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!!!!

Ribbons and fleeces

The annual fleece market day will be held at the Recycled Lamb shoppe in Lakewood, CO this Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.  This will be my first year attending the event and I will be helping the ATAR ranch with their alpacas on display at the shop.  There will also be sheep and bunnies on display along with lots of fiber, tools and yarn for sale!  My goal is to not spend more than $10 as I have 2 fleeces at the mill for processing and haven't had any sales thus far!  I know it is only the beginning of May but the shop has 28 items and items have been featured in a few treasuries over the past few weeks.

Of course on Sunday is shearing day at the ranch so that will be another animal inspired and filled day for me too.  It will be nice to see the alpacas and to see how big last year's babies have grown.  I have 5 fleeces remaining to be sent to the mill but may pick up an additional color scheme to blend in with what I have on stock - maybe.  It is possible to have too many fleeces when you don't live on ranch/farm.  Need to find some venues to sell the rovings/yarn being created by the mill. 

My yarn came back from the Great Western Alpaca Show competition and it placed 3rd - yippee!  Given the comments on the judging and am taking that there were only 3 entries into this division but a ribbon is a ribbon.  I also received some good constructive criticism and advice which I will be putting to use in the next  batch of fiber I spin up.  I am definitely going to enter my spindle spun yarn into Estes Park to get even more feedback and advice in the quest to improve my craft.  Still it was very nice to receive a ribbon on my first venture into competition.  Can't wait to show the ladies at the ranch and the shop this weekend.  Need to also look into submission of mill spun yarn as a marketing tool for those products.

I have been working very hard on the Estonian scarf but I think it is time to set it aside for a bit and complete other projects.  Need to purchase sachet bags/potpourri for the Mother's day presents along with buttons.  The wheel hasn't been used in a week - sigh!  On the other hand I did spin some alpaca fiber on my spindle during the trip so I wasn't totally ignoring my yarn spinning passion.  My marketing and updates have been sketchy lately but the full time job has been a handful.  Baby steps is what I keep reminding myself to take and not to panic too much if the plan is not working out as thought.  This is all a new journey and each event is a learning experience which I am very grateful for.  The fiber, knitting, craft community is such a great and supportive environment which has become a blessing to me over the past few years.  My hope is that the items created which find new homes are able to bring a bit of happiness and comfort to their new owners over time.

First sale of March

I had a buyer contact me today for the cranberry lace scarf (Cranberry Alpaca Scarf) in the Etsy shop - yeah!  This is my first cash sale and we made arrangements to exchange the scarf for payment at a local busy store (one can never be too safe).  Just when I start to think my crafts don't appeal to others I get a sale.  Learned new terminology on Etsy and visited the forums to see how others have handled/listed items for cash sales.  The forums contain so much information for we beginners which is very nice.  Sometimes you have to know the key words to ask but in general I have found answers to my selling and shop setup questions there.

I was quite lazy this weekend so I haven't plied the yarn for the 2nd glove.  I also still need to spin the rest of the fiber for my lace scarf which I am 4 rows shy of completing - yikes.  On the positive the woven style scarf is progressing nicely made with alpaca yarn.  Still deciding which batch of fiber to send to the mill in April but every sale aids in paying for processing fees.  There is still so much fiber in my bins to be spun up.  Every time I think I have made a dent I find more - how does that happen???  I have a love affair and passion for fiber and connect so well with other fiberholics.  My wheel and I have a date for Wednesday - let the plying and spinning move forward!

On the business front I am still practicing simplicity and trying to enjoy the journey of running a business.  I do have a few years to make a profit before the IRS comes down on me.  This week I will be finishing up projects, taking photos, and writing descriptions for my handspun yarns.  Can't sell them if I never list them!

Lack of focus - burnout??

I feel like I am drifting from my purpose or I just have too many irons in the fire.  I need to revisit my business plan and get back to a more focused view of running the Etsy shop.  Still thinking about the shop critique and that I need lots more items listed.  I do have several skeins of handspun yarn which I could list.  Missing the energy to write up profiles on each so that they can be posted.  Pictures exist for most of my handspun.  There are days that I completely understand why most businesses delegate tasks to professionals as it is somewhat overwhelming to be a one man show.  My passion is spinning yarn and I have been faithful to that path over the past few weeks.  On the business side I start to work the business i.e. post pictures, list items, etc. and then my energy is sapped so I push it off to another day.  Today was my first day checking into the Raverly forums - last checked in on Saturday.  This is probably just a slump which will pass - hopefully.  At the end of the day I know that I do have items for sale, some decent photos of the product and a custom order to finish.

I did a google search for alpaca fiber in Colorado and my etsy listings came up on the first page not sure if it is because they are in the cookies on my computer or we really are liked by google.  I think I will have a friend do a search and see what they come up with.  One day I really need to do some research in SEOs and find out how to improve the visibility for all of our items.  Don't think that will happen this week though.

The fingerless gloves are progressing - one is complete.  I need to spin up another bobbin of fiber to make more yarn for the project.  Sent a photo of the completed glove to its owner for approval - which I did receive.  I purchased a sampler box of luxury fiber about 2 years ago and amazingly the dreaded moths haven't gotten to them.  Have you ever heard of Karaoke Fiber?  Well I learned that this is a mixture of wool and Soysilk fibers that produce a silk like yarn.  It has been plied with tan alpaca fiber into a skein.  Made another skein of tan alpaca, whhite cashmere and white silk and yet another of tan alpaca and grey cashmere.  They have all made some nice tweedy looking yarn.  Still have several 1 oz batches of other luxury fibers (bamboo, silk, llama, alpaca, angora and cashmere) to spin up.  It has been fun testing out different spinning techniques with the fibers and learning the traits of each one.

Well I'm off to bed - tomorrow is another day of knitting and it is Ash Wednesday!

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.