You guys! I've got plants! They're so cute! I'm trying to grow cotton and flax this year, because that seemed like a reasonable compromise to keeping a sheep in the backyard.
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| The cotton is so charismatic! |
Most of the cotton plants are slick-seeded pima, with a few green cotton seedlings. I got the seeds from Cotton Clouds. The flax is just good old Bob's Red Mill flaxseed from Fred Meyer since the fancy plant store only had the ornamental type. I figure, if I am really, really lucky with my crops, I will be able to make a very fancy washcloth and probably not much else. The flax should grow really well here, it's the processing that will be the trick. The cotton. . . well, we'll see. It needs hot weather to bloom and then the boll has to dry on the plant before you pick it. Not sure if that's going to happen here in the PNW.
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| The flax |
Also have some ridiculous chickens. Sometimes I like to just sit outside and watch the chickens. I call it the chicken meditation. They say, when you mediate, you're supposed to empty your mind, and, well, there is not much emptier than the mind of a chicken. Unless it is many chickens, all together.
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| Marshmallow, either Poppy or Darjeeling, and Rock Band in the foreground. |
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Toast says HI.
I think this is the day I found out that chickens are very interested in orange nail polish. |
Since the cotton and flax will take a while, I spent last weekend spinning and weaving some stash. After fighting with cotton and hemp, it's nice to sit down at the wheel with some bouncy superwash merino and just spin. Also worked on this yardage, the draft is #360 from The Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns. I like my new end-feed shuttle very much, but you will notice I have cleverly cropped the picture to hide my crappy selvedges anyway. I'm having some tension problems with this warp and even though end-feed shuttles are supposed to make it look like angels have kissed the edges of your cloth, they can't fix everything. This will probably be some fabric for tote bags.
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| Also a reed-sleying error. Right. In. The. Middle. |
