally finish it. I will confess despite regular dusting with a first class feather duster, I raised a cloud pulling this shawl off of the loom. Washing seems to have removed the dust however and the shawl turned out much better than I suspected it would. It is a nice light weight shawl which will be perfect for our mild Alabama Springs and Falls.

Now that we are in a rural area for the first time in our lives and because we have a little bit of land connected to our house, we've been thinking about animals. Naturally I immediately wanted fiber animals, but Kurt thought we should start with chickens. Fresh eggs and meat do sound inviting so we have started our research.




A wonderful lady with whom my husband works took the kids and I too a stock show right here in Brewton. Here the children finally see what chickens look like before they are in the grocery store.




Barbara wanted this emu, but her husband reminded her they didn't have enough room for it. It was awfully cute though.




Naturally Gregory wanted to look at farm equipment.




The kids thought we needed a tractor. I don't think any of us possess the skills to keep an old piece of equipment running though. In fact, I'm not sure if I could figure out how to get a new one of these running. . .

Barbara is going to help us investigate chickens and she and her husband are going to help us build our first chicken coop once we are ready. They already have a small flock of their own chickens. She mentioned wanting a pair of hand knitted socks so I turned the household upside down for a week so I could make her a pair.




These are actually more towards the green than the picture shows. They are from Lorna's Laces in the Ice House colorway. I made up a cable pattern which is hard to see, but which turned out quite nice. I am going to modify it slightly and make some for myself with this pattern too I think.

Our weather has been fun this Spring. I don't know what is normal yet, but I sure like it. Some days it has been hot and we have gone swimming.




Michael went for his first swim in the pool a couple of weeks ago.




He looks like a baby surfer!




Other days the weather has been downright cool. On those days we hang out on the front porch and enjoy our wilderness view.




Even Michael enjoys the country life. Soon we hope to be watching chicken antics as well as the breezes blowing through the trees.




Michael reminds me of a baby chicken with the fuzz on his head.




Gregory and Gabrielle have far more energy than I and they typically end up on the swing set or jumping on the trampoline.




While posting pictures of the children, I couldn't resist posting this picture of Michael kicking back in the bath tub. This is so typical Michael. He loves to kick back and take in whatever is going on around him, and if he can chew on a duck at the same time, so much the better.

On Mother's Day I started preparing fiber for my next spinning project. In conjunction with other prayer events on the Christian Artisans list, I am spinning some yarn for Dale, who is facing a bone marrow transplant and praying for her as I do so. She is a most wonderful lady. Please join me in praying for her for healing, for health, for comfort and for joy in her circumstances.




I've been washing fleeces lately and while this Gulf Coast Native fleece dried on my fireplace hearth, I keep thinking about how pretty the colors looked. I couldn't wait to spin some of it. So I thought I would use some of it to make some "Hurricane Sock Yarn" for Dale. I call it "Hurricane Sock Yarn" because the fiber and spinning will be from the two hurricane hit members of the Christian Artisans list. I thought I'd also do some lace-weight yarn too. I'm thinking about "Moderator Lace Yarn" made from a blend of fibers from two of the moderators.




Here is the fiber all carded up and ready to go. It ended up blending into a taupe color that I really like. I hope Dale likes natural fibers as I do. I've started spinning it already on my fabulous Pegasus, but didn't include any pictures because I've got so many in this post already. Hopefully I'll have some finished yarn to post soon. I sure love spinning on my Pegasus!