Good bye Bit o' Honey and Licorice...

This afternoon Bit O' Honey and Licorice were loaded into the back of their new owner's mini-van and headed west.  As I stood at the back of the van making sure Licorice didn't come out while the 'moving team' got Bit O' Honey out of the barn, Licorice came to me and buried his head into my shoulder.  He has NEVER come to me without the lure of food, and I stood holding onto his horns amazed at his parting gift of tenderness. 

Good-byes are hard, but I am so excited for them to be welcomed onto a farm where 2 young men are planning on taking them in hand.  They plan on  training them to show at the fair AND the sheep will be taking part of historical education events.   Their new 'shepherdess' plans on spinning their wool. 

Since a field trip in first grade I've dreamed of having sheep and spinning wool.  I lived that dream for five years, and though the sheep have moved on, I'm still spinning.  I am blessed.

Spinning through changes...

Normally I spend Monday afternoon/evenings in Oneonta while Katelyn is at orchestra rehearsal, but today Wayne took "orchestra duty" and I spent the afternoon working on a couple of projects...

I'm trying to whittle down my 'stash' of fabric and fiber this year.  This quilt is from a pattern I found in my 'stash' of quilt magazines using denim from discarded jeans and LOTS of scraps from my cotton collection.  I still have 36 more denim/cotton blocks to add to these, but I think I'm going to like the end result.

This afternoon I broke the news to Ian that the sheep are going to be moving to a new home this weekend.  He is not very happy with their leaving, but I think he finally understands that it's for the best.  After talking with him, I realized that he has only known life with fiber animals.  He was a baby when the adventure began.  I'm REALLY dreading breaking the news that the alpaca are next.  As hard as these changes are to make, I know it's the right thing to do.  We plan on keeping the angora rabbits--I can handle those on my own--so we'll still have fiber animals, but the farm is certainly going to be different.  As I ponder all this, I find spinning to be therapeutic.  I may just get through those bags of wool yet!

Springing Forward...

The last few months have held a lot of activity which I'll use as an excuse for not posting.

December 31,2014 the Unadilla Artisan Guild officially closed.  Though sad to see that chapter of life end, we are excited to see where new paths will lead.  After taking the month of January to get our bearings, clearing out the shop in February, we are ready to spring forward in March!

Here are some of the projects that have filled the cold days/nights of winter...

Ian & Rachael made an Olaf snowman.

Wayne took a picture of the above glass piece from outside our dining room window.  Matthew helped pick out the glass when he was home for the holidays.

This penguin piece was for a fellow church member's birthday gift:

 I decided to take a break from knitting, spinning, and sewing to do a project in punch embroidery...

 These long, cold winter nights do make me 'itch to spin' so this is the latest creation from my spinning wheel made from roving I acquired from a fellow fiber fanatic in the Albany area...

'Looking forward to the hazy days of summer, but for now we have much to be thankful for in our warm house in the river valley...Keep warm!

Christmas 2014

Blessings to you and yours

from the

Jackson Family

Yes, We're Still Here!

There is no excuse for lack of posts, but lots of reasons for me not writing...

One of my goals this summer was to clear the garage of all fiber that needed to be skirted and cleaned.  The weather cooperated enough for me to get through 20+ bags of fiber.  Unfortunately, I lost a great deal to moth infestation, but even with the loss, I have LOTS of wonderful fiber to spin this winter.  I still have about 6 bags/boxes to sort, but considering how much I started out with, I'm pretty happy to have accomplished so much.

Our dream is to someday transform our garage into my 'studio'...that is my incentive to keep the fiber process moving so my spinning/weaving/sewing studio will someday become a reality (and it won't have to be emptied of bags of fleece to start the process!).

This summer I also taught needlework classes to four lovely ladies.  We started with knitting, moved onto needle-felting, and tucked in a bit of embroidery.  It has been a joy working with such eager learners and I hope to continue offering such classes.  There is a possibility that I'll be teaching similar classes as an after-school activity at a local Christian school starting this month.

The Unadilla Artisan Guild has kept our whole family busy with Katelyn managing lawn care (with occasional help from Marc), Rachael creating needle-felted items, Wayne working on glass, and me keeping inventory rotating/increasing.  Wayne has done a lot of 'manning' the store during the summer hours.  It's been a rough year for our little shop and unless a miracle happens, it looks like the Guild may be closing its doors on December 31st.  BUT there are still lots of items to make and provide for the gift giving season so we're not slacking off on production.
 
Unadilla has an annual Fall Festival in September, which we have been a part of for several years.  This year was our best year ever resulting in good sales and special orders. 

Abundant Blessings Farm was also invited to provide inventory to a new boutique The Happie Place near Albany, NY.  We started supplying inventory there October 1st and look forward to see this new boutique flourish.

We took a very quick trip to Maine in August to enjoy a family reunion.  It's always great to get home to see family even if it's a short trip.  I got my annual dose of "salt air" so I'm recharged until my next visit. :-)

This month we'll have a booth at the Oneonta Community Christian School's annual Vendor Fair.  Last year we were invited to fill in a vacated booth reservation.  Our participation in the event led to the summer needlework classes.  We look forward to being a part of this event and supporting a great cause.

A fun picture of Matthew and Hannah

Anyone who knows Matthew knows that he has a way of turning on the charm for an audience--in this case, for the camera.  I copied this picture from his facebook page, which shows him hamming it up with the love of his life.   :-)

July Days

I've been taking advantage of the past few sunny, dry days to sort and wash fleece and wool.  One of the advantages of a solar hot water tank is that we have PLENTY of hot water on sunny days to do some major washing.  I have washed approximately 8 large batches of alpaca fleece and a small amount of wool in 3 days.  The weather is supposed to hold tomorrow, so I hope to add another batch of wool, but at the bare minimum a couple more batches of alpaca.  The alpaca is easier to 'skirt' (get rid of the waste fiber, vegetable matter,  and separate into quality grades).  Wool is much more time consuming since the lanolin makes it harder to get the vegetable matter out, but the luster of the wool makes it worth the extra effort.  Our shearer gave me a beautiful fleece filled with color variations which will make an amazing yarn...unfortunately, there are LOTS of shavings and hay caught in the wool.  I washed a small sampling of that fleece today and can hardly wait for it to dry so I can card and spin it.  My goal for the summer is to clean ALL the fiber stored in the garage and have a good start in carding it so it'll be ready to spin in the cooler months.

Last Wednesday I had my first handcraft class here on the farm.  Three little girls and a mom learned how to knit and started working with needle-felting.  We plan on meeting again this week to check on their knitting progress before they go on vacation.

The Abundant Blessing Farm dream is slowly coming true!