Fleece cleaning time

Picked up the mohair locks on Saturday and paid for the alpaca fleece to blend with it.  My fleece cleaning skills are not as strong as they used to be.  As alpaca doesn't have lanolin one doesn't need hot water to clean the fleece.  I mistakenly let the water get to hot and agitated a batch.  It is not a very pretty white felted mess - ugh!  My second batch was warm water which hasn't felted but is not as white as I would like it.  I'm thinking of switching to cleaning the Shetland fleeces in order to get my cleaning temperature right.  Luckily I have a lot of mohair and can do an 80/20 blend of alpaca for the commissioned yarn.  Hoping to start blending the fibers with my new dog combs - need to research this technique more.  I don't want to make them into rolags but more of a top fiber.  We shall see how it goes.

Alpaca Fleece

Mohair Fleece

The dog hair hat is progressing.  I discovered last week it was too short so have extended the length of the hat.  Found another pattern design for the bib edge of the hat which I will start on tonight too.  It is a very fluffy hat with the dog fibers puffing out to give it a furry look.  The buyer likes it very much and that is the important thing.



Gray Shetland

Black Shetland

My Shetland fleeces arrived and they are so beautiful.  Both came from sheep at Pinon Wood ranch in Southern Colorado.  As each weighs only around 2 lbs I am going to process them at home versus sending them to the mill.  I will reserve the mill for alpaca and wensleydale fleeces as they will be larger. 

On the sales front I sold a ruffle scarf to a buyer in Sao Paulo, Brazil this month.  It is always exciting to have international sales!  I also received positive feedback on the trio of blended roving that was purchased on EBay.  April sales all came from EBay my other venues have been non existent.  I am still making lots of yarn though and keeping busy.  I N-plied my alpaca/milk roving and it turned out rather well for my first venture using that technique.  Just spun up some dyed "virgin wool" roving that I purchased from Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins.  It spun up easily with a texture that reminded me of felting fiber but smoother.  The colors were purple and burnt yellow which blended well - it will be plied later this week.

Why natural fibers?

Before I even started this journey to sell my handmade items I was working with natural fibers.  When I taught myself to knit several years ago it was with forest green Red Heart yarn which I never quite made anything out of.  I think this was eventually donated to one of senior centers here in Denver.  I discovered the shop Showers of Flowers which had a huge showroom of all kinds of yarn.  Pillows, shawls and sweaters were made using non natural fiber yarns in a variety of weights and colors.  At that time I wasn't even aware of natural fibers but more concerned with cost/yardage for projects.

Then I went to the Estes Park Wool Market and I purchased a spinning and a CVM wool fleece.  My next step was attending the Western Stock Show were I met the alpaca ranchers and my dear friends at Ancient Treasures Alpaca Ranch in Arvada, CO.  I  have participated in shearing day for several years now and have skirted fleeces the past 2 seasons.  It has and continues to be a great learning experience for me and gazing at the alpacas in their pastures is just so peaceful.

So why is it that I focus on natural fibers you ask?  For me it is a means to support ranchers and small markets throughout the U.S. and world.  My journey into spinning natural fibers has introduced me to several sheep ranchers and alpaca/llama ranchers within the western U.S. face to face.  When I took up spinning cotton I gained such an appreciation of our ancestors and a better understanding of the cotton gins importance.  There are so many fibers (animals and plants) to explore and spin.  The groups on Ravelry who spin various fleeces per month have been a huge source of information for me and fan base for my work.

For me the niche of natural fibers places me amongst a caring group of people who love animals and enjoy working with their hands.  They are forthcoming with advice, understanding of trials and tribulations and confidence builders on new journeys with fiber.  In our societal "Green Environment" focus working with these fibers fits just right in while helping to maintain bloodlines/crops for future generations to explore. 

What are your favorite types of yarn to work with?  Do you lean towards a specific brand or manufacturer?

Busy Saturday

Eventhough I am not feeling 100% it has been a productive day.  I went to the store at the ranch to work my shift and we had our first sale using the "square" tool.  Very cool to take a credit card, capture a photo of the purchase items and email a receipt to the customer.

The lilac scarf is finished and being cleaned/blocked.  I actually listed it in the shop at Herie7 Natural Fiber Treasures and it was posted on FB and Twitter today.  I think I am starting to get the hang of this multi media advertising process. 

The head band made from CVM wool is coming along and I like the heart design of the pattern.  Headbands are the perfect projects for my handspun yarns.

After taking product photos, I posted a couple of yarns on the Ebay site and within Herie7 Natural Fiber Treasures on Etsy tonight too.

I did enjoy watching the male llamas and alpacas this afternoon.  They are such peaceful creatures.  We had good conversations with customers and have some ideas on what to stock the shop with to draw in the young customers (kids).

Definately will be creating small woven bags and headbands for the Renaissance Festival the summer of 2012.  Tomorrow I will be relaxing and hanging out with friends before another busy week in the office.

Creation of Yarn

I had fun at the ranch on Sunday.  It was good to reconnect with the alpaca owners for a few hours.  The baby alpacas are so adorable and I did pick out a fleece for next spring amongst them.  He is white with hints of fawn within his fleece.  Last year's crias are so big now - these animals grow so fast but still remain docile.  It is always good to meet the folks that come to the open house.  Some have never seen an alpaca before and many are not aware of all of the items one can create with their fibers.  The little kids adored the alpacas especially the toddlers.  We had really good weather for the event considering the day before was snowing and rainy.

Although I didn't sell any yarn I did receive some good feedback from customers.  Yardage matters to them and knowing what projects they can make with a skein is very helpful.  I'm going to rework/add to the skeins I have fiber for this week prior to trying to sell them locally or in the shop.  Product descriptions will be tweaked to give good project information to shoppers for our yarns and let them know how to combine skeins for that special project.

Given yardage requirements I am going to revisit my pricing of the yarn too.  If it will take more than a skein to complete a project I need to make sure the material cost doesn't exceed a customers budget for the finished project.

ATAR will be opening up the shop more often especially doing the holiday season.  I have agreed to man the shop on Saturdays which will give me a dedicate time to create items along with some potential sales.  It is good to have a variety of outlets for merchandising and will be fun to help in promoting the venue.

Spinning yarn in public

I do love spinning yarn in public and I got in 2 days this past weekend to do just that.  The young boys are the most interested in the craft and how to's of it all.  They ask great questions and really watch how it's done.  I try to have double and single ply yarns along with finished products to help visitors tie it all together.  For the little girls we relate spinning on a wheel to "Sleeping Beauty" as most of them have seen that movie.

Although I didn't have any sales it was a very productive weekend.  I made about 6 to 8 skeins of yarn plus I finished the second alpaca hat.  Some local alpaca ranchers have invited me to spin at a pumpking patch event they are attending.  They are even allowing me to sell some of my handmade items too.

I have the weekend off from demostrating but will be visiting a new yarn shop on Saturday.  I am looking forward to a relaxing week!

Small update

I am going to try something new on the blog front - small updates versus lengthy paragraphs.  Perhaps this will allow me to write more often.  The past month has had numerous health issues which have also impacted how much I am able to do.  I am participating in the Alpaca on the Rocks this weekend.  The evenings this week have been in preparation for the event.  I used my mill spun yarn to create a hat for the show my only concern is that it appears to be huge as the yarn is not as thick as the original yarn used for the project.  I am making a second one with less stitches to make it smaller.

On the spinning front I have 3 oz of alpaca/tussah silk spun and will be plying it tonight or this weekend.  The special order yarn is drying and I have started spinning the alpaca/milk roving.  The milk fiber is not as sticky as the silk so the VM does come out better.  Both rovings have rich medium brown color from the alpaca and will make nice yarn and projects.  As I have set aside rovings in 1 oz, 2 oz and 4 oz packages my overall stash of alpaca blended bamboo and silk has decreased.  Still need to follow up with my LYS on purchasing rovings.

Off to the docs soon then the day job.  I am not as prepared for this weekends event as the Farmers Market but a lot of my items are from last weekend and ready to go.  I do have 2 days for potential sales and a nice selection of items to present.  We shall see how it goes!

Spinning cotton bolls

So I broke down and opened up the package of cotton bolls tonight.  I was supposed to defer this to the weekend but the thrill of working with new fiber got the better of me.  I am using my lightest weight drop spindle and teased fiber from one of the bolls (removed the seeds).  So far so good, it is spinning up pretty easily for me and I am adding lots of twist to the fiber before winding it onto the spindle.  I relaxed a bit of the yarn to allow it to fold back on itself and it stayed strong along with looking like a decent 2 ply yarn.  Not sure if I will ply it with the white wool roving, white huacaya fleece or white suri locks as of yet.  Still have 9 1/2 bolls of cotton to spin so that decision is on the distant horizon.

Fleece market day was a lot of fun and yes I kept my purchases within reason.  I bought some mohair (goat) fiber that is naturally black and white.  The fiber is clean but the ladies from Sister Sheep had washing instructions for future mohair purchases.  Also purchased a very small amount of their CVM wool fiber which so reminds me of my very first fleece purchase.  This fiber is in the raw stage so it will need to be scoured prior to spinning.  There was a very cute lamb by the name of Jane who escaped from its keepers and ran across the street to the other shopping center.  I was frozen with horror when she ran across the street and we were very fortunate that cars in both directions had stopped.  Jane stayed with us for a few more hours and then went back home to her ranch.  The angora rabbit was beautiful and I got some good advice on spinning up angora for the future.  The owner of the rabbit also has alpacas and we met up again on Sunday for Shearing.  Of course we had 2 alpacas at the shop both boys who were quite well behaved.  Black Romeo had a thing for sniffing my spinning wheel and me when I wasn't paying him any attention.  Overall it was a great fiber sales day for all and an educational day all the way around.

Sunday was shearing day and 65 animals were shorn including several Llamas.  I aided in skirting a lot of fleeces that day.  Mr. Midnight is a rescued llama that hadn't been shorn in a very long time.  He got trimmed on Sunday and the joke was that I wanted his fleece - not!  Although he has beautiful coloring his fleece was a felted/matted mess and I am sure he is feeling so much better to get that coat of off him.  We had quite a few volunteers including my son and lots of camaraderie that day which is what makes shearing day so much fun.  There were actually a few ladies that volunteered throughout the day to assist with skirting even if it was just passing fiber to them for the trash.  Good learning experience and most importantly I did not add to my growing fleece pile! 

This month I am exploring markets for the fiber/yarn products and looking into broadening my marketing campaigns on the web.  Have to remember that I haven't been in business for a year and that things will fall into place when the time is right.  I work my business everyday in some manner and that is the important thing.  I have the llama/silk roving on the wheel; an Estonian lace scarf on one set of needles; a cotton cowl/hood on another set of needles and of course now the cotton on a drop spindle.  I LOVE FIBER!!!!

Road Trip - On the road again!

I have just finished a 7 hour drive to beautiful southern Colorado today.  Picking up the kid from college and a mini vacation.  I brought my cloud fiber to spin on the spindle.  Need to finish the sachet bag and will begin the Estonian lace scarf on this trip. The cabin is really nice and I did bring items to take photos of in the beautiful mountain area of Southern Colorado.  There is a lake about 1/2 hour away and we are near a big hiking trail.

The Great Western Alpaca Show begins tomorrow and although I will miss it this weekend I did enter a skein of yarn into the competition.  Competition life has definitely been a learning experience for me.  First I forgot to provide postage on the return envelope.  Then I forgot to provide a description of my item for the competition - somehow I missed this detail on the 2 page instruction form.  I told the coordinator that this had definitely been a learning experience and next year I will rock at this process.  The Estes Park Wool Market also has a yarn competition with a low entry fee.  I am going to try to enter 2 items to it and hopefully will be able to make it to the judging event.  I am thinking of entering my spindle spun yarn of alpaca and perhaps some roving.  I need to check the rules to see if the spun items can be from rovings or must be hand processed.  Apparently there is a big distinction in the competition arena of spun yarn.

One more weekend to shearing day and I have been reviewing my fleece sorting information to make this year's fleeces cleaner.  Need to confirm with my rancher what she considers to be her prime, seconds and thirds as mills and hand spinners may have different expectations. 

I ordered cotton bolls (10) from Woodland Woolworks which is sadly going out of business.  I have always wanted to try processing cotton and took the leap this week and ordered the fiber.  Will keep you posted on how well it turns out - am curious about how much fiber I can get from the 10 bolls.  Then of course the next decision is what to ply it with for a knitting or yarn project.  This summer is going to be a great journey into fiber events, projects and sales! 

Mini Etsy App

Today I learned how to create the various "mini Etsy" photos on the sides of the blog.  This is so cool!  I must give credit to another Etsian and blogger Audrey of TheChristmasCorner for pointing out this feature to me.  She has been kind of enough to create this app on her blog of my Etsy shop this week.  I plan to showcase my favorite finds once a month and keep a mixture of craft shops on the blog to help market the great artisans on Etsy.

I signed up for a website on Artfire this week.  Still reading through how it is different than Etsy but for now I am sticking with the free basic service to test the waters out.  Sent of state and local taxes this week for sales last year too.  I believe I filled out the forms correctly but I am sure the treasury departments will let me know if I made an error.  The yarn from the shop was featured in another treasury this week:  http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4d6e52d269ba6d91d01dc276/i-want-to-knit-you-a-sweater.  There is a new alpaca group in the Etsy forums which I joined since I love all things alpaca.  I have found several works of art that have truly be inspiring and humorous on Etsy like the hats for cats from XMOONBLOOM and hamish bear by AMYANDPIA.  They both made me chuckle this week and laughter is the best cure for all ailments.

I have cast on stitches for the first fingerless gloves.  The handspun yarn is much thicker than what I have used for previous versions of this pattern so I have had to make some adjustments in the design.  It is knitting up beautifully though and has more structure to it then the fingering/lace weight yarns of prior projects.  Need to make it to the post office to mail off the donation of yarn this week - hopefully on Saturday.  The woven scarf is on hold now that the gloves are cast on and I am hoping I made enough for two gloves but we shall see in a week. 

Banner completion

I finally took the plunge and created a real banner for my Etsy shop.  I added pictures of the yarn, fiber we sell along with the photo of Zoelenna on a nice brown background.  The GIMP software tonight just flowed for me far better than my first attempt.  I am so proud of my computer progress in this area - a little bit at a time.  I also did fiber/tool shopping this week and the items have arrived.  I ordered custom gift tags with my shop name, a leather leg protector for prepping fiber and some fiber from a Ravelry friend destashing for a move.  I came across another lady on Ravelry looking for yarn for kids to learn how to knit with and will be shipping some of my acrylic based yarns to them for projects. It is nice to find a home for the acrylic based stuff.  My last purchase for the week was a spinning DVD which has been very helpful in actually seeing worsted from woolen prep styles along with their hybrids.  It also discussed what fibers to use for each style for different types of projects.

alpaca scarf

I spun up the mohair purchased last year and think I will ply it with some wool white top I have as it has so many colors in it.  Washed some hand spun skeins so that I can start knitting and selling them.  Decided to make a knit scarf with a woven pattern out of the alpaca worsted weight yarn I have.  I must admit that I do really like the woven texture and am enjoying the patten even though it only consists of 2 rows repeated throughout the project (pictured on the right).

I am 3 rows shy of completing my petroglyph scarf as I ran out of yarn.  I suppose I should start spinning up the remaining fiber just so that it can be completed, cleaned and blocked.  I have too many choices of things to spin on the wheel - yikes!

I am going to start on the mitten order this week along with working on the scarf. That is only 3 projects needles at this point.  Still tossing around ideas for headbands for the small amounts of yarn I have in my stash.  Of course I could just take photos of them and try to trade/sell them on Ravelry for fiber.  It could be more of a viable option than selling them on Etsy as they have such limited yardage. 

Although there haven't been sales in the shop for February we certainly improved in our marketing presence.  The yarns and some fiber have been featured in a few treasuries and actually received some nice comments on the FB page too.  Posting new pics of the fingerless mitts on Etsty today and will try to get the beret listed on there too.  I can't wait to see the roving from the llama in March.  It has been a busy and good week and March will be filled with more spinning, mill processing and knit designed projects for me.  Back to knitting the scarf.

Fiber Mill adventure

Well I did make it to the mill on Saturday eventhough my bronchitis did not appreciate the journey.  I took a tour of the entire operations from washing the fleeces, to drying, picking, carding and finally creating yarn from them.  Learned not to care so much about keeping the lock formation of the fleeces being sent to the mill but concentrate on shaking out the dirt and checking that the length is uniform. 



I brought the black Llama fleece I purchased as an example and Andrew (Spring Too Fiber Mill) helped me choose the fiber to add to it (soy silk) and what percentage to add (10%).  I choose this fleece for its softness which one doesn't generally associate with Llama fibers.  We talked about the strength of the fibers as it relates to textile processes and some of the benefits of combining different fibers together to complement/enhance one another.  So in about a month I will get a roving made from the black llama fleece with white soy silk spread throughout it.  Having spun up a similar type of roving I am anxious to see how mine will turn out.  Within the next year I will need to take some fiber sorting classes to aid in choosing fleeces and help me improve the material I will be offering for resale on Etsy. 

My March goal is to research fiber combinations (alpaca/wool; alpaca/bamboo) and learn the pros and cons of blending fibers and for what use.  It was an educational day and well worth the drive.  I am excited to see the end results of the raw fiber I will send to the mill this spring.  I'll be sure to post pictures so that others can share in the journey.

Sunday was my day of spinning yarn.  I spun up the red roving into yarn for the fingerless mittens order and plied my pretty bluish/red roving which turned out to be more purple/red (see pics below).  You can see a picture of the actual roving in my Flickr album.  It was a productive weekend, one filled with rest and minimal human interaction which are always a treat for me.



Colors came through
better here



Project finished

The one good thing about being ill is one has time to work on knitting projects between sleeping.  The mittens have been completed and are being cleaned at this moment.  I will take photos soon to post here and on Ravelry.  I am quite proud of them now that they are done and it was a good stretch of my skill set.  My next project is making headbands from some of my small quantities of yarn.  My first one is with gray handspun yarn of mine from a wool roving created in the early days as it is thick yarn.  The goal is to experiment with different types of joining (seamed and button).  I am using a moss stitch as the design. 

I have somehow lost the photos of all of the handspun I was going to post on Etsy. So this weekend is picture time again.  I used my Microsoft Digital Image Editor to alter the size of alpaca photos and was able to post them to Etsy this week - yeah!  It is good to have options on picture software.  The blog has been jazzed up a bit too with links to my Flickr photos and I found a cool app for the Etsy shop which is to the left.  I saw another bloggers Facebook page on their site but still can't figure out how to get the actual image to appear on my blog.  Perhaps I will write them for advice. 

Well I am off to bed and then to the doc to see what's wrong with me but I am glad to have finished the special order.



Headband



Fingerless mittens



Knitting

projects