More Spindles

Hi everybody!
This week I have been busy making some new spindles. I just listed a new kit with a spindle and spindle bag. I love how soft the scotty bag feels.
Kim is coming home for winter break on Friday. We already have a dye day planned. I love blending colors together and I am running low on several colors. I am completely out of hand dyed firestar. I am really happy to have 2 pounds to dye on Sunday.

I still have 20 or so spindles to turn, but Kim will probably pour more before she heads back to school. And I need to make some stock for shows. We are hoping to do two spinning shows this spring.





I will put up pictures of the fibers on Monday.
And I think we will start some silk worms on Monday as well.
Ta for now
Loretta

New Winter Arrival

We have had a very busy week. Friday Dec 5 my husbands Bernese had 2 puppies with my Bichon Frise and yesterday we had a little baby Cria. She is the most adorable little thing.
Crias are Baby Llamas or alpacas . This is our little llama cria. I prefer the temperament of llamas to that of alpacas. We have had both we kept the llamas and the Alpacas found new homes.We currently have 4 adult llamas and 2 sheep. They all live together with 5 roosters, the roosters peck at the seeds the other animals drop. It is really funny watching the "herd" move from one pasture to the other. I never imagined the roosters would become part of the herd but they follow the llamas and sheep around. The herd seems to look out for all the members 2 and 4 legged.


This is my son Sam with our new addition. She doesn't yet have a name , please feel free to send your ideas. When we approach all of our llamas we either start by offering our hand for them to smell or our hair. Llama s are very social animals and are a real treat to have on the farm. In this picture you can see baby with momma in back and behind Mom is Dad's head.

More Cria Pictures.

I took my printer into Best Buy on Monday because it was having paper jamming issues. I hate to be without a printer, however they said it would be at the shop for 2 weeks. So I have changed our December sale to an extra sample of roving with each purchase.

Happy Spinning!

December Roving

Just a quick update, as we are getting ready to do 2 craft shows this weekend.
I wanted to share the roving of the month

Peppermint Twist
This is a blend of Super Merino, Soy silk, Bamboo, White Icicle top, and some Angelina.
Very sparkly and Fun.

And Pulled out into Roving!

More next week. Ta for now, Loretta

Busy November

We have had a very busy November filling wholesale orders. I am happy to announce that there is a new Yarn store in Iowa Falls, Iowa. THE OLD COUNTY YARN STORE is run by Cindy Maroney her winter hours are

Tues 10 am-2:30 pm, Wed-Fri 10 am –6pm and Sat from 10 Am-4 pm. If you happen to be driving by make sure to stop in and say hi.

This past month we have been playing with GLOW-in-the-Dark pigment powders. If you like to spin in the car these are really neat. They charge themselves with sunlight and glow for hours. This is a cloud swirl pattern. We never know how they will tun out and they are more fun because each one is one of a kind.

Taking Pictures in the dark is hard but really fun.


This is a shot of my kitchen table just before I start carding. With all the colors and different fibers to play with. I also weigh all of the fibers before I card so all the batts have the same percent of fibers.I wanted to make a jewel color blend. My kids refer to as clown Vomit.

I load each color into the carder.

Then I remove the batt and split it in half.

The tricky part! I run the split halves of the batt into the carder with the pink fibers on the right.
And tada!

Ok, I admit it I am addicted to sparkly fibers. I ordered several colors of Angelina on ETSY and I just ordered 2 pounds of White Icicle Top (also known as firestar) from Canada last week.
Later this week I will be carding up my December Blend, Peppermint Twist. I will post more pictures then.
Ta for now,
Loretta

Finally Free!

So in the past few months I have been raising puppies.
All of our puppies are now happy and settled in their new homes so I finally have time to devote to spinning. Yeah!








Last year at Christmas I promised my mother that I would do a craft show with her and Kim(my daughter), so we could have some quality bonding time, just us girls. So I spent the last 3 weeks making soap. I now have soap coming out my ears and my house smells like a department store perfume counter.
I am very thankful Kim is at college so I can use her room to dry the soaps.


But on to the fun stuff!
Saturday, Kim and I decorated the Christmas tree with roving and drop spindles. I have never EVER put up a tree before Thanksgiving but I wanted to make Christmas Cards. I think it is the prettiest tree we have ever had. What do you think?














On Sunday I went crazy with my drum carder. Kim requested that I do a Winter Blue roving for our etsy store. I didn't really have much blue dyed, but I did have Blue Bamboo that I had dyed this summer. I carded the bamboo first, it is a very fine fiber and carding it alone first gives better results in the final batt. I then ran the bamboo though the carder again this time with silver Angelina (I love Glitz).

Then I went though my stash just to see what I wanted to use for the white fibers. I chose a Merino Soy blend. The first batt off the carder was soo soft I spun it right away. I was very excited and carded 15 more batts before I realized what time it was. I have put 10 batts away for the shop, but I am very tempted to spin them all!

More soon, Loretta

Carding

This is my Louet Roving carder, on which my husband has added a motor. This week I am making camel blends! I was given a feed sack full of camel hair; the gentleman that gave me the camel brushes his girls and didn't want to throw the fiber away. I am not removing the guard hairs because they really don't effect the blend. As the blend only has about 15% camel they don't seem to effect the softness of the yarn.

This is a picture of the fibers I am using this week. The white is superwash merino, the dark brown is merino, the off white is soy silk and the red brown is the camel.

A quick pic of me carding outside. I love cool days with no wind, very rare for August.

After all the fibers are put onto the carder, I take them off and run them though again so they are more blended and make a more consistent yarn.

After the second carding I remove the fibers by rolling them into an egg. By rolling them they take up less space during storage, and they look cuter.

Egg Plant!
I wish I could just plant seeds and roving would grow :)
This is what the final egg (batt) looks like.
Now I pull the fibers out into roving, which takes about 10 min. per egg.
18 grams doesn't sound like a lot of fiber, but it sure looks like a lot!
After spinning this is what the final yarn looks like.
I would just like to thank the camels who provided the fiber, and the pumpkin who played the Egg Plant.
This weekend we will be pouring more spindles to turn next week, and maybe dyeing some fibers.

Learners Permit

My first blog entry! I am still learning and have a supervising teacher, better known as my computer slave Kim. Kim is going off to college this fall and is giving me a crash course before she leaves.

We have been busy working on custom spindles for fyberspates
and we are starting a new order for twist of fate yarns

We just finished a few more spindles for our etsy shop, Kim will be adding them to our store this week.

Next week I plan to make more mystery batts. A nice man from Union Iowa gave me a big bag of Camel fibers and I am dreaming of fiber combinations. My son Sam is begging for a hat and mittens made of camel.

I took these pictures a few weeks ago while making green sea batts. First I pick out the colors and different fibers I want to use.

After I choose the fibers , I pick the fibers that need it. Mostly the fibers from our farm, Llama and Lincoln Longwool. In this picture it is llama. My husband made this picker for me , it really opens up the fibers , but I love how all the VM falls to the bottom.


This is Lincoln Longwool.
Then I weigh out the fibers so each batt has the same content, and I don't overload my carder.

I make several bags of fiber before I take out my drum carder.

Next week pictures of me carding, hopefully camel.