Mr Poopers Has A Sheep

So yesterday I mentioned sheep and I received a flood of emails from friends all going “say what?” so here is the post to clarify things.  The Mr and I do have sheep.  Two to be precise.  Two mostly icelandic sheep.

Oreo

Oreo

We did not name the sheep and one is definitely getting renamed if not both.

I can tell you that the Mr and I have never really had the thought “I’m going to get a sheep.” much less two but Tom & Mette are enablers and I am a huge fan of lopi.  So when we were offered two icelandic cross breed sheep I ignored it (honestly I did) and the Mr secretly talked to Mette.  I was still on the fence until I saw them and now I love them too.  This year I think it will be fiber, then after that we may talk about breeding (and no we wouldn’t be breading for fiber or to start a flock).

They are really quite beautiful girls and I didn’t think that I would be quite so happy with a sheep.  Especially ones that are afraid of people. (though isn’t that all sheep?) in an attempt to coral them the sheep formally known as “Princess” (the black ewe) jumped over Mette’s shoulder and head butted the fence creating a huge dent in the door.  Sorry Mette! I didn’t know a sheep could jump like that & also I’m sorry that I’m oddly a little proud that my big fat girl could jump like that. :)   Also did you know that Icelandic sheep don’t flock? I didn’t but it seems oddly Scandinavian to me that even the sheep are “Every ewe for themself!” & only the strongest or smartest survive when they don’t flock. :)

My girls are at the front & the far right.  They are so beefy which I think is the cross, even their legs are much thicker than the other sheep on the ranch.

picked up from the same ranch is Lambert, Tom & Mette’s new ram.

Lambert the Ram

Lambert the Ram

He’s beautiful and a beast. I thought their ram Hawk was huge but this guy has at least 40 pounds on him.  And who can resist that pink nose?

Sheep Smiles

Sheep Smiles

So next I will be spinning & knitting from my own darn sheep. How crazy is that?!  (I would also like to state that wordpress does not recognize the word “ewe” which I find is odd)

Niddy Noddies For Sale!

Niddy noddies are finally here and finally for sale.  Please check out the etsy shop for more information.

Marblewood Handturned Niddy Noddy

Marblewood Handturned Niddy Noddy

YellowHeart Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

YellowHeart Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

Padauk Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

Padauk Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

PurpleHeart Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

PurpleHeart Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

Padauk Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

Padauk Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

Padauk Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

Padauk Hand Turned Niddy Noddy

In the next post…The Mr and I are now the proud owners of two icelandic sheep. (only the one in front is ours).

Salyer Sheeps

Salyer Sheeps

Update with Knitting & SHEEPS

Whew, seriously has it been a week already? I can’t believe it’s friday.  It’s odd because my day at work burns by at light speed which is awesome and unexpected.  I was pulled in to the big bosses office again. This makes it 4 times in 3 weeks (if not the 5th time) to ask me what I think about processes and what’s happening in the department.  It’s weird and humbling because though I have the most experience in the entire department I don’t know that I’m ready to offer an opinion on what people have been doing for the last three years. 

I won’t bore you though because I fully admit that bankcard is only interesting to people who are in bankcard.  I could wax on about PCI compliance or dues & assessments or truncation but I won’t because that’s not why you come here. 

These days though I’ve been pretty boring & I apologize for that.  Good news for you faithful readers is that I am going to the ranch this weekend for National Alpaca Day (NAD HA!).  Yeah, equally as dorky as comic con or Star Trek I take comfort in the fact that I am still not as dorky as the furries.  (I apologize to all furries I have just offended and I’m sure your not all freaks like those popularized on the internet because I’m a knitter and that doesn’t mean I knit weird creepy toilette paper cozies).

For people who come to Mr Poopers for the pictures here ya go.

Handturned niddy noddie out of yellowheart wood.

Handturned niddy noddie out of yellowheart wood.

I found out yesterday through the Mr’s searching (did I know he read my blog? No I did not so I guess I better stop telling stories about him- yeah right) that there is actually ANOTHER Mr. Poopers out there. :/  Though we share a similar blog name I have to claim that I am the original Mr. Poopers and I will not talk about actual poop (unless it’s animal poop and then I might because it’s funny).  Why “Mr” Poopers? Why not? Enough of your questions! Moving along!

Back to more relevent subjects above is a handturned niddy noddy done out of Yellow Heart which I have mistakenly (and quite randomly) been calling lemon wood. Well, either works if you ask me but the Mr insists I correct myself so I will *sigh*.  It’s YELLOW HEART. And it’s for sale.  If you are in California and come to Ranch Of The Oaks this weekend you can buy it.  If it’s stillhere at the end of the weekend it will be for sale on monday I will post it on the blog and you can buy it through etsy.

Random alert!  the Mr hauling a sheep!

More randomness!

And for those of you that come here for the knitting stuff here ya go…

Liesel Handspun Scarf

Liesel Handspun Scarf

I spun this yarnto make this scarf! Crazypants!  Pattern is Liesel & it was fast, fun and totally worth it. Free, easy, & pretty can you ask for more?

Expect tons of pictures from the weekend, not only is it the ranch where we do all sorts of weird, fascinating, fun, and drunken things, but it’s national alpaca day and Carrie is coming & so is Jim & Kathy (though sadly no Jim & Carol which still makes me pout) and other crazy other people who do weird things like help alpacas have sex :)

I also just remembered that sunday is the 6 year anniversary of our wedding.  6 years since the Mr and I had an 8 minute ceremony that was honestly the best decision of my life.  If you’ve been here long you know how I feel about the Mr.  I love him more than I could ever express.  He’s the flame of my heart and the fuel for my soul, he’s my best friend and my biggest fan. 

Also I’ve pumped out another 15,000 words which brings me to a ridiculous amount of words and pages and characters and plot lines.  It also means that Mildred has moved on to the third person reading the rough draft and the second part of the “book” is being circulated as I type.  So we will see because the second half is when I get going and um…get bloody ;)

So yeah & stuff with things.  I have to say that facebook is the weirdest invention ever. Two people in the last 2 days who I thought were gone from my life forever have surfaced.  It’s pretty damn neat actually.  How do you sum up 6 years of life? Is it bad manners to say, “Um, read my blog”?

Creatin’ Stuff

So I think that I have finally hit my stride at work. I’m not coming home so incredibly exhausted anymore (though I’m still tired) and I’m able to do things at night other than fall asleep on the couch before 9pm.   I’ve completed a lot of hats recently among other things.

This hat was knit for the husband out of his own handspun and Ranch of the Oaks Lopi (which is by far the best and softest lopi and they need to sell it online like asap because I’ve got so many questions about it from other knitters – ahem Mette). So anyways, handspun, stripes, and rib can’t go wrong right?

No you can not. I loved this hat so much (so did the Mr.) that I made one for myself (not pictured because it’s the exact same hat).

I’m also working on a pair of Noro Silk Garden Stripy Socks (say that 10 times fast!). I am in love with the results. They are so fantastically random and somewhat ugly that I can’t help but smile.

Last but definitely not least is the Mr’s project.  He has been (per my request) making a much better niddy noddy because the one I bought a few months ago from Ashford sucked the big one. 

This handturned version is made out of vibrantly orange paduc and makes a 2 yard skein.  It’s light and well balanced and I will be sad when it doesn’t live at our house anymore.  Basically he’s making these for sale because there isn’t a great market for niddy noddies (at least one that I can find).  More are to come made out of Tiger Maple, Purple Heart, Yellow Heart, Marble Wood, and more.  They will be for sale first during National Alpaca Days at Ranch Of The Oaks this weekend. 

with flash & now its obvious we need a white box

with flash & now it's obvious we need a white box

If you are interested in the niddy noddies please leave a comment or drop me a line.

In other news I have hit another milestone with Mildred. I have reached the 500th page and am ready for another print out.  So far Mildred is being read by the 3rd non-family friend and my knittin’ kittens are doing their best to make sure that I won’t be able to fit through a door because of my big head.  I really do have the absolute best friends ever.

I <3 Pompoms

I’m still adjusting to being back at work and having my day filled with things other than knitting, reading, writing, and job searching.  That means that I haven’t don any of those things particularly well since I started.  I figure that given another week or so things will even out.  I don’t have a whole lot of brain power when I come home from work so I’ve inevitably pumped out another hat.

I Heart Pompoms Hat

I Heart Pompoms Hat

Pattern: I Heart Pompoms
Yarn: Ranch Of The Oaks Lopi
Needles: US 7 & 8
Verdict: I love how this hat feels on my head. I love how slouchy it is and the texture.  I’m still unsure of the pompoms.  The Mr likened them to some part of the male anatomy and now I’m self conscious about them.  I made my pompoms bigger because I liked the effect but now I don’t know…

This was a fun quick knit that practically finished itself in a day & 1/2.  The needle changes per the pattern were a little confusing but I think it’s just a typo.  You are told you need to have a us 7 & 8 needle but then when you get to your first knit purl ridge you are told to switch to a US 9.  I didn’t switch to a 9 and like the results. I can’t even begin to guess how big this hat would be if I knit it on a 9.

Here are the mods I made in case anyone is curious. I cast on with a us 7 and switched after the ribbing to a US 8 instead of 9.  I also cast on 86 stitches instead of the requested 96 because that’s freaking huge.  After I finished my ribbing I increased the 10 st evenly along the hat.  I did 7 purl ridges instead of 9 because again…huge and I made the pompoms twice as big as the pattern said.

I also finished my first handspun scarf too.  I started it forever back and it’s out of my handspun finn sheep.  I really love it and it’s super soft and the rag wool effect is really quite neat :)

Happy Tuesday everyone and I will have more FO’s to post soon including a handspun hat and the start of some noro socks.

FO Report

Ok, so I’m kind of backlogged with my knitting FO posts.  Instead of spacing them out I’m popping them all into one post in hopes that I will be caught up from here on out.  Being that I have a new job and am getting used to a new schedule I doubt that will happen though :/  In reverse order!

 

Crocheted Fingerless Mitts

Crocheted Fingerless Mitts

I crocheted again! I made up some fingerless mitts out of my left over Manos wool this weekend.  I really really love the effect so now I have to figure out what I did.  I doubt I will write a pattern because anyone who can crochet could figure this out in a heart beat.  (I obviously didn’t take this picture or else I wouldn’t have included the cooler & the phone book in it *sigh*)

Non-Noro Hat

Non-Noro Hat

Pattern: Noro Hat
I used the pattern as a baseline and copied nothing but the knit purl ridges. I love how slouchy this hat is.  Oddly enough the Mr has tried to claim this more than once this weekend.

In case you didn’t think that fingerless mitts and a hat was enough projects to bang out in one weekend I also completed a pair of hats.

Jim & Mette model the alpaca stranded hats I made up

Jim & Mette model the alpaca stranded hats I made up

Honestly I had no intention of knitting these hats this weekend but I screwed up on a sock pattern (again!) and had to rip back 10 rows. Instead of doing that I grabbed alpaca scraps from Mette (The brown is from her alpacas & the black is from Jim’s alpacas) I worked up some easy contrasting hats.  They turned out so darn cute in the end too that I think I might make some more for sale at National Alpaca Farm Day (I will write more about this in length so none of you are left out of the fun).

And last but not least my crocheted noro blanket (and a picture of how bad my hair needs to be dyed!)

I used about 15 balls of noro kureyon on this project that I had picked up from ebay two years ago for 1/4 the retail price.  I love the colors, love how it turned out and it looks fab on my couch.  Triple score.  Also I used STASH yarn! :) This is a pattern of my own devising.  It’s just two large granny squares separated by a line of smaller granny squares and then edged with the remaining yarn so almost every scrap was used.

 

Spinning Updates

So far it’s been a crazy kind of week.  I’ve started my new job (as I’ve stated) and haven’t had time or energy to post about what crafty stuff I’ve been up to.  So here we go (in no particular order).

Spinning!

Bee Mice Elf roving in colorway Pensive Plumb (BFL Mix)

Bee Mice Elf roving in colorway Pensive Plumb (BFL Mix)

I still haven’t found my true knitting mojo so I’ve been spinning to make up for my nervous hands.  This was Bee Mice Elf roving (she is a master dyer for sure) in pensive plumb and has to be one of my favorite colorways I’ve worked with.  Beautifully dyed roving!

I ended up with approximately 350 yards of sport weight yarn.

On another front…

Mojave Merino

Mojave Merino

I spun this merino at a much thicker weight.  It’s colorway is called Mojave and it’s a stunning mix of red, gold, purple and blue.  Course the picture barely shows that off.  I’d say I almost achieved a worsted weight in this yarn which pleases me because we can’t always just spin thin!

Also, it’s totally balanced which means I’m learning ;)

Then I came home the other day and found this waiting for me,

That’s 8 ounces of hand dyed corridale roving by Gales Art from my dad for my birthday. It’s beautiful and I can’t wait to spin it up next :)

Crocheted Noro Blanket

Crocheted Noro Blanket

Lastly I have finished my noro crocheted blanket though this is an in-progress picture.  It was fun, I love how it goes with the couch and I’m glad I was able to use up so much of my stash in one swoop :) Since I was unemployed I’ve just been shopping the stash and using what I have.  This noro had been there for quite a while so I’m glad that it finally found a project.  FO pictures coming soon I promise :)

OK, now to get my butt ready for work!

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