Alpaca silk!!!!

The Alpaca silk is a dream to spin with! Holding it in your fiber hand is a cloud-like experience! Talk about luxury! And an ounce only sets you back $4.50! Such a deal!

Sue's Luxury Fiber

The Sampling has begun...with the baby llama

Over the last few days, I have begun sampling the new fibers. I withdrew one lovely ounce from each of the three balls of baby llama top. OH MY! What a treat! I spun the yarns on my Hansen e-Spinner. I set the machine to allow me to spin a moderate, sort of sport weight, reasonably fluffy yarn. When you spin from top, you are spinning well aligned fiber with little air, making, generally, a firmer, smoother yarn. I attempted to maintain a certain drapiness and luxury, and succeeded. My favorite may be the three ply I did with one ply of each color: cinnamon, silver & grey. The silver reads as sky blue when plied with the grey and cinnamon!

Affordable luxury at $4.50 per ounce. Each ounce made approximately 40 yards of sport weight yarn.

Shepherd's Harvest with a goal!

I have dream! It is to own an Aura Wheel from Majacraft. So, day one of Shepherd's Harvest has gotten me part way there in the most enjoyable fashion! What could be more fun than enabling other happy fiber people to fulfill their dreams too? I spent the day selling and teaching from the booth about Wild Batts, spindling and "Lazy Felt". And I spent it with my newly engaged friend Carla who bought her first loom today. I bought alpaca fleeces. So, I ask you, "What could be better?"

Come by tomorrow if you are in the area. With or without purchases, it is a blast!

Shepherd's Harvest is 2 days away! he newest product I am bringing is hand painted bamboo. It is SOOOO pretty! And SOOO slippery! The hard part was figuring out how to package it so it can be handled without unwinding. I finally cut up some wild paisley chiffon and tied each ball up like a gift box! Hope this works! If you are interested in the bamboo, come early...the supply is very limited.

This year I also have Angelina fiber, dyed wool and cotton nebs, sari silk and yarn confetti for sale as Wild Batt additives to take home.

Try out the Batt Your Own Wild Batt station. AT the carding station, for an additional fee, you will be able to card up to 2 ounces of purchased Sue's Luxury Fiber at a time with additives such as angelina, firestar, nebs, yarn confetti, mohair (included in the price of carding.) It is too fun!

BATTS AHOY! Are there batts in your belfry?

In addition to dying mohair and roving, the electric carder is humming as well. I am painting with wool, bamboo, silk, angelina, mohair, alpaca, sari threads, mystery fleeces....It is so much fun to see the stack grow higher!

Vacation fiber fun

The gallery has been closed for over a month...nothing dire, just much needed vacation with a couple extra accidental weeks thrown in! What a joy! I drove over 3000 miles to see friends and family. While on the road I did spin a bit of merino silk on my Bosworth...but not much. While in East Lansing Michigan I went to my old friend Nancy's store, Woven Art. I bought this wildly dyed silk there and began spinning it as soon as I got home.
I washed the Dorset fleece I got at Shepherd's Harvest. It is the sproingiest stuff! I spun a sample and it was as stretchy as a rubber band. I decided to card a bunch with @ 10% nylon to make sock yarn that I plan to space dye and knit up for my son. SHHH! Don't tell him....especially since I am a very slow completer of projects! He'll get them some Christmas someday!
Little old dog, BABY, watches me with bleary eyes and an equally bleary brain. Her Altzheimers is worse since I got home. I think she knows who I am now. But she is still sweet. That has not changed.

Last night I wove this little, still un-blocked, weft-faced purse on a cardboard loom. Fun, but it made my hands hurt a lot. It is about the size for business cards.

This was my first independent "scarf"!!!The only problem is that I really mis-measured the warp! It won't even go around my neck...can't even make it into a cowl or a collar. So, it ia a lovely, llama table thingy.
This time, I measured the warp right. I am doing a sampler scarf based on various lace patterns. Too much fun.

And I forgot to photograph the most recent yarns, hanging to dry in the basement. Maybe tomorrow;-)

So, what's on your wheel?

It's cold and it's June in Minnesota

Thank you to the hearty souls who braved the cold, constant rain to buy my yarn and my wool! It was a very pleasant day after all...although the heater in the car after the early close felt awfully good! Everything had to be unloaded and unpacked to dry out! It is kind of nice to have it all hanging in the studio again!

spinning tales and weaving yarns

I plan on spinning some Romney to make more yarn that looks more or less like this. One pply is pure Romney, the other ply is 2 ounces of roving I dyed sometime ago and have no more of. But, I do have some recently dyed roving that is similar and should make a lovely ply. I plan to use it with the llama 3 ply I finished last week...when I learn to weave better?




I began a weaving class last night: Rigid Heddle for Knitters. Plain weave. I plan the use the yarns below. My warp is across the top.

Completed yarn

The wild batt 2-ply yarn and the llama 3-ply yarn, over 450 yards each. The llama weighs a lot! The wild batt yarn is light and lofty. The batts were spun on the Roberta Electronic Spinner and the llama on the Ashford DT Traveler. Now I am spinning a bit of leftover pink and peach merino and some more batts.

Pictures of Llama,wild batts

Wild batt on the Roberta, Llama on the Traveller.

wild batts from wool, alpaca, mohair and a smidge of sari silk.