3 Projects finally completed

I've been trying to reduce my unfinished project corner. I've managed to finish three more projects (I only took pics of two though). The first was my nephew's bulldozer hat I made on the knitting machine. It was royal blue with caterpillar yellow bulldozers on it. My sister says that he loves it, he won't go out of the house without it on.

The next project is my daughters hat. This one was done from scratch. I wash and dyed a blue-face fleece that I got a while ago and processed it at our mill. I added some angelina to the roving as well, just to give it a little sparkle. Then I spun it on my Kromski Minstrel and knitted it on the knitting machine.

I think it came out really cute. You can't really see the little sparkles in the pic, but you can when your holding it.

The third is also a hat. I was making it for my husband, but I kind of like it myself so I'm not sure who will be using it more. This one is also out of blue-face, but a natural colored dark brown fleece. I spun it up a while ago and didn't really know what to make, but when I saw a pattern in the spin off magazine this yarn called out to me, so I figured I would give it a shot.

It came out a little on the big side, but I'm sure it will tighten up when I wash it so I'm not worried about it. I like it because it is nice a light compared to the machine knitted hats. It has a lot more give to it.

Now that I have finished all of these projects I can start working on something new. I made up some batts of assorted alpaca and wool seconds from the mill and it think I am going to try and spin some of this up since I never spun from a batt I think that I will be fun to try. The batts are supper soft even though they are from seconds. The alpace that they come from are super fine alpaca so there really isn't any bad fiber on them. Well wish me luck..... I'l let you know how it turns out.

What a great X-mas!!!!

This year was so much fun. Our 2 yr old finally had an idea of what was going on. She kept telling us that she wanted Santa to bring her a red toy and a blue toy:). She ripped through all her presents so fast (along with everyone elses as well).

Here She is ripping through one of her gifts as happy as can be.

Here I am probably telling her to slow down just like my parents used to tell us to. It's kind of scares me that I really do sound like my parents when I swore that that would never happen, hahahaha.

Since start up a new business and all money was rather tight this year to say the least. So I asked my husband for only one thing which was a Tom Forrester Spindle and my wish came true. I absolutely love it. I've never spun on a spindle so I wasn't sure if I would like it, but it works great. I got a light weight (29 oz) to spin sock weight yarns on. I can't wait to spin well enough to use it in a pair of socks for myself.

Here is a pic of the top view and on the right is a pic of the first spindle spun yarn ever!!! It didn't come out to bad, but I have a long way to go before it will be consistant.

Not Enough Hands

I have decided that I just don't have enough hands to do all of the things that I want to do. I have so much to do at the mill everyday just flys by and before you know it is time to go home. Besides processing everyone elses fiber I also want to start dying and blending my own rovings to sell. The last roving that I made sold as fast as I put them up on my website.

Here are the rovings that I made that sold right away. The orange one was my favorite, I was trying to get the fall colors of the leaves around here in CT and I think I did a pretty good job.
The other things that I want to do is spin for myself, weave, try wet felting, and most importantly is to spend some quality time with my two young children (2yrs and 1.5 months) it just looks like it would be so much fun and you could do so much with it. I have to many ideas in my head and I just don't have time time to do all of them. I have come to the conclusion to just do as much as you can everyday and eventually I will have been able to try everything.

Moisture is Key

I have found out over the past few weeks how important moisture in the fiber and the air is while processing the fiber, ESPECIALLY ALPACA. I have been working on a huge order of alpaca for what seems like forever and as soon as the cold weather came along the fiber gave me the challenge of my life. It was flying everywhere and sticking to the equipment like you wouldn't believe. The static was so strong the the metal it was almost impossible to take it off.
To solve the problem we got the biggest humidifier we could possibly find. This helped the air and then to keep the fiber moist the most import thing was to keep it covered. After it was washed and dried I sprayed it with a mist of water and bagged it up. Then after I picked it I sprayed it with the correct amount of antistatic and placed it in bins for 12 hours before carding it. Finally after carding it I spray it with water again and stacked the barrels with the roving in it to compact it and made sure that the top barrel was covered waited another 12 hour and then I was able to pin draft it without it falling apart. This was all very frustrating while I was learning, but I'm glad everything is working again.

The First lessons learned

The mill is getting busier and busier. I've had lot of beautiful Alpaca that I've been working on and a lot more that was dropped off in the last week. When we were opening we were told to be prepared that people were going to test me with their worst fiber before dropping off there good stuff. So far I don't feel like this has been the case at all. All of my customers so far have given me some really nice fiber to play with.

Since the mill has been open there have only been a few issues I've had and a few lessons learned. The first thing is how different fleeces are even among the same breed. The next is learning what grease content to soap ratio are needed. There were a couple of fleeces that appeared to be washed and grease free until the were dry and picked and then they all felt greasy again and needed to be re-washed. Finally the newest lesson which has not been completely solved is the static issue. The mill has dried out so much in the past few weeks that the static is out of control. We ordered a misting system, but I'm not sure that this has solved the problem completely. It is increasing the moisture content, but at the same time is not completely evaporating before it is falling and then makes everything that is below the misting heads all wet. I need to find a middle ground where there is moisture in the air, but doesn't get the equipment all wet. Hopefully this week we will have this sorted out.

Baby E... is here !!!!!

It seems like it has been so long since I've had a chance to write. A lot has happened including a new addition to the family. We had a baby girl Oct 16 at 8:13 AM. She was 20.5" long and weighed in at 7lbs 6oz.

As for her older sister that is 2, she hasn't been too jealous. She does the usual like get mad when the baby is on my lap or when she wants something and I can't jump up and get it. She really does love her though. When she goes to school that is all she talks about.

Yeahhhh its finally here !!!!!!!!!!!

All I have to say is yeah!!!!!! All of the equipment arrived yesterday and everthing looks great. Now it all just has to be put together. Keith had to travel this weekend, but will be back on Tuesday and spend 10+ days here with us putting it all together and training us on everything. I am just so happy that I can finally get everything moving forward. I never thought that I would be excited about going to work, but I really am. It is going to be so fun and a new adventure.

More Delays...................

OK, I feel that I've been very patient so far, but now I'm beginning to get frustrated. My Equipment was supposed to arrive yesterday, but was turned around at the Canadian border. Why me????? As of this month they decided to make some electronic filing a mandatory process instead of voluntary and of course Textek only had the hard copies of my paper work and nothing electronic so they would let him come into the states. Now I must wait another week in order for them to process the paper work so he can come down here. I am so tired of waiting for everything. As crazy as it sounds I just want to get to work and have a regular daily routine. I just hate having to rely on everybody else to get things done. I just want to start doing my own thing and not have to work around everyone else's schedule. I am going to try and start washing all the fiber I have that is waiting, but I need Billy (DH) to make me some larger drying racks for me, so again I need to wait for him to do this. Well I guess we will see what next week brings us....... Let's keep our fingers crossed.

To good to be true

Well I guess things were going to smoothly. Unfortunately, my money for the equipment is slower to arrive than orinally thought therefore the equipment is going to be delayed a week, it now is going to arrive next Monday. However, I guess things could be worse, right? Also this gives us more time to work on the mill space. The water is going in this week and hopefully my husband will have time the middle of the week to put the A/C and finish putting the plywood on the walls. Once those things are completed then we will be ready to go. We moved the office over there on Friday so now I also have plenty to do over there. I need to organize all my stuff, put shelving up so I can separate my husbands company and the mill (I take care of all his office stuff too). Doing all this with a 1.5 year old helping me will probably take all week anyway. I'm sure the week will go by fast with all the things that need to be done.

Mill Update

There is only a few weeks left until we will be open for business and things are starting to come together. We decided for now the best thing to do was rent space in town until we get going. We found a great space in an old woolen mill that is rich in fiber history. We thought that this would be really neat to have a new mill inside of an old mill. By doing a lot of the work ourselves we are saving on some rent as well. Today we got all the plywood up and put a coat of paint on 3/4 of it. Being 61/2 months pregnant during all of this I can only do so much, so I need my husband to paint the ceiling (I'm a little clumsy so I don't dare go that far up a latter). This weekend our plan is to go on the biggest shopping spree to home depot (what guy won't love this; buy tons of stuff and his wife won't complain) to buy the sinks, faucets, buckets, shelving, and so many other things that I can't think of right know because I'm so tired.
The one thing that we did forget to do is take before and after pictures of what the space looked like. It has changed so much with just a coat of paint. I can't wait to see what the mill is going to look like when it is all done. I am going to try and get down there tomorrow and take some pictures that I can't post here and also on my web page so people know what the building looks like when they come to visit. Well I must go, My little girl will be up bright and early ready to play.

WOW its been a long time!!!!

How things have changed since February.... Right now we are one moth away from opening up the fiber mill. So far it has been so exciting. I can't wait. We are suppose to get our first piece of equipment (the pin drafter) in a week or so and then the rest will be built right here on site the end of July. Once we are in the building (next week or so I hope) we will have to make a giant trip to home depot and get lots of supplies. We need to build a picker room, drying racks, shelving and I sure lots of other stuff that we haven't thought of yet. Well I'm going to attempt to attach this to the mill's website.
As for my projects that I have going... I haven't had to much time to work on them. I did finish weaving a blanket for my sister and have been able to spin a bunch of yarn, but I'm not quite sure what I will be doing with it yet. I will post some pics as soon as I get them off the camera (I'm kinda slow when it comes to that).

Life Changes

Today is the day that all the job postings are up here at work. Everyone is going crazy looking for a job and I am here just doodling away. I am not planning on staying here any longer. I can't deal with the one hour commute any more and if the IVF work who is going to hire someone that is pregnant and didn't meet expectations. But this is OK because if I'm pregnant I won't be able to work and if I'm not it will give me the opportunity to start my fiber mill!!! I would so much happier I think if I was working for myself doing something that I love to do. Plus opening the fiber mill I would be able to get an agriculture loan for the building and this would benefit Billy's company as well. I really look forward to this it is just a matter of when it will be.

Handbags

This week I finally finished my felted bags. They came out so good. I lined them and put a pocket on the inside. I'm thinking of selling them, but I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in them.

Here is some of the yarn that I have for sale. It is handspun 100% merino and is sport weight.

2/8/07

Lots of things have been going on in my life.... I just found about 2 weeks ago that my company is moving my job to CA. I don't plan on moving which has made me really think about what I plan on doing with myself. I don't think I was planning on staying here in this job forever so in some sence it is a good thing for me.
I am thinking about wether or not to start my own fiber mill or not. It is a big investment, but the demand is there and I have been doing my research. I think that it would be perfect for me.

1. I have this cazy obsession/passion for fiber ever since I started spinning.
2. I love to be in control and what can be better than owning your own business.
3. Plus it would be on our property so I can work and spend time with my daughter too. can't ask for anything more than that.

I guess I am going to do it it is just a matter of when. I'm going through IVF right know so if it works and I'm pregnant I might have to wait a little while.