New yarn!!!!!

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So tomorrow the Rustic range of yarns launch!!

All hand dyed by me here at the smallholding and all the wool for the yarn is either locally sourced or homegrown!! From our own Sheep!!!!! So that’s gorgeous fleece from Wanda, Baabara, Wolfy and the three witches!!!!

This time the wool has been blended with a little alpaca and the natural grey that the yarn became is beautiful!!

My wonderful mother helped me out and test knit a huge batch of an early dyeing of the yarn making this gorgeous Ribbon Wrap (pattern link here)

The wrap was knitted up in the Silverleaf of the grey, Gentian or blue, Thistle or purple and the Plantain or Green colourways and is huge and so warm and snuggly!!

Other colourways on offer are the red or Bettany, yellow or Gorse, Pink is Campion and the orange is Valerian!!

The natural grey is also available to buy from Friday!!

This will all go live in the Etsy shop on Friday morning!!

Etsy shop

There will be a discount code for the launch weekend simply put in the code YARNLAUNCH to receive 10% off all yarns in the shop over the weekend!!

In addition to the Rustic with alpaca, there is a small amount of Rustic, which is just the blend of the wool in a few of the colourways!! Great if you need a smaller amount for colourworking!!

There is also a new sock yarn colourway coming this weekend!! This colourway is called Lockdown Sunset, there are only 10 skeins available and I will be using 50% of the profits from this yarn to buy some extra cans to donate to our local food bank which is struggling with donations given the challenging times we are facing!

Can you spot Lockdown Sunset in the yarn mountain???

All go round here!!

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So over the past few days we have been working hard to get things sorted, built, planted, weeded and moved!!

We have weeded both large raised beds, and I have started to plant seeds for veg in there, using my scaffolding plank as a bridge across to stop me from stomping all over the bed!

Yesterday I potted on a load of seedlings in the Polytunnel and blimey it was warm in there!!!

We have happy ducks moved into their new digs…. and the chickens now have wood chip flooring in their runs!!

The muck heap has been shovelled back and some of the compost from the back excavated to fill the raised beds, the small tractor is a godsend for jobs like this!!

And someone has discovered the rubble pile….. apparently it’s his castle!!

Tomorrow we move onto the fruit cage of doom and clearing the veg garden paths!!!

So plans for Tyddynbryn!!

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Social distancing smallholding style!! We have an absolute load of work to get on with here on the smallholding and with the nice dry weather that has started we have made a start!!

Moving the chickens and ducks to new turf. Wood chipping paths and flower beds and around new raised beds!

Having cleared the Polytunnel a while back, we have started some seeds in there and in the house. Today we have started in the veg garden, turning the beds from an absolute weed ridden state into something we can actually plant into!! So we have seeds ready for starting in successional sowings there!!

We have started a few projects for the boys for play, including a bean teepee…

These times are going to be difficult, but I am certain, no determined that we will come through it and be more organised, sorted, prepared and ready to face the new world head on. We are using this as an opportunity to finish projects started, start new projects, action plans we’ve had on the back burner for an age it seems.

So as for plans….

  • Weeding (there is always weeding)
  • Growing veg and fruit
  • Dyeing all the yarn
  • Clearing and sorting first the house, then the barns (I’ve started this as a wet day job and am part way through upstairs…. slow work with two small helpers though)
  • Finishing the new cottage
  • Building a tree house (if W gets his way it will be two storeys!!)
  • Making a garden or lots more garden areas
  • Gates, trying desperately to keep the errant hound in and the free range children!!
  • Processing the giant log pile into useable stacked logs ready for next winter

And there is likely to be more but I’ll add them to the lists as I go along!!