Odey is a star!! Sort of....

Our little curley Angora goatie Odey is the proud supplier of the mohair my friend Carolyn used to re-root this gorgeous doll! Odey's fiber is curly and just soft and shiny as can be--what Carolyn calls 'excellent' for dolls! He is a smoochy goat and definitely Chaquita's (our llama) pet. He hides under Chaquita's tummy after he gives someone a not so nice head butt, mainly because he knows she will spit or chase anyone off that tries to give back what he has coming! Silly goat!

You have probably seen Carolyn's work on our site before, she is the other spinner of our Two Peas handspun yarn--we are like two peas in a pod, sometimes scarily so!! You can see more of her beautiful talented work here-- along with lots of beeeauteous fiber! Make a cup of tea and spend some time at the Ewe!! Then stock up for very unique and fun spinning, felting or knitting projects! Sandy the enabler over and out!! ha!

We did it! Watch 3 Chic Knits on Etsy!!!

Been meaning to get our 3 Chic Knits on Etsy because I love the people that are featured on that site! It is a collection of independent artists that we are happy to be part of! There are only a few items listed in the shop today but plan to add more over the coming week so keep an eye out! Click here to visit us at Etsy--yey! Be sure to visit all the fun shops too--lots of great art work and creations to browse!

Thank you to everyone participating in our Avon Breast Cancer walk raffles! The Sheep and friends have raised $588 so far--wheeee! The sheep and my families thank you--please know we are walking now for not only my own mom, but also my hubby Jim's mom who is battling her cancer again. Not the same cancer but we adore her and want to cast a wide net of support.... Now we have become Team Nancy & Claire! Thank you all so much, your kind words and actions are very appreciated!

Spring has sprung here for sure, we are waiting to hear from David the wonder shearer as to what day we will be shearing so watch the site as I scramble to make room for this years fleeces! Never enough fleece takes on new meaning this time of year for sure! Happy Sunday, hope you are all enjoying a pretty spring day with lots of fibery goodness!!

Altered Art--by Linda!

Today I am happily plugging my friend Linda's altered art! She is a talented artist from Ohio--and like another sister for me too! I adore her and her art!! Be sure to check out her store here and her blog here.... Treasures treasures treasures and inspiration galore! Keep up the beautiful, creative artwork Linda! Yey!

The sheep are enjoying the mild weather, not too hot for their big woolie coats, and not too cold for their bare little spindly legs either! They hate cold feet and legs! Shearing is just around the corner, have to confirm our shearing day with David the wonder shearer and then the countdown can begin! Better get more fleeces cleared out of my wooly heaven--watch for some beautiful wool as I get fleeces sorted on our non-rainy spring days!

Jenny was here today with more beauteous Alpaca fiber so will be listing more of that this week too--just keep an eye out and check out our new option on the site--two actually! One is for referring us to others, and the other is what we will use for people who would like an email when I update the site with new items.... Let the sheep know what you think of their newest idea to improve the site--sneaky buggers huh??? ha! Off to spin some wool and hope you are all busy creating some fibery goodNESS!!

Away We Go--and we are back to 'normal'!

Ok, first of all, thank you for your patience on Friday (obviously I had none!! ha!) and we are all set, back up and running on the website! Today I wanted to share with you one of the most special Christmas presents I received this past holiday!

This is original artwork created by Dennis Toren, the hubby of Barbara who you may recognize as one of the 3 Chics? Dennis creates his designs and hooks rugs, complete with hand dyeing most of his wool! He is very talented and I adore this gift, it shows three sheep, one each for me, my mom and Barbara--all doing their various knitting or jobs related to our 3 Chic Knit knitting business! How creative and how perfect--thank you again Dennis!! Check out our finished items knit with Homestead yarns here!

And thank you to everyone who is supporting 'Team Nancy' in the Avon Breast Cancer Reasearch walk--my mom is very touched by your support as she travels through treatment and we adore each and every one of you! To date Friends of the Homestead have raised $498!!!! Thank you from the sheep too!

Lots and lots of roving and clouds added to the site today so be sure to have a look, more dyed fiber to be posted later on too--unwashed wool tomorrow! Happy Monday!

We're still here!!!

Not sure if any of you have bookmarked our blog but today we woke up to a crashed server so our site is there, but not there if you know what I mean? Eek! SO, please be patient and we will be back up and running soon! We have not had this happen ever so are hoping this is the last time for another long time!!!!

This bobbin of yarn (thank you Franken Fiber James) is the perfect sentiment today--probably just how my face looks right now....... Thanks for your patience--I am completely out of any! ha!

More Fiber Fun!!! Oooh la la!

My little Piper gave me a nudge last night and said, hey, show everyone Aunt Carolyn's artwork tomorrow--so, wa-la, and ta-da!

You have probably seen my fiber soul friend Carolyn's work through our Peas in a Pod yarn on our site--we send each other handspun single ply, add a ply, then send half home to enjoy, offer for sale or?? She contributed some yarn to our Avon raffle this month so be sure to check it out!

Carolyn has a wonderful website where I am always lurking about for some fantastic fiber, yarn and to see her beautiful work wtih re-rooting doll hair! She is a talented girlie so be sure to take a browse through her store--take a cup of coffee and plan some time-- she has a great 'where's wooldo' contest every month! Don't miss out!!

Well, there Piper will be happy now and I better get out and feed the sheeps--or they might move in with the neighbor! More soon!!

Fun stuff to spin!

Today I am shamelessly plugging my friend Holly's new website! She is a talented spinner who lives by the ocean in Florida--and she pulls her color inspiration from the sunsets, the water and her daily 'breathing' time on the beach!

I just finished spinning up some of her batts and fiber and it is beyond fun, beautifully dyed and she offers two types of batts--classy (which are more blended and smooth) and crazy (which are barely blended geared for tremendously individual novelty yarns) and lots of pretty fiber and angelina.....

Holly uses a lot of wool from our Homestead sheeps so be sure to take a look--there is also a link for later on our roving page if you need to find it.

Be sure to take a look at our new raffles for March-- some great fiber and yarn are going to some lucky people on April 1! No foolin'! ha!

Altered Art & Sheepy Adventures!

Ok, these are terrible pictures but since I packed a ton of boxes today and these are gone, I wanted pictures!! My scanner is not hooked up and I am not techno savvy enough to handle that on my own--need my hubby Jim to set that up for me later....

Anyway, been playing with some new art form for my painting and this is some of the first gift tags I created! Wheeee! Fun fun and thank you Linda for the inspiration! Be sure to check out her site for her beautiful knitting, felted items and altered art.... She is a peach!

I will be offering altered art through our website so keep an eye out! Soon soon!!

Lots of new roving, batts and wool on our site these day so be sure to stop by! To date our sheep and their friends have raised $454 toward Breast Cancer Research--thank you!!!!

It's a boy!!!

Well, Spring has sprung and we had...... a boy!! hahaha! This little lamb is 'Sunshine' and he is living up to his name for sure! We got a call early this morning from our sweet friends the Thompsons--one of their mamas had THREE babies and would not take care of this one-- SO, they did not have to twist MY arm very hard! :0)

He is a mixed breed sheep and we adore him! We are looking forward to evenings rocking the 'baby' by the fire while I knit, spin or whatever. The little lambs are SO easy to keep inside--they are diapered up and away they go--pampers away! They have a grand time chasing me around while I work, and I do my outside rounds and work while he naps--just like a little teensy baby! Wheeee!

Doin' the happy baby lamb in the house dance for sure--makes up for shutting my hand in the garage door earlier today--eek!

An additional word about our Fundraising efforts....

OK, have had a few emails this past week worrying that I have breast cancer--not the case, although I wish it WAS me. It is in fact my wonderful mom that has recently been diagnosed. She has a good prognosis but a long road ahead of her to 'healthy'. Watching her struggle through her first chemo treatment only cemented in my mind--and my sisters--that we needed to be working as a family toward something constructive to 'help' - somehow.

When my sisters decided to walk in the Avon walk ( the loooooong one!), fund raising naturally follows and we are proud to have so many generous people around us--thank you every one! We hope to help raise money so that we can see a cure in our life time--one that is not so vicious for the patient to endure. A good cause yes?

If you would prefer to go right to my sister's pages, their walk pages are: Jenny and Kristie. There you can donate directly to Avon and as mentioned, we have a great set of raffles monthly here at our site until the walk in June. So far Friends of the Homestead have raised $384 through your generosity and a little from the sheep!

Again, no worries about me, please just keep good thoughts for my mom & dad, we adore them both!!

March Fiber Raffle is ready!!

Angel and Casey won the drawing out in the barn to be the first to participate with their very own fleeces! They are SO happy! Angel is a sweet sweet Rambouillet girl who came to live with us as a lamb with her sisters Curly Sue & Angel. They had horrible pneumonia and were destined to be someone else's Easter Dinner--eek! They have long overcome their illnesses and are beautiful girls who love to be cuddled and of course, fed lots of Fruit Loops!

We purchased our Casey girl, a gorgeous North Country Cheviot, from our dear friends Graham & Margaret last summer. She is very sassy and has a gorgeous fleece! Her best friend is Brenden....

The raffle includes 2 pounds 7 ounces of Angel's wool, 1 pound 8 ounces of Casey's wool AND, last but not least, 3 fluffy Crazy Quilt Batts, our specialty!!

The batts are carded here by yours truly, created from a variety of hand dyed, natural wools, mohair, silk, yarn snips, firestar and pretty much anything back in my fiber studio that is not running away! ha!

This is a fun way to sample some Homestead creations and we hope you will enjoy the raffle! Tickets are $2 each and to date, Friends of the Homestead have raised $372 toward the Avon Breast Cancer Walk that my sisters will be walking in-- the sheep so far have agreed they need to stay home so help us keep them here, and along the way, we all can help provide backing for much needed research and support for some very deserving women and their families. We adore you all!!!

More raffle info available on our site!

March Yarn Raffle On the Loose!!

Here we go! The sheep have been busy, or should I say my dear friends have been busiest??? This raffle for March includes yarn that is beyond special--several skeins have been donated by my dear friends James & Carolyn--my long distance spinning buddies! My collective 'soul'! ha!

It is incredibly fun to spin 'with' them-- we spin up single ply surprise yarn, send it to each other and then ply it with our own plies, send half the yarn back to the original spinner--way way too fun! You never know what will arrive at your door--from Michigan OR Virginia! James is my partner in crime for our Franken Yarns featured on the site and Carolyn and I are Peas in a Pod yarn--check out our yarn pages for more yarn created collectively too!

Ok, fleecey brain back to the raffle! Skeins included are: 200+ yards (2 skeins) Franken Yarn 2 ply--spun solely by James; 143 yards 2ply Peas in a Pod yarn spun by moui & Carolyn; and 1 skein of two ply sassy yarn I spun from Corriedale wool (from our shearer David the wonderful's sheep) and a ply of novelty yarn, beads and flowers! And of course no outfit would be complete with out a pretty sparkly vintage pin!

More complete pictures are posted on the site so be sure to take a look at what we have waiting for you there!!! We will also be posting a second raffle for you spinners and felters by tomorrow evening--including for sure a pound of naturally colored North Country Cheviot wool from our own little Casey and mucho more unwashed and carded fiber for you to create with! Keep an eye out and thank you again--we truly appreciate each and every one of you--our total Friends of the Homestead fund includes $172 at this point--the sheep are SO proud!

And the winner is....... :0)

Hello all! First we want to thank ALL of you who participated in our first Avon Breast Cancer raffle/fund raiser! It has been a wonderful comfort to have friends that care and have chosen to participate with us--and for their help in keeping our sheep from crashing the walk in June!! It means the world to us that you have helped us raise money toward a cure for BC--we want to see it in OUR lifetime! We raised $172 with our first raffle and we are so proud of all of us!

We had to alter our plan a bit, the sheep just could not decide who would draw the name--Moose (aka office manager) got fed up and took over! The bowl he chose was painted by an artist in Door County (a happy gift from my best friend Kathi) and shows Moose's mood by the time we got all the names and such wrestled away from the sheep!

SO, Moose got to 'work', which of course did not mean he had to leave his king size bed next to my desk in the office! ha! He stirred up the names--forever--just to keep us in suspense, then drew--drum roll please--- LINDA KOCH of Ohio!!!! Congrats Linda, you have a special package on its way by Monday from our happy, grateful (but unable to reach group decisions) sheep!!!

Everyone who participated in February's drawing will have a free ticket entered in March's drawing so please let us know which you prefer!! We will be hosting TWO raffles in March, the pictures and particulars will be posted by Saturday-- one will of course include yarn, the second wool and fiber for spinners....

Watch for more info, and again, we thank you for your help in our efforts! Sandy, Jim, Ross and the critters..... more soon!