Roving

Our boys have been at it. The sheep boys that is.

They've been at it growing wool . . . and let me tell you, they did an outstanding job.

The other day was like Christmas around here. The postman delivered a box of impressive alpaca yarn and this steller CVM/Romeldale roving, fresh from the mill.

I've spent the past few days sniffing, squeezing and fondling the fiber. It's a sickness, I know, but what can I say. Any fiber addict worth their weight in knitting needles or drop spindles would have done the same thing.

CVM/Romeldale sheep are a rare breed of sheep that are only found in the United States. Their wool is spongy, lofty and oh-so-soft.

We had a few fleeces processed into this wonderful roving that will beg you to spin it up.

Wool really does beg, you know. I can hear it saying, "I'd love to be a sweater."

If you can hear it too, we've just opened up an Etsy shop and will be posting our fresh-from-the-farm fiber there. Give it a look. We'll be updating on on-line shop frequently and adding much more in the coming days, but we wanted to give you first crack at the roving.

So go visit the site. If you're local and can't live with just an on-line visit, stop by the farm. We'll let you smell, squeeze and fondle the fiber in person!

The fiber raising business is an exercise in hurry up and wait.

We spend the spring waiting for crias to be born.

It can be a long wait, because as we all know, Mother Nature has her own schedule. She doesn't care about our plans. She and she alone will decide when a cria will make its way into this world.

In the fall, we spend our days waiting for our yarn to arrive back from the mill. Now Mother Nature doesn't have a thing to say about this type of waiting. But none-the-less, we wait.

Mills have a busy season and, as you can imagine, late Spring through early Fall has them up to their eyeballs in fiber, spinning everything the animals spent the Winter growing.

Fiber we sent to the mill way back in early June has begun to arrive back at the farm.

Most of the yarn that has come back so far is in its natural color -- greys, black and a chestnut-y brown.

But then we got a surprise. Check out the skein, second from the right.

It's an ever-so-slightly dyed dark blue/deep, deep purple color. The mill called before dyeing it and thought the mix of our dark Suri alpaca and nylon/Merino wool would take dye beautifully, and boy-oh-boy were they every right. This sock yarn is a dream to handle and the color takes on different tones in different light.

This yarn might make a sock knitter out of me yet!

Some of our dyed roving is starting to return as well.

Check out my favorite color combination, one that we call Cherry Cola.

The dark black baby Suri alpaca mixed with a deep red makes this a fabulous combination.

But Cherry Cola is not to be out done.

Sassy Ms. Grape Creamsicle wants to enter the running for most fabulous combination.

She is developing a loyal fan base and starting to rise in the polls. We might have a race here for best-est looking roving. But if that's the case, the Art Batts want in on the action.

As the new products continue to arrive from the mills, we will update our Yarn, Roving and Art Batt page. Check back often. You never know. Your new sweater-in-the-making could be waiting there for you.

Farmer Gal and I went back to school yesterday. It wasn't real school, with books and studying and lunch room drama, it was school for grown ups.

We were at the Paca to Product seminar in beautiful Wooster, Ohio. It was way better than real school because they gave us bagels for breakfast and sandwichs and salads for lunch. We never had that at real school!

Nor did we have vendors at real school. Vendors with glorious roving.

And yarn.

And really cute soaps with hand felted "covers" that act like scrubby wash cloths. Who thinks of this stuff!

And disturbingly large knitting needles with Jolly Green Giant sized yarn. I'm not sure I'm a fan of this. I think I'd have to start lifting weights first to get my arms in shape before I work with those pseudo baseball bats.

Aside from enjoying the shopping, we enjoyed the school portion of the day, too. We learned a lot about marketing, many shearing tips and some ideas for our yarn that we are excited to share with you.

Give us a few weeks to put all our plans in motion. I think you'll like what we've come up with.