Cocoa Girl

This one's for my swap partner on Ravelry - Meredith. The two little faces you see in the background are Cocoa Girls cria. I hope you enjoy knitting something with the yarn from Cocoa and I.

New Beginnings Stole

Once upon a time there was a new knitter who wanted to learn to knit lace. She was fortunate to have several wonderful friends ( Christian Aritsans ) who began a KAL for the Elegantly Simple Triangle Shawl
It was a wonderful time of learning, working with new and different yarns, getting to know some incredibly kind, patient knitters ;) and
completing a rather impressive looking project for the very new knitter. Altogether a fabulous experience, there was just one problem.

The colors in the yarn were spectacular, the pattern with the vertical stripe effect was lovely, the problem was, the triangle shape that pointed out a not so favorite part of the new knitter.
Being that she had put a tremendous amount of time into it... she was loathe to rip it all apart, but as time went by and her skills and confidence grew, she decided to design the stole she wanted to wear, using the fabulous yarn she had grown to love. Of course once the design was begun in her mind,
frogging the shawl didn't seem so bad, it was just the means to the desired end. Besides, as she made other lace wraps and stoles, the many mistakes in the first attempt became more and more glaring. All in all, it was not the painful experience she expected, it was almost delightful to see the mistakes disappear and think on the improved version to come.

and so with the casting on of hundreds of stitches comes the New Beginnings Stole. In the best of traditions from the original, there are prayers for a loved one involved in the stitching. Hopes for a new beginning for her as well.

Kristy's Hoodie

is almost done. I just need to finish the arms and the front buttons etc. then block it. Just in time too, the weather is starting to cool off. This has been a fun knit, specially considering it's my first sweater ever. We'll see if I can get her to model it when it's all done. This is my hand spun yarn, made from Stone Soup roving's from my friend Cary at Serenity Farms it was so much fun to spin, I couldn't believe how quickly I got it all spun up and the knitting has been wonderful too. I can't help thinking part of that is due to the care and heart Cary puts into taking care of her flock.

Glorious fiber

I just couldn't resist one more picture of this yummy fleece. I got it from Firth of Fifth Acres earlier this summer. Oohhh it's so much nicer in person than the pictures can show. When I start spinning there will be more pictures. What do you think I should make? It's a 12 lb fleece so unless I sort the different shades of gray I have almost unlimited possiblilites.

Rebel Kitty

Isn't that some beautiful Wensleydale fiber?? I've been washing and drying little bits at a time and the picture doesn't do it justice. Normally the cats are outside but I guess Rebel thought it was about the perfect place to hang out for a nap. I almost didn't see him as I was going out the door.

Marggie's Socks

Ok, so it's one of the worst pictures I've taken. Since the socks are already gifted and gone it'll just have to do. Mainly I wanted to remember how the two yarns held together as I knit turned out. I've done another pair in greens with yellows and browns in the multi yarn, I'll see if I can't get a better picture of them.

Baaaa

In case you didn't get a good enough look at them the other day - take a peek at miss Demi hamming it up for the camera. The next shot she was kissing the lens - we'll skip that one. But just look at Leola, Lizzie and Louise heading it all up. I can't seem to get enough of these sweeties.


Ok, there's more going on than me hanging out with the sheep. I signed up to play knitting bingo
on Kimberly's site today. It's not too late to sign up so head on over to Woven~N~Spun and check it out! I'm still working on chart A of the MS3 and tomorrow the third clue is out. I guess it's a little past time to add the Slow Bees button to my blog. I'll see if I can figure that out tonight.

Lots of Knitting going on!

By the time I got pictures of the dark brown alpaca laceweight MS3 stole developed, I had already frogged it and started over with off white alaca. I had thought it was poor planning to start my first ever sweater the same week as the MS3 but as it turns out, that was a wonderful idea! When I've frogged and tinked until I can't stand it, I can do some simple k&p on the sweater. I finally finished the socks I was working on when my friend Molly came to visit and have started another pair of socks along with the Victoria Shawl from VLT.

The beautiful silvery wensleydale fleece is in the kitchen being scoured a bit at a time as I come and go through the day and I'm carding the corriedale/alpaca/angora blend that will go to the Journey To A Shawl There really will be pictures soon, I just have to quit running out to visit the sheep every few minutes :)

The Sheep are HERE!

Welcome to River Cove Farm

Where I hope I can share some of the beauty and delight that we enjoy here. Our farm is in central Missouri, where our families settled in the early 1800's. We raise llamas, alpacas, shetland sheep and one very fluffy angora bunny - Pink Snowball.

When I'm not washing, carding, spinning or otherwise playing with the fiber I volunteer at the Rocheport Historical Museum a few miles away.