First Lettuce

This evening we had a salad with the first of our very own lettuce this year. This plant is one of several seedlings that came up in the lily bed from seed spilled last fall. The seed was from a bed of Brune d'Hiver lettuce Joel was growing for seed and it survived the severe cold last November, probably because it had a bit of snow on it. Even so, we are going to plant a bed of this variety in the late fall this year to see if we can winter it over on purpose.

In spite of the fact that it is still Cold, things are progressing in the garden. Above, the Sweet William, planted last summer as it is a biennial, is beginning to show flower buds.
In the hoophouse, the greens are big enough to harvest tomorrow for market on Saturday. There was a cold wind blowing most of the day but when Joel and I went out this evening to plant beets it had stopped and it was almost warmish and there were bugs out, a sure sign that things have warmed up a bit. I also got a bed of little stock plants in the ground this afternoon. Stocks are one of my favorite flowers, I love the scent

Finishing

Next weekend is the first weekly Farmers Market of the season. We don't expect to have a lot of vegetables as yet so I'm thinking of setting up a crafts booth next to the vegetables to hopefully sell a few things. Our Farmers Market doesn't have room in the summer for more than 3 artist/craft booths a week so we crafters share them on a lottery basis. However, in the early part of the season and at the end, in October, there aren't all many farmers and food vendors so we can set up craft booths more often. To that end, I have been finishing up a lot of the things that I have been weaving for the last several months and stashing here and there in piles. The fringes on the wool rugs need to be tied up,
fringes on the tale runners twisted, flowers sewed on hats, rag rugs hemmed, etc. and then, I need to put tags on all of them and write them up in my inventory book. That will take a couple of days alone.
So today I twisted the fringe on the table runners that I made with the placemats. My warping frame allows me to wind warps up to 11 yards long. An 11 yard warp will make 12 placemats approx. 20" long plus hems and then I weave up the end of the warp in a runner to match. The placemats are hemmed but the runners have fringe. To keep it from being destroyed in the wash I twist it. It makes it both sturdy and pretty.

Shearing

It's that time of year again. Having spun up most of last year's fleeces Joel has started shearing our small flock of sheep.
Since he does it himself and by hand he shears a couple of sheep at a time rather than try and go through the whole bunch at once. The sheep are so funny when you turn them back out after removing their wool. The lambs can't recognize their mothers and the mothers are disgusted because they can't see any reason that their children are running around bleating pathetically. It takes up to an hour for everyone to calm down.

Hats, Hats, Hats

Having finished knitting up most of the grey and brown wools that I had bought early in the year it's time to order another box of yarn but this time in colors.
I've been gradually getting those neutral colored ones felted and finished.
After opening the box of new yarns I dug into my stash of novelty yarns to find ones to embellish the felted hats with. I love matching up the yarns, playing with the bright and glitzy fancy yarns and then getting down to knitting more hats.

New Batches of Wool Rugs

While the garden outside is beginning to grow I've been inside a lot working on getting the wool Joel has been spinning woven up into rugs. The first warp of 5 rugs was a linen colored yarn that I wove up with various shades of grey wools.
Then I tied on a black warp and wove it up with the dark black/brown wools.
Today I started tying on a white warp to weave up with white wool. Looks like I'll have enough wool left over for one more warp of 5 rugs so I'm designing one with stripes of white and various tans and greys as the wools will be leftovers from all 3 batches above. That will give me 20 rugs to start the Farmers Market season. Then I'll get back to working on rag rugs and scarves for the summer sales out at Roche Harbor. I'm having a great time.

In spite of it continuing to be cold and wet instead of warm and sunny (sigh) the garden is beginning to be planted. Joel put out the first 2 flats of little lettuce seedlings today and covered them with row covers o give them a bit more warmth and keep the golden crowned sparrows out of them. Those little birds love to eat small vegetable seedlings.
Then he put in a bed of spinach.
And, to my great delight, the sunflowers I planted in the hoophouse as an experiment in early flowers are staring to come up.