Come See Us This Weekend!

Wild Rose Farm Will Be At Old Economy Village!

Wild Rose Farm will be set up at Old Economy Village in Ambridge, PA this weekend. It looks like we will be in the Feast Hall on the 2nd floor. Come and visit with us. The grounds of Old Economy Village are lovely with candle lanterns lighting the walk ways outside. We'll have our new farm yarn made from our Rambouillet wool and other wool items. We'll also bring vintage woolen sweaters, hats, scarves, & blankets.  Come on down!

Snow White in the Barn With the Ewe Lambs

Breeding season started on the 25th, so Snow White is pulled out of the ewe flock and moved indoors with the ewe lambs. Here she is with the lambs. She does some humming for the first day or two as she settles in ... she misses the ewes and has to adapt to the lambs that she hasn't seen since July.

Rambouillet Ram (center) & Rambouillet Ewes

We have the sheep split up into two groups this year. The Dorset ram is in with 22 Dorset & crossbred ewes and a young Rambouillet ram is in with 10 Rambouillet ewes.  His dam is in a separate pen with another unrelated young Rambouillet ram ... we've got to keep things straight for registration!

Wild Rose Farm Sneak Preview At Old Economy Village - 2015 Christmas At The Village!

Old Economy Village - Feast Hall Decorated For Christmas At The Village

Wild Rose Farm will be at the 2015 Christmas At The Village this weekend at Old Economy Village along with a great diverse group of vendors. The hours are Saturday 2PM to 9PM and Sunday 2PM to 9PM. Here is a sneak preview (cell phone pics!) of a couple of vendors who were in setting up Friday afternoon.

Wild Rose Farm - Naturally Dyed Yarn, Wool Quilt Batts, Combed Top, Santa Beards

One of the vendors has a great selection of paintings, small ornaments, & primitive painted wooden cut outs. I love this reindeer scene!

Christmas At The Village - Reindeer Painting & Ornaments!

Here's an unusual booth - Clean Creek Products. They are marketing products that use metals recovered in the acid mine drainage stream clean-up process. Proceeds go back to fund additional restoration efforts and to maintain existing treatment systems. Click on the image to check out the cool pottery wildlife & fish replicas!

Christmas At The Village - Clean Creek Products - Wildlife Replicas, Pottery, & Jewelry

Who else/what else did we see setting up? Some really nice, up-to-date crocheted hats, scarfs, finger-less gloves, & whimsical figures set up in the Feast Hall hallway. Patty of Pine Knoll Herb Shop was setting up in the Rapp House, and by extension, it follows that husband Dorrin, the resident Horologist of Pine Knoll Clock Shop, will be there (!) with clocks of his own design and perhaps some restored antique clocks. Miss Kitty was setting up her packed table of jellies, jams, & spreads. Kim will be there on Saturday with her detailed punch needle art. Birgitta of All Strings Considered will be set up next to Wild Rose Farm with her hand woven rugs & place mats. Those are just the folks close to the WRF set up in the Feast Hall & Museum Building ... there were vendor tags on tables for fused glass, jewelry, baked goods, & hand made wreath bows ...

Natural Dyeing Binge!

Wild Rose Farm - Camomile, Black Walnut, & Cochineal

Finally, some pictures of the Wild Rose Farm natural dyeing extravaganza! We last left off on the raiding rodent and the black walnut dyebath. The walnut does not require a mordant to bond to the yarn, so the dark brown skeins above are out of black walnut on a superwash yarn. After the natural dyeing workshop a year ago at The Mannings, I decided to try some superwash merino yarn and add to the color range. They take up the dye differently and the results are wonderful. The lighter khaki colored skeins are chamomile and they did require a mordant, so I transitioned to the other natural dyes - adjective dyes, they're called - for those keeping score!  :~0  The saturated magenta, raspberry, & pink from cochineal turned out great. Plus, I finally remembered to mordant & dye the collection of felted hearts I had languishing in a bag. They were part of a needle felting demo using our combed top ... next step, embellishment?

Wild Rose Farm - Logwood Colors

We moved on to a logwood dyebath and then did some over-dyeing in the cochineal "exhaust" dye bath and got some lovely purple & lavender on the superwash yarn. The single violet skein is a homegrown WRF Rambouillet wool worsted weight skein. Different wools, different tricks & formulas, so the variety is endless! 

Wild Rose Farm - Walnut Dyed Curly Locks!

Meanwhile, we soaked more black walnuts to make another dyebath to dye our wool locks for crafting & beards. We'll keep some of the walnut & logwood concentrate for "painting" yarns this winter.
Next up - Wild Rose Farm will be set up at Old Economy Village in Ambridge, PA on Saturday 12/12 & Sunday 12/13 for 2015 Christmas At The Village along with other unique vendors. See you there?

Wild Rose Farm At Old Economy Village!

Wild Rose Farm - Christmas At The Village 2012

Wild Rose Farm will be at Old Economy Village this weekend for the Christmas At The Village  event.  After listening to the weather forecast, it looks like we will have snow on the ground.  The candle lit lanterns along the walkways create a festive atmosphere that really brings out the Christmas spirit!   It's a great place to pick up unique hancrafted & local Christmas gifts and enjoy good food & music. 
Saturday 12/7 from 2PM - 9PM and Sunday 12/8 from 2PM to 7PM ...  maybe I'll see you there!

Oh, and the ram count?  Dorset ram 11 & Rambouillet ram 7 ...... over 1/3 of the ewes in just under a week. 

Not A Vendor This Time........

Belsnickle & Visitors

Restored Harmonist Natural History Museum

This is the first time in years that Wild Rose Farm was not a vendor at Christmas At The Village in Old Economy Village.  The event was back to 2 days, but a busy work schedule just didn't leave enough time to set up, spend 2 days, then pack up before leaving on business travel again on Monday.   So ....... we took advantage of being nearby to spend a few hours actually visiting the site!  When you're a vendor or demonstrator, you pretty much don't see anything except what is right next to you.
There were some new vendors with really great hand crafted stuff ...... crochet, wooden toys, redware ornaments & pottery, native plant art from Karen Sandorf Gallery, herbal products & antique clocks, & one of our favorites, the primitive wood carving below ..... complete with left-handed spatulas!  Note the "Please Touch" sign. 

Hand Carved Cherry Wood

Touring the grounds provided glimpses of how the Harmonists & people of that era lived .....

OEV Volunteers

Finally, on our way out, we were directed to the church built by the Harmony Society, now St. John's Lutheran Church, for a concert by the Old Economy Orchestra.  What a great building with wonderful acoustics, much like the 2nd floor of the Feast Hall.  Some of the music was original to the Harmony Society. 

St John's Lutheran Church Built By Harmonists

And last, but not least, we ran into our farmer friends, Marcy, Dale, & Nigel Tudor of Weatherbury Farm in Avella, PA.  Check out their web-site to see what they're up to ......

Christmas At The Village

Wild Rose Farm will be at Old Economy Village  on Saturday December 11th for their "Christmas At The Village" event.  We will be selling our yarns, wool, quilt batts, combed top, etc at the Weihnachtsmarkt located in the Granary building.  There will be other local craftsman & artists selling their own unique gifts & hand-crafted items.  The event is from 2PM - 8:30PM ...... you get to stroll through this historical site along lantern lit walkways ..... it's really a great family activity for Christmas.  I always find some really neat one-of-a-kind gifts here. 
The theme this year is Christmas Around The World ..... Hope to see you there!

Great Crowd at Old Economy Village!

Christmas At The Village was packed last night. The marketplace vendors were in the Granary and it got pretty crowded at times. This was the biggest crowd we've seen since we've been doing shows & demonstrating at OEV.
We forgot to take a camera, so unfortunately there are no pictures. Two of our featured skeins of varigated brown yarn were snapped up quickly as a Christmas gift --- the back story that they were from walnuts gathered at OEV sealed the deal! Thanks to all of our new customers, past customers (some still working on their projects ...), and friends who stopped by to chat. Some of the other vendors were:
Nutt Road Honey Farm - practically sold out this year - beautiful beeswax candles, gifts, honey, etc!
McConnell Forge blacksmithing - also had great handcrafted "broom corn" brooms
The Pine Knoll Shops - restored antique mantel clocks & cuckoo clocks + an extensive herbal products selection
JPW Pottery - hand thrown pottery - no lead based glazes

Uncle Pete's Wood Toys - what a selection of cars, trucks, tractors, helicopters, engines, etc!

Little Europe - European glass ornaments

Hall and Parlor - wood furniture & clocks

See You There!

Wild Rose Farm will be set up with our naturally dyed yarn, Rambouillet combed top, quilt batts, and fleeces at Old Economy Village this Saturday. Christmas At The Village is a great chance to get some unique handmade gift items.

We will be introducing our new "Yarn Tales" 5 yard mini-skeins. They are perfect for when you need an accent color or are working on a punch needle or rug hooking project. Here they are "resting on a bed" of our fresh walnut dyed sport weight skeins.

Come out, enjoy the Christmas spirit, and help support Old Economy Village!

It Depends ......

It depends on whose ox is being gored ...... most of us in Pennsylvania were relieved that our budget issue was finally settled. Well, we're finding out now what will suffer as a result of our new budget. It turns out that Old Economy Village is losing a great deal of state funding, along with 5 or 6 other PH&MC sites across the state. The Friends of Old Economy Village voted to go on with the scheduled Christmas season programs at a special meeting last night. We expect to hear more, but based on the information we've received so far, Wild Rose Farm plans to be at the Christmas At The Village event on December 5th. We've sold yarn & wool there for quite a few years now and we do natural dyeing demos there in the summer. It's been a good place to meet new people and has led to speaking engagements and some events here on the farm. It looks like Old Economy Village will have to find ways to continue their educational mission in a framework of reduced hours and increased fund raising to become more self-sustaining.

Well, we're in ...... we'd just sent in our membership dues and small donation. Our "Friends of Old Economy Village" card is good from Oct '09 through Oct '10!

Save the Date

We just posted an upcoming event on Local Harvest. Our Wild Rose Farm naturally dyed yarns, fleece, & combed top will be available December 5th at the Christmas At The Village celebration at Old Economy Village in Ambridge, PA. Check their event calendar for details. This is a fun way to get some Christmas shopping done and tour this historical site decorated for the holidays. You'll have an opportunity to see handcrafting demos and buy unusual handmade gifts. <--- And folks, we're not talking crocheted toilet paper covers here!
Blog followers will recall that we've also demonstrated indigo natural dyeing at OEV in the summer ...... no demo in December since we'll be inside the historical buildings!

Did you miss it?

Saturday was a perfect day for Christmas at the Village. Old Economy Village was dusted with snow and everyone was in the Christmas spirit. Lighting is always an issue in these old historic structures, but we vendors do the best we can! Rambouillet combed top seemed to be the item of interest with several people buying the 4 oz popcorn size bags as gifts for spinners. Here's a look at the Wild Rose Farm table and our naturally dyed yarns in the Granery building.

Christmas at the Village

Taking a break from packing for Old Economy Village tomorrow! Wild Rose Farm will be set up for Christmas at the Village and I think that we will be in the Granery. http://www.oldeconomyvillage.org/ Look for the clock tower shown above ... I believe that the church will be hosting a "Live Nativity"!

Here's a picture from the Indigo Natural Dyeing Demonstration that I did on July 5th outside of the Community Kitchen. The Harmonists used natural dyes for their wool & silk dyeing, so this is an authentic craft for OEV. Of course, they produced on more of an industrial scale, not on a hand work scale as I do when demonstrating. The best time to arrive is just before dusk and you can enjoy going between the buildings on the candle lantern illuminated walkways in the evening.

Results ......

Here are the 3 skeins of yarn that resulted from my red onion skin dye bath with iron postmordant ........ actually, I dyed the 2 darker skeins first and added iron (ferrous sulfate @ 2% WOG) to the dye bath. I returned the yarn to the bath and simmered for 5 minutes. Then I decided to add another skein of yarn to the exhaust bath for 10 minutes. The 3 skeins have a nice soft heather or oatmeal type of look to them. They'll look great knitted up next to each other. Come visit the Wild Rose Farm booth at Old Economy Village on December 6th & take them home with you! You'll love Christmas at the Village ........ http://www.localharvest.org/event.jsp?id=19002

Now for my question to any natural dyers out there ...... how do I get green out of these red onion skins? I saw a beautiful green on page 78 of the Spring 2008 issue of Spin-Off. I don't want to use up my stash experimenting, since they're hard to come by in quantity!