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?

Fiber festival update

2 posts in one day!  I just learned how to send photos from Flickr to Blogger so the cotton yarn was posted all on its own.  Today was the Estes Park Wool Market and I was there for 3 hours.  My Facebook Page has a few photos of the cute sheep and goats I remembered to take pictures of while there.  The Shetland sheep are so cute and small.  There were quite a few tiny sheep at the festival today.  I also learned that Jacob sheep can have 2, 4 or 6 horns and there was one with 4 horns (no I didn't take a picture).  Picked up lots of business cards of ranches to visit this summer/fall.  There were lots of CVM breeds there along with Border Leicester and Wensleydale breeds.  Tomorrow is the sheep to shawl competition but I am not sure I'll make it (4 hour roundtrip commute to Estes from my home).  I did a lot of shopping and viewing of animals today.

There was one yak rancher at the festival who lives about 2 hrs from me and allows visits to their ranch.  I bought 1 ounce of a yak cloud.  They also sold Quivit ($50) which I had heard was expensive but didn't realize how expensive until I got there.  Quivit is the fiber from Musk Ox which are in Alaska and Canada and is rare.  I am going to blend my precious yak fiber with alpaca fiber and make it into a yarn.  Yak, Quivit and Paco Vicuna are some of the most expensive fiber to spin around the globe as they are rare animals.

I am an hour away from winning the bid on some wool carders (90 TPI) which will be good for the CVM fibers and Romney fibers in my stash.  We had great weather for the festival and it was a relaxed event.  My fiber shopping is done for the year.  I have so much to play with plus I will be picking up the mill processed fibers this month. Well I am off to rest my tired feet and spin up some dyed superwash wool from the stash.

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!