I've finally gotten a brand spanking new website which includes a blog on it, therefore I will not be using this blog anymore
you can read about my woolly and chicken related escapades on my new website
www.rebekkaleigh.com
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Welcome to the Thomas residence
Yesterday as an early Easter present and in keeping with my mad chicken ways hubby took me to a nearby farm and treated me to an Eggstra special present. Can you guess what it was?
No?
Well take a look at this picture....
Its one of three sweet little 2 week old Buff Sussex hens that will eventually move into Cluckingham Palace when their old enough. Their staying indoors with us at the moment all snuggled in their own little box in the warm. Their sweet little peeps and cheeps are just so cute.
Now the only thing left to do is name them, not as easy as it may seem as I need to wait and see what each little cheeky chicks personality is like first. What I do plan on doing is taking pictures as they grow to show how their doing....now off to observe and coo!
No?
Well take a look at this picture....
Its one of three sweet little 2 week old Buff Sussex hens that will eventually move into Cluckingham Palace when their old enough. Their staying indoors with us at the moment all snuggled in their own little box in the warm. Their sweet little peeps and cheeps are just so cute.
Now the only thing left to do is name them, not as easy as it may seem as I need to wait and see what each little cheeky chicks personality is like first. What I do plan on doing is taking pictures as they grow to show how their doing....now off to observe and coo!
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Bwark!
Gosh! is it a New Year already? It seems as though I was only just thinking about the build at Cluckingham Palace and then WHAMMY! its built, the chooks old and new are in and we're getting eggs like no ones business!
I'd be fibbing if I said that it was an easy build. Hubby however, has excelled in his woodwork building type skills but, I still wish I had somewhere proper to sit with the girls when I get a chance to spend time with them.
Anyway enough with the boring blab about building, I bet you want to see the how the girls are settling in and also their new friends that have moved in with them.
Here's the palace in all its glory with Dotty, Betty and Mildred who were its first residents.
and here are the newer residents all settled in after their two week pecking order ordeal back last October, which was dubbed "The fortnight of torture" by me as just watching my girls fight was upsetting especially when Mildred launced a scathing attack on poor little
Firstly the Amazing Olive who is a Magpie Chicken
Then there's Florence the Bluebell
Vera, who is also a Bluebell
And lastly but by no means least, Deirdre the little Speckeldy who, incedently is the baby of the bunch as she was only 10 weeks old and clearly not at point of lay, as indicated by her seller.
And here's one of what I like to dub as "the usual suspects"
Clearly she who is amazing is not camera shy!! can't think where she gets it from......
I'd be fibbing if I said that it was an easy build. Hubby however, has excelled in his woodwork building type skills but, I still wish I had somewhere proper to sit with the girls when I get a chance to spend time with them.
Anyway enough with the boring blab about building, I bet you want to see the how the girls are settling in and also their new friends that have moved in with them.
Here's the palace in all its glory with Dotty, Betty and Mildred who were its first residents.
and here are the newer residents all settled in after their two week pecking order ordeal back last October, which was dubbed "The fortnight of torture" by me as just watching my girls fight was upsetting especially when Mildred launced a scathing attack on poor little
Firstly the Amazing Olive who is a Magpie Chicken
Then there's Florence the Bluebell
Vera, who is also a Bluebell
And lastly but by no means least, Deirdre the little Speckeldy who, incedently is the baby of the bunch as she was only 10 weeks old and clearly not at point of lay, as indicated by her seller.
And here's one of what I like to dub as "the usual suspects"
Clearly she who is amazing is not camera shy!! can't think where she gets it from......
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Cluckingham Palace, It begins.....
So we've had our chicken's for 10 weeks and their all laying and settling in nicely. At first we weren't sure how we would take to looking after our feathery friends but, we have no regrets and a day hasn't gone by where they haven't kept us amused. So with this in mind and after a long discussion me and hubby decided to move the current coop with our ladies in over onto the lawn and build a newer, bigger chicken coop and run which we've dubbed "Cluckingham or Peckingham Palace".
Now with the bigger build in mind comes the question are we going to have more chickens, well of course we are :D the question is what kind? well we're not really sure yet, however we've got our hearts set on having 3 little chicks and raising them, then when their old enough they can join the other ladies out in the palace. The only drawbacks of chicks? they may all turn out to be roosters, in which case we can't keep them all and I know that my brother would happily solve that problem for me, but the question is, could I stand aside and watch one or two or all three of my hand raised babies go to that big chicken coop in the sky? no probably not!! but then again the chances of them all being girls are the same in which case yaaaay!
I haven't really managed to take many photos as yet but I DID manage to take a photo of the space that we're going to build on (which is where the coop is in the "our new friends have moved in" post stood originally).
I'm really looking forward to posting week by week updates on the build is progressing right through to our current ladies moving in and to whatever we decide to do about their three new potential friends....keep tuned for more Chickeny updates :D
Now with the bigger build in mind comes the question are we going to have more chickens, well of course we are :D the question is what kind? well we're not really sure yet, however we've got our hearts set on having 3 little chicks and raising them, then when their old enough they can join the other ladies out in the palace. The only drawbacks of chicks? they may all turn out to be roosters, in which case we can't keep them all and I know that my brother would happily solve that problem for me, but the question is, could I stand aside and watch one or two or all three of my hand raised babies go to that big chicken coop in the sky? no probably not!! but then again the chances of them all being girls are the same in which case yaaaay!
I haven't really managed to take many photos as yet but I DID manage to take a photo of the space that we're going to build on (which is where the coop is in the "our new friends have moved in" post stood originally).
I'm really looking forward to posting week by week updates on the build is progressing right through to our current ladies moving in and to whatever we decide to do about their three new potential friends....keep tuned for more Chickeny updates :D
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Fleece Washing 101
Ok, I know I've been absent for a really long time. It was mainly due to a horrendous study schedule, exams and whatnot, but now that I've officially finished college I'm BAAAAACK!!!
So I thought I'd kick off the summer in style and cover one of the most mundane jobs that we spinners either love or hate, washing a fleece. A few of my spinny friends sigh at the thought of washing a fleece, and although they want to do it sometimes to put it plainly they just can't be bothered to do it.
Now me on the other hand, I quite like it. it's down to personal preference I suppose, after all not every spinner wants to do the the entire "from sheep to knitted garment...bla bla bla" some of us love the convenience of just buying already scoured fleece or plain tops.
My first fleece washing experience was back in april where I bought a particular lovely fine white Shetland fleece. I'd previously looked up how to wash fleece and figured I was up to the challenge and so after scouting the fleeces I came back with the above mentioned lovely white fleece, and also went halves on a grey Shetland fleece with my travel buddy Snowberrylime.
I then got into a discussion with the lady selling the fleeces who was a wealth of knowledge, she happily went over the do's and don'ts and what you need and don't need.
So without any further blabbing on my part, here is my handy guide on how to get a fleece processed in a matter of hours....enjoy!
Firstly your going to need something to soak your fleece in, and by the way if your thinking "my bathtub or sink will do" HELL NO!!! just think of all the rubbish including poo and pee and god knows what else that's accumulated in your lovely fleece, not to mention the muchos amounts of dirt and lanolin. Now ask yourself, do you really want to use your sink or bathtub?....thought not!
What you need in order to proceed
In this picture I have 3 gorilla buckets or Truggs as their called, Rubber gloves ( are optional, I don't tend to use them as I'm not fussy)
Wool wash, I use Ecover Delicate wool wash, It costs £1.57 from Asda and tends to get my fleece really clean, I don't use fairy liquid as its a degreaser and makes fleece sticky, You need a detergent not a degreaser!
Plastic bag for putting the skirted bits of fleece in to throw away
Hottest tap water, (I have a hose from my sink in the kitchen outside to my buckets for convenience, not to mention its back friendly as I don't want to be lugging around buckets of water.
A pillow case to put the clean fleece in to spin cycle in your washing machine (check that your washer does a plain spin cycle as a rinse and spin cycle will be disasterous!!)
Step 1
so you've layed out your fleece and skirted it accordingly, any really trashy poopy bits and kempy parts of the fleece need to be discarded, this is what the plastic bag is for....
so heres a picture of my skirted fleece, its a Dorset horn cross Texel fleece...yummy!
Next you need to fill 2 of your buckets with hot tap water and a nice big squirt of wool wash detergent, once you've done this plop in your fleece and press it down into the water, then leave it soak for 10 mins
Mmmmm! look at that lovely stinky water....
Here's a close up....
So after about 10 minutes the water should still be hot, It's really important that you don't let the water cool as the lanolin will reform and reattach to the wool taking the dirt with it. You then need to put more soap into the third bucket and fill with hot water again, then you pick up the fleece from the water gently squeezing the water from it and then transferring it to the clean water.
Oooh! look at the grundgy water :D
Once you've done this empty the water from the bucket, refill and repeat with the second gorilla bucket full of fleece.
I tend to give my fleece three hot soapy soaks and one plain water rinse.
Check out my fleece in the rinse bucket, see how much cleaner the water is?
after the rinse soak, I then take out the fleece and squeeze out as much water as I can, I then place it into a pillowcase and then put it into my washing machine on a spin cycle.
Que the cheesy washing machine picture....how cool is my pillowcase?
Once the spin cycle has completed, lay out the fibre onto a clean blanket, (or whatever way you like to dry your fleece) and leave it to dry..
Et Voila!!
And a close-up of my lovely clean flufftastic fleece....
Lovely fluffy clean fleece, ready for carding, dyeing, spinning e.t.c.
Hope this helps, feel free to leave comments or questions, happy fleece washing :D
So I thought I'd kick off the summer in style and cover one of the most mundane jobs that we spinners either love or hate, washing a fleece. A few of my spinny friends sigh at the thought of washing a fleece, and although they want to do it sometimes to put it plainly they just can't be bothered to do it.
Now me on the other hand, I quite like it. it's down to personal preference I suppose, after all not every spinner wants to do the the entire "from sheep to knitted garment...bla bla bla" some of us love the convenience of just buying already scoured fleece or plain tops.
My first fleece washing experience was back in april where I bought a particular lovely fine white Shetland fleece. I'd previously looked up how to wash fleece and figured I was up to the challenge and so after scouting the fleeces I came back with the above mentioned lovely white fleece, and also went halves on a grey Shetland fleece with my travel buddy Snowberrylime.
I then got into a discussion with the lady selling the fleeces who was a wealth of knowledge, she happily went over the do's and don'ts and what you need and don't need.
So without any further blabbing on my part, here is my handy guide on how to get a fleece processed in a matter of hours....enjoy!
Firstly your going to need something to soak your fleece in, and by the way if your thinking "my bathtub or sink will do" HELL NO!!! just think of all the rubbish including poo and pee and god knows what else that's accumulated in your lovely fleece, not to mention the muchos amounts of dirt and lanolin. Now ask yourself, do you really want to use your sink or bathtub?....thought not!
What you need in order to proceed
In this picture I have 3 gorilla buckets or Truggs as their called, Rubber gloves ( are optional, I don't tend to use them as I'm not fussy)
Wool wash, I use Ecover Delicate wool wash, It costs £1.57 from Asda and tends to get my fleece really clean, I don't use fairy liquid as its a degreaser and makes fleece sticky, You need a detergent not a degreaser!
Plastic bag for putting the skirted bits of fleece in to throw away
Hottest tap water, (I have a hose from my sink in the kitchen outside to my buckets for convenience, not to mention its back friendly as I don't want to be lugging around buckets of water.
A pillow case to put the clean fleece in to spin cycle in your washing machine (check that your washer does a plain spin cycle as a rinse and spin cycle will be disasterous!!)
Step 1
so you've layed out your fleece and skirted it accordingly, any really trashy poopy bits and kempy parts of the fleece need to be discarded, this is what the plastic bag is for....
so heres a picture of my skirted fleece, its a Dorset horn cross Texel fleece...yummy!
Next you need to fill 2 of your buckets with hot tap water and a nice big squirt of wool wash detergent, once you've done this plop in your fleece and press it down into the water, then leave it soak for 10 mins
Mmmmm! look at that lovely stinky water....
Here's a close up....
So after about 10 minutes the water should still be hot, It's really important that you don't let the water cool as the lanolin will reform and reattach to the wool taking the dirt with it. You then need to put more soap into the third bucket and fill with hot water again, then you pick up the fleece from the water gently squeezing the water from it and then transferring it to the clean water.
Oooh! look at the grundgy water :D
Once you've done this empty the water from the bucket, refill and repeat with the second gorilla bucket full of fleece.
I tend to give my fleece three hot soapy soaks and one plain water rinse.
Check out my fleece in the rinse bucket, see how much cleaner the water is?
after the rinse soak, I then take out the fleece and squeeze out as much water as I can, I then place it into a pillowcase and then put it into my washing machine on a spin cycle.
Que the cheesy washing machine picture....how cool is my pillowcase?
Once the spin cycle has completed, lay out the fibre onto a clean blanket, (or whatever way you like to dry your fleece) and leave it to dry..
Et Voila!!
And a close-up of my lovely clean flufftastic fleece....
Lovely fluffy clean fleece, ready for carding, dyeing, spinning e.t.c.
Hope this helps, feel free to leave comments or questions, happy fleece washing :D
Monday, 11 July 2011
Our new Friends have moved in......
During the last three weeks, hubby has been working hard on building a chicken coop. We're not sure what made us decide that we wanted to keep chickens, maybe its because we're making an effort to grow our own fruit and veg and be a bit more self sufficient...who knows!
Hubby has worked for the last three weeks on designing and creating the perfect coop so that we would have very happy hens, he based his design on a triangular coop that he saw online and sized it up so that our girls would have plenty of room to roam.
Heres a look at the finished coop before our friends moved in....
We went out today after our next door neighbour who keeps an Aviary in his back garden advised us that he had been to a local pet centre where he was getting canaries saw chickens and thought of us. We were going to go to Mr Welshegg in Caerphilly but we decided to check out this pet centre in Glynneath first, without any real intention of getting chickens, just having a look....
Well it was love at first sight when I saw them, hubby knew there was no way of us leaving without chickens. The salesperson who sold the chickens was actually the farmer that raised them on his parents farm and then brought them into the centre, he advised us about lots of various things and advised if we didn't want too many eggs at once Calder Rangers are good because they spread out their laying, and also light Sussex's were good for this also.
So I had to choose the chickens, there were two brown and one white nestled together, how could I separate them? so decision made, we bought some sawdust, layers pellets and mixed corn and we were on our way.
We seat-belted up the birdie boxes and carefully drove home, there were lots of clucks and cackles on the way. I think hubby should drive with chickens in the car at all times as it was a much calmer, smoother ride :D
When we got home we put in the feeder and drinker and then let our babies loose, however Dotty and Betty our calder rangers were happy to be picked up and put in, Mildred our Light Sussex made a bid for freedom and jumped out of the box into hubby's hands....the bigger of the birds she was very nervous, so we then let them get used to their surroundings and settle in, watching from afar.
Heres a few photos of the Girls that I have taken.....their soo cute!!
Heres Dotty, If you look at her lower beak its longer than the top, so this is how I can distinguish her from Betty.
Heres Betty, she's the other Calder Ranger like Dotty.
And lastly but by no means least, here's Mildred our Light Sussex
Oh and what sort of person would I be if I didn't show me having a Dotty snuggle?
I hope our new friends settle in and enjoy being part of the family, I think its safe to say that their definitely NOT going to end up on the dinner table, but they are going to be the most spoilt chickens in South Wales, If I have my way :D
Hubby has worked for the last three weeks on designing and creating the perfect coop so that we would have very happy hens, he based his design on a triangular coop that he saw online and sized it up so that our girls would have plenty of room to roam.
Heres a look at the finished coop before our friends moved in....
We went out today after our next door neighbour who keeps an Aviary in his back garden advised us that he had been to a local pet centre where he was getting canaries saw chickens and thought of us. We were going to go to Mr Welshegg in Caerphilly but we decided to check out this pet centre in Glynneath first, without any real intention of getting chickens, just having a look....
Well it was love at first sight when I saw them, hubby knew there was no way of us leaving without chickens. The salesperson who sold the chickens was actually the farmer that raised them on his parents farm and then brought them into the centre, he advised us about lots of various things and advised if we didn't want too many eggs at once Calder Rangers are good because they spread out their laying, and also light Sussex's were good for this also.
So I had to choose the chickens, there were two brown and one white nestled together, how could I separate them? so decision made, we bought some sawdust, layers pellets and mixed corn and we were on our way.
We seat-belted up the birdie boxes and carefully drove home, there were lots of clucks and cackles on the way. I think hubby should drive with chickens in the car at all times as it was a much calmer, smoother ride :D
When we got home we put in the feeder and drinker and then let our babies loose, however Dotty and Betty our calder rangers were happy to be picked up and put in, Mildred our Light Sussex made a bid for freedom and jumped out of the box into hubby's hands....the bigger of the birds she was very nervous, so we then let them get used to their surroundings and settle in, watching from afar.
Heres a few photos of the Girls that I have taken.....their soo cute!!
Heres Dotty, If you look at her lower beak its longer than the top, so this is how I can distinguish her from Betty.
Heres Betty, she's the other Calder Ranger like Dotty.
And lastly but by no means least, here's Mildred our Light Sussex
Oh and what sort of person would I be if I didn't show me having a Dotty snuggle?
I hope our new friends settle in and enjoy being part of the family, I think its safe to say that their definitely NOT going to end up on the dinner table, but they are going to be the most spoilt chickens in South Wales, If I have my way :D
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Wonderwool 2011....another success!
Yesterday I ventured out to Wonderwool Wales which is held at the Royal Welsh Show ground. Me and my travel buddy Snowberrylime, took off at 9am to get there in time for it to open at 10am.
I had a plan...well sort of! I decided that I wanted to try my hand at scouring a fleece, but in order to do this I needed to get there asap before all the good fleeces went.
Unfortunately Veronika was on a fleece ban, and previously I had promised to an "Intervention" if it looked like she was going to give in.....The only problem was I was practically rolling in the fleeces at this point so I totally left her unattended, and eventually she bought fleece....heck! I even went halves with her on a particularly lovely grey Shetland fleece. I also bought a 2nd prize white ultra fine shetland fleece, to spoil myself and my Elizabeth wheel, I plan to wash it and spin it super fine and see how much yardage I get and possibly knit a lace wrap with it.
Heres a Picture of my fleece's in the bags, their not the best pictures but when the fleeces are washed I'll take better pictures then.
the Grey Shetland Fleece;
The white Shetland fleece;
The other reason for me to go to Wonderwool this year was to visit my good friend Gypsydancer
as she had a stall there with her fabulous Yarn Bowls and other notions and she kindly offered to display some of my Yarn on her stall.....I kinda felt like a woolly Celebrity, ok well not quite but I was really chuffed to be part of her beautiful stall.
Heres a picture of an unsuspecting Tora with her stall :D
and here's a close up of some of my Yarn that was on sale that day, some mixed in with Snowberrylime's yarns too.
And a close up of my Sheepy sign and my favourite Art-yarn...Goldfish Bowl, with two of Snowberrylime's yarns in the background.
and one with a few of my yarns in the foreground,
So this years Wonderwool was that little more special to me this time because my yarn was being displayed and sold, onwards and upwards I always say :D
I had a plan...well sort of! I decided that I wanted to try my hand at scouring a fleece, but in order to do this I needed to get there asap before all the good fleeces went.
Unfortunately Veronika was on a fleece ban, and previously I had promised to an "Intervention" if it looked like she was going to give in.....The only problem was I was practically rolling in the fleeces at this point so I totally left her unattended, and eventually she bought fleece....heck! I even went halves with her on a particularly lovely grey Shetland fleece. I also bought a 2nd prize white ultra fine shetland fleece, to spoil myself and my Elizabeth wheel, I plan to wash it and spin it super fine and see how much yardage I get and possibly knit a lace wrap with it.
Heres a Picture of my fleece's in the bags, their not the best pictures but when the fleeces are washed I'll take better pictures then.
the Grey Shetland Fleece;
The white Shetland fleece;
The other reason for me to go to Wonderwool this year was to visit my good friend Gypsydancer
as she had a stall there with her fabulous Yarn Bowls and other notions and she kindly offered to display some of my Yarn on her stall.....I kinda felt like a woolly Celebrity, ok well not quite but I was really chuffed to be part of her beautiful stall.
Heres a picture of an unsuspecting Tora with her stall :D
and here's a close up of some of my Yarn that was on sale that day, some mixed in with Snowberrylime's yarns too.
And a close up of my Sheepy sign and my favourite Art-yarn...Goldfish Bowl, with two of Snowberrylime's yarns in the background.
and one with a few of my yarns in the foreground,
So this years Wonderwool was that little more special to me this time because my yarn was being displayed and sold, onwards and upwards I always say :D
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