A Quick Molly Update

Molly is still hanging on in there, although she had a bad day yesterday. She got stuck on her side at some point during the night, and I found her exhausted and disorientated the next morning. She seemed to recover OK, but her energy levels seemed to crash during the afternoon, and by the evening she was very weak. I phoned the vet, and asked him to come out, with the unspoken understanding that he might have to put her to sleep. Meanwhile, I fed her some sugar beet pulp, which is easily digested and a good energy giving food, and she perked up. The vet has changed her homeopathic remedy, and I really think that she seems to be responding to it. She seems somehow different this morning, and I feel that she may have some more muscle tone in her hind legs. Maybe yesterday's crisis was her hitting rock bottom? Who knows. I'll keep you posted.

What can you make with a single skein?

This has been bugging me of late. What CAN you make with a single skein of my wool? 100g of pure knitting loveliness, especially the hand painted yarn.

See? Very nice. (Oh, you saw that picture last time - duh. Never mind. It's staying there now.) Now I like quite big projects - jumpers, large-ish bags and the like. (I also like making teeny tiny little beaded bags, knitted on the thinnest of knitting needles, but they are not made of our Cotswold wool, and so I shall not mention them right now.) But I want to create some knitting kits, which will contain handsome wooden needles, a pattern, and enough wool to create the item in question. I'm wanting to do some for beginners, and this is causing me a bit of a problem in deciding how tricky the design should be. Can I, for example, include a bit of decreasing? I don't think that's too difficult... especially if I explain how to do it. How about ribbing? I dislike doing it myself, but that's not the point. Clearly some people love it. I tend to feel that things you can create out of rectangles are Good. Also, things you can put into the washing machine and felt, thus maybe disguising slightly weird tension, the odd dropped stitch, or the strange thing that happened when, for a period of 10 rows or so, you had 2 more stitches than you should have had, and then the problem resolved itself without you knowing why. (Actually - and I probably shouldn't say this - all these things have happened to me recently, but I think the gaining and losing stitches could have been due to the beer.) My Cotswold mill-spun wool doesn't felt quite so enthusiastically as the hand-spun stuff does, which does mean you have to grit your teeth and put it on a bit of a hotter wash than you might originally have thought of - but it does go lovely and felty and furry and soft when it comes out.

So. I-pod sock? (Will have to swipe someone's I-pod for that in order to make it fit - I don't own one myself.) Egg cosy? Tea cosy? Very retro-ironically-chic. Scarf? Nice, but a bit of a long haul if you are only knitting 4 rows a night. Hat? Good project, but to make them nice, they have to have shaping... maybe not a complete beginner's project. Purse? Bag?? Mat for one's cat to sit on??!

In livestock news, our misfortunes continue. Molly, one of our senior ewes, has been stricken with a strange hind leg paralysis, the sort where sensation is still there, but muscle tone and the ability to actually move those hind legs has completely gone. Our vet is stumped. Fortunately, Molly is absolutely fine in herself (apart from the small matter of being paralysed of course), and is still eating and drinking, plus fulfilling all those other bodily functions necessary for good health. She is also content to lie there and be waited on, and I do get the feeling that she thinks this is her due from the simians with the buckets. Our vet, as well as being a most excellent vet, is a qualified homeopath, and it's this form of medicine we are pinning our hopes on now. Molly did have a bit of a go at getting up this evening, which she hasn't tried for some days, which is definitely a change. She is very well loved by all who know her, and Foz and I have been very up and down about the whole episode. Our vet, though, is absolutely determined to get her well again, and so the only thing we can do is to trust him. At least Molly is not suffering in the slightest - she is in no pain, she's pretty happy sitting in the barn and watching Sheep TV (the cows and pigs, which she seems to hold in magnificent disdain, but is secretly interested in them - a bit like someone professing not to like Big Brother but secretly being an avid viewer), she has her daughter Lily with her, who is not best pleased but that's just tough, and she is getting any amount of attention from all her human friends. I'll let you know what happens.

Just to cheer myself up, and make myself feel a bit better about the sheep situation, here's a coupla photos of Alfie, taken by our friend the lovely Annabelle last week.



What a handsome boy. And with a lot more fleece than he had last time you saw him. Thank goodness that all grew back.

Enhanced By Cats

I've had a very busy couple of days. Yesterday, I went to see my friends at Lower Shaw Farm, who are hosting the knitting and spinning course I am teaching on next month. (14th-16th November, and there is apparently one place left, so get in there fast if you wanna go! Great food, wonderful atmosphere, and wool as far as the eye can see. What more do you want?) We have talked over The Plan, and have found it good - and also very open to change, which is great because that's what we want to have happen. It's wonderful to be able to sort out exactly what everyone wants to cover, and then have a goodly go at getting all that in. It worked well last year, with everyone telling the group what they wanted to do, and us all agreeing the programme there and then. Today, I made a visit which may well take my business in a different direction - more details to come once finalised, but I'm very excited.

But the weather is fine and lovely, and so photographs of WOOL must be taken! I need to get some things posted up on Etsy, so have to take pictures for the posting. It being beautiful outside, I took my camera, and went out to take these pics:

Lovely wool, good colours - probably needs a bit of cropping on Photoshop, but that's fine, I can do that. I love that bench in my garden, as does my cat Tico.

Clearly, everything on this bench belongs to Tico, and here she is, having appeared from nowhere, to inspect what is going on. I am expecting her to rub extravagantly against the wool and knock it down. So I'm poised with camera, waiting for her to do something amusing so I can capture it for posterity.

Do we ever do what is expected of us? Nope.

This definitely reminded me of something you see on Etsy shops, where sellers state whether their work spaces are smoking/non smoking, or whether they have pets. Quite often, you see someone's house described as 'enhanced by cats'. Well, that's my life for you - definitely enhanced by cats.