Online store

For several years I maintained an online store at etsy. Last year when we opened the physical store here in Las Cruces we put the online store on vacation. I'm pleased to announce that the etsy store is reopening. I've started with some new hand spun art yarn and will soon be posting hand dyed yarns as well.

Silk and merino with mohair locks batt.

Spun as a single. This is a good sized skein at over 200 yards. A sample of what I will be stocking online. These yarns are not available in the physical store and are a result of the many requests from those of you who have bought from me on etsy. 

Thank you for your continued support!

Morning spinning

Sometimes before heading in to the shop I am able to get some spinning done. Usually I have the "help" of sleeping animals. 

Fiber before it was spun.

Murphy takes a power nap after breakfast. 

The ancient English Cocker sleeps on the couch. She will be 15 on her next birthday in May. 

Fall Spinning

As hot as the summers are here in southern New Mexico it is hard not to get excited about the cooler days. The sunlight seems to have a clear crisp quality and the temptation to take the spinning wheel outside is great.
The colors of the season are finding their way into the dyepots and batts.....

There are new skeins appearing over in the etsy shop here

.My faithful spinning dog keeps me company while I work - it helps that the a/c hits the place where she lays as close to the spinning wheel as possible......

Wherever you live I hope you are able to enjoy these cooler days and do what you love.

One of the great things about learning to spin is that you can make yarn in any color scheme
your mind can think up. I love the colors of the Southwest and have wanted to make something that seemed very New Mexico. I spun this single from domestic wool roving and dyed it. Then I had the idea that I wanted to weave with my own handspun. The warp I used was a shetland in green, blue and rust and the pattern is a twill with a basketweave stripe (the rust). It all seems very NM now that it is finished and drying over the gate in the backyard. I'm planning to sew it into a vest to wear to an art opening this weekend at the local Center for the Arts in greater downtown Hobbs.

Sometimes in February here we get these perfect days when there is no wind (a rare thing) and the temperature is in the upper 70's. I've been sitting out on the back porch in the sun spinning wool for several hours. If there is a better way to spend time I don't know what it is.

The yarn on the left was spun first and then dyed and the yarn on the right was dyed as roving and then spun. The difference is subtle. I like the way yarn looks when it is dyed as roving first but sometimes the roving is so fragile that I end up felting it instead of dyeing it, hence the yarn on the left. I have read recently a lot about people dyeing roving in their dishwashers. I just use a heavy bottom canning pot on the top of the stove. If any of you out there have done both and would like to share the pros and cons with me I would like to hear it.

I'm just about to start the weaving on a shawl that will have all handspun natural browns for the weft. I'm cheating a little and using shetland for the warp.

Whatever you do with yarn I hope you are enjoying it!

Art yarn from yesterday's post, finished and dried. It is wool, cotton and rayon, 116 yards.

This evening I've been knitting. This seems such a decadent pastime to me as I always feel like I should be spinning or weaving. However, my house is full of this beautiful hand dyed, hand spun yarn and my fingers just itch to get into some of it and make something before it flies out the door. I am making a hat. It is orange and olive greens and much nicer color combination than it sounds like it would be. Autumn is my favorite time of the year and this yarn is like having Fall in my hands. Of course where I live it was in the 70's today and not very Fall like, but I'm an optimist and I'm hoping someone will see the hat and decide they want to make one of their own, using my handspun preferably. I love to see people wearing hand made hats, or really hand made anything because I think things made by hand are a thousand times better than stuff made on machines or by slave labor overseas. I believe all gifts should be hand made! Let's start a revolution!

Don't you just love toys? The next best thing after yarn is new toys to make yarn! I love my Ashford Joy spinning wheel, but the orifice is just a little too small for all the stuff I want to add in to my art yarns - and the bobbin is too small to hold enough yarn once the plying begins. So I ordered a Country Spinner from Ashford. It came a week ago and I spent most of those days since staining and varnishing it. This morning my husband and I put it together and I got out the yarn. No time to waste, get busy!!! It works so differently from the little Ashford Joy that it took me some time just to figure out how to get the fly wheel to move freely and twist the yarn, then I had to get used to the slower pace. A couple of hours later and I think I get how it works and how best to use it. I can't imagine having this as the only spinning wheel in the house because it doesn't make small yarn, but it is great for plying and that huge bobbin will hold 2.5lbs of yarn. This terrible picture is of the yarn I worked on today.
It is a gold and purple with eyelash and cotton boucle all twisted around an antique gold colored thread. Will try to post better pictures soon but it is now drying in the bathroom.

We had a wind storm out here in Eastern New Mexico today. The wind got up around 65 mph this morning with lots of dust in the air. It was a good day for staying in and working with wool.

If any of you have experience working with the Country Spinner I would love to hear what you think about it.

The Joy of Art Yarn

The only thing more exciting than spinning up beautiful singles from hand dyed wool is making it into fun art yarn. The yarn on the left is a single in pinks, reds and purples that I call Heart's Desire and the one on the right is Pink Party Yarn, that includes wool, eyelash and small pom poms all coiled around gold lame thread. While I like them both there is definitely more going on with the yarn on the right. Art yarns are taking off all over. I was in London in January and saw people everywhere wearing scarves made from hand spun wool with all kinds of stuff woven in. I think an accessory item knitted up with art yarn is just the thing to chase off the winter blahs. Look for both of these new yarns on my website: http://www.quillinfiberarts.com .

Also for all of you who emailed me about not posting more, I will try to mend my slothly ways. After four years working overseas my husband returned home this past weekend. While he is trying to decide what to do next I am working on building inventory for the show in June and spinning as much yarn as my fingers can! It is great to have him home.

Dyeing wool is almost as bad as eating chocolate. I find myself thinking about it at the oddest times. Different color combinations dance through my imagination. In the produce isle I find myself thinking, orange and purple, how would that look in roving? The world has become yarn for me, I'm seeing through a haze of fiber.

The red roving that I dyed a few days ago is slowly becoming single ply that I'm planning to make into two ply. This bobbin is single ply and the second bobbin is almost full. There may even be a third. I think it will make a lovely scarf woven in plain weave with some rayon thrown in the warp for sparkle.

Surely Santa would approve.

The green roving spun up as a single in thick and thin. It came to 116 yards. I love the way the subtle colors change on the spinning wheel. Spinning is nothing short of magic to me. The new wheel is getting a lot of use this weekend. The red roving is next and I'm filling a second bobbin with single ply and when it is done the red will be a two ply. More wool comes Monday so the dye pot will be bubbling away this week!

I had a chance this weekend to meet a wonderful local spinner/weaver, Joyce Johnson. She was very gracious and showed a friend and I through her home. She has a wheel that has the largest bobbin on it I have ever seen. The wheel was a California Spinner and was made by hand by an artisan a number of years ago. The bobbin looked at least 8 inches long and like you could spin all day on it. Does anyone out there know about a craftsperson who makes spinning wheels like that? I sure would like to find one.

Happy Weaving, the holidays are almost here!