Fiber Market Monday

Fiber Market Monday is a new Link Party set up by Dutch Hollow Acres for people to market their fiber arts products. I thought I would join the fun and spread the word!

This week in the shop we have our new and improved 2-yard wrap Lleda Niddy Noddies.

The new design features durable metal-to-metal threaded knobs ensuring a snug fit when assembled, adjusted for use or disassembled for storage or travel. These are great for winding your handspun into a tidy 2-yard skein!

I also wanted to include a reminder that our ArtFire Studio yarn clearance sale is still going on. We are switching yarn bases so all skeins dyed on the old bases are 10% off! That's everything in our Artfire shop!

Llady Llama Fiber Co. Newsletter

Our March Newsletter is out. If you would like to start receiving our Newsletters by email, the sign up form is in the right hand sidebar.  Our newsletter brings you occasional news, updates, event and sale information, product highlights, plus exclusive newsletter member discounts and offers!

Blog Move

This blog is moving to http://lladyllamafiberco.blogspot.com/. Please update your bookmarks and rss feed readers as there will not be any further posts on this blog address. Thank you for your understanding.

Drum Carder & Wool!!

Due to the great generosity of my wonderful customers I was able to use some of my recent earnings to purchase a new piece of equipment for the business.

Yesterday, after sleeping in on my day off of The Day Job to help myself get over a cold, there was a ring of the doorbell and a lovely man left this:

After much dancing around the kitchen and squeeing at Rachel, (who was being a darling and making me oatmeal since I was not feeling well) I opened the box.

Oooooooooooh!!! The Strauch Finest Drum Carder! So illness (and oatmeal...sorry hun) momentarily forgotten I set about playing with my new toy...um I mean...thoroughly testing the new equipment. ::sheepish grin::

Look how shiny!! 

I especially like the pointy bits!

Here are all of the accessories:

So I grabbed some SW BFL I had lying around (literally because this is quite the wool-infested household) and carded my very first batt! TA DA!!

Then I blended in some alpaca:

Awww how cute and pretty!!! ::dances in amusement of her own genius in spite of the machine doing pretty much all of the work::

Naturally I had to see how it spun up. Love, love, love, tweedy yarns! ::drool:: Must make more so I have enough for mittens. :) Of course at this point the adrenaline I had been running on gave out, my cold smacked me in the face like a Mac truck, and I had to go nap for several hours. It was SO worth it!

Today I got 5 lbs. of wool in the mail (plus a little bonus fiber) to dye up and use as base fiber in the up-coming line of Llady Llama Fiber Co. batts (official product name to-be-released). Our cat Orpheus just had to inspect the sheep-scented bag it was shipped in (you should have seen them both playing in the drum carder box yesterday...adorable!)

Llotis Knitting Needle Gauges and Shetland Pi KAL WIP

Llotis Knitting Needle Gauges are now available for sale in my etsy shop. We have natural wood ones and we also have these purple stained ones. 

All of the needle gauges have a protective beeswax and orange oil wood finishing product applied to them. They measure US knitting needle sizes 000, 00, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 1/2, 11, 13, 15 & 16. There is a handy WPI (wrap per inch) tool on her neck for measuring your handspun or other yarn.

In more business news Llady Llama Fiber Co. will be vending at Knox Farm Fiber Festival in East Aurora, NY on September 25th from 10am-5pm. If you are in the area please stop by and see us!

In knitting news I've been participating in WendyKnits' Shetland Pi Shawl KAL. I'm using Llady Llama Fiber Co.'s Llore Sock Yarn that I hand-dyed in my favorite color. Yay for being able to actually use some of my yarn! ::grin::

I'm only on the tail end of clue #2, but life is pretty busy right now so I'm not in any rush. I am very pleased with how it is coming out and as always Wendy's patterns are lovely!

Painted Post Alpacas Open House

 

On August 21st Llady Llama Fiber Co. was a vendor at the 2nd annual Painted Post Alpacas Open House. Above is our booth setup with me knitting in the back there. We had great weather (much better than Sunday, so we were glad to have been able to make it Saturday) and we look forward to attending next year as well.

We debuted a new product, our Llotis Kniting Needle Gauges:

  

These will be hitting our Etsy shop (www.LladyLlamaFiberCo.etsy.com) later this week. 

Here's just one of the farm's adorable suri alpacas:

 

Farm to Table Week 3, Hand Dyed SW Merino Singles

Farm to Table

This week's CSA allotment was huge! Zucchini, broccoli, scallions, beets, chard, lettuce, peas and my absolute favorite fruit- Rainer cherries!


We are really enjoying the chard and beet greens and I thought I'd share my sautéed chard recipe. This also works great with beet greens (or any greens I'm sure).

Sautéed Chard

De-rib generous bunch of chard.

Chob rib into 1" pieces.

Cut chard leaves into 1/2" ribbons.

Heat 1/2 tbsp. butter in sauté pan.

Lightly sauté 2 tbsp. diced onions or scallions.

Add chard ribs & cook about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add chard leaves and another 1/2 tbsp. more butter.

Add dash of sherry & lemon juice.

Sauté until leaves are wilted but still bright in color.

Add a large clove of minced garlic, salt & pepper to taste.

Cook very briefly & remove from heat.

Optional: Add tbsp. or two dijon mustard to sauce.

Adjust the sauce ingredient amounts to your taste. This is just an estimate as I usually eyeball it and taste and I go.

Spinning

I just finished spinning up 4 oz. of superwash merino that I hand painted. I'm making this into a 2-ply and it should turn out to be a heavy fingering weight. I really had to pack my bobbin full to get all the singles on one and it created a bit of a mess when I wound it off into a center pull ball for plying.

In the end I was able to get it untangled and wound just fine. I think I need to look into getting a jumbo flyer and large bobbins though.

Farm to Table Week 3, Kale chips & Skeining

Here's the haul from out 3rd week of Farm to Table, the CSA program Rach and I signed up for. This week proved very plentiful with zucchini, chard, kale, scallions, beet greens, rhubarb, cabbage, peas and cherries. We are really loving all this fresh, local, organic produce! Cherries are a personal favorite of mine and that quart is almost gone already, even though I've been using restraint. If these were Rainier cherries there would have been no hope for them at all.

I've used up all the kale we've been getting making kale chips. I removed the leaf from the rib, tore them into bite-sized pieces and gave them a spin in the salad spinner. They were then tossed with a drizzle of organic extra virgin olive oil, spread on a cookie sheet and sprinkled lightly with garlic salt. Then into a 375F oven for about 7 minutes (the recipe I followed said 15 minutes, but the first batch got a little burned after 10 so I found 7 was a better time for this variety of kale). They are light, crispy, and quite tasty!

I've also been spending a lot of time skeining yarn to dye up for the shop. I thought some of you might be interested in how I skein my yarn. Here's a look at my highly sophisticated skeining setup (note the pure sophistication of the cardboard box on the floor to keep cat hair off the yarn).

Someday I'll have an electric skeiner to make this process a lot faster, but for now this works. I just have to say thank goodness for Netflix instant! Without it my brain would surely turn to mush during the long hours of winding yarn. Here's a close-up of the setup:

To the left you can see all the cones of yarn I still have to skein. The end result of all this mind-numbing work however, is a gorgeous blank canvas just begging to be hand-painted with dye. Totally worth all the effort!

Farm to Table Week 2

This week's installment from our local CSA program: Peas, scallions, asparagus, kale, rhubarb, and strawberries. I'll be busy this week using all this wonderful food!

Strawberry Rhubarb Deliciousness

Here's the strawberry rhubarb pie that I made from some of last week's CSA haul. I forgot the granulated sugar on top of the crust until it was already too late (whoops). It was still delicious and really made it feel like summer around here! We have another pickup today and I'll be sure to post pictures of all our goodies later.


In fiber arts related news I am working on the foot of the second sock for my friend Heather's little girl. They're just a basic kids sock which I gussied up a smidgen with some k3, p1 ribbing. I'll throw up a photo when they're done. I also have some sw bamboo-merino-nylon on my spindle and some sw merino on my wheel that I'll try to photograph too.

Farm to Table Week 1

Today's content has nothing to do with fiber arts, but it does have to do with my life and some of the other things that are really important to me. I've been wanting to make an effort to blog more regularly and I think if I give myself permission to blog about my life in general, instead of trying to only post fiber arts content, it will be a more engaging process for me and hopefully for my readers as well. I don't function in a fiber arts bubble and so readers will be getting a more complete look into my head & life.

Food is something I am very passionate about and I truly believe that a good, wholesome, ethically balanced meal eaten together at the dinner table is what holds people together. Understanding where our food comes from and how it gets to our table, eating consciously in other words, is vital for instilling in us the gratitude which shapes our attitudes towards this planet and everything we share it with.

My girlfriend Rachel and I signed up for a CSA this year at our local organic food store. The program (called Farm to Table) runs through November and has weekly food pickups. The food comes from a variety of local farmers and almost all of it is grown organically (apples are the exception to the rule).

Rach and I eat as much organic, local and whole foods as we can (and as little processed, refined and packaged foods as possible), so we are very excited to participate in the program this year. Today we picked up our first installment of food. Asparagus, kale, strawberries, rhubarb and a quart of Grade A dark maple syrup.

The strawberries and rhubarb will probably become a compote. The syrup will grace our buckwheat and flax pancakes. The asparagus will be steamed and eaten with lemon. The kale might become kale chips, or it might just get steamed too. We can't wait to see what we get next week!

Just to sneak a bit of fiber arts content in at the end, I am currently winding skeins of all of my yarn bases and new handpainted yarns should be up in the shop soon!

Roving, Sprouts, Bread and The Gold

I know it's after the fact, but I thought I'd mention that I did with the gold for The Flying Camel Ravelympics event. I still have to dye it all but I've picked Goddess Knits' Persephone Shawl pattern to knit it into.

This is the roving I'm currently spinning. It's 4 oz. of SW Merino that I dyed:

I've also been embarking on a new culinary adventure: sprouting! I used the hemp bag that is hanging above my sink in the picture to sprout some grains.

Below is the 11 grain mixture that I sprouted in 3 days. I got all my sprouting supplies and seeds from SproutPeople. They are a great company and they have lots of sprouting information on their website and their YouTube videos!!

Today I baked the sprouted grains into some homemade wheat bread.

The bread is delicious but the grains got a little crunchy. I'll have to add them a bit later in the kneading cycle on my bread machine next time.

I also have a mixture of leafy sprouts going right now in my Easy Sprout:

These are the Italian seed mix of clover, garlic and cress. They need another 2-3 days before they are done but they're already quite tasty!

I'd encourage anyone who's interest is piqued by sprouting to give it a try. It's healthy, easy, fun, and interesting. It's very rewarding to grow your own food in a couple of days and it only takes about 1 minute twice a day.

Wool Combs & Ravelympics Progress

Last week I splurged on a little fiber tool reward for myself and my business. Thanks to my very wonderful customers, I was able to afford some Paradise Fibers wool combs and the wool comb pad.

Of course I had to try it out right away! I have 6 oz. of llama fiber that's been waiting to be combed for almost 2 years, so I lashed some on and away I went. The picture below shows my very first handcombed roving! It also shows my makeshift diz and the darning needle I used to pull the fiber through the diz (they are my scale models here).

I'd love to comb all of it up right away but I must restrain myself and focus on the spinning I'm trying to complete for the 2010 Ravelympics. Being a huge Doctor Who fan I am once again on Team TARDIS. My event is the Flying Camel (the spinning event for those not in the know). I have set a goal to spin up the remaining 10 oz. of mystery wool that came with my spinning wheel. So far I have spun 2 bobbins full and I am currently plying those up. I was going to just spin up the singles for the event, but I don't have enough bobbins for that. Here's a plying shot:

Below is a picture of my lazy kate with the singles I am plying and the big 'ol stack of roving I have left to spin. Beast Boy is helping to cheer me on!

Here's a close-up of the singles (with Beast Boy peeking from behind lol):

This is some reward roving I dyed up for myself. It's about 2 oz. of SW BFL that was left over from my base roving for the shop.

I started spinning it up for some laceweight yarn just before I decided to enter the Ravelympics (it was a very last minute decision this year). Unfortunately due to my bobbin shortage I have to wind this off into a center pull ball to free up the bobbin and come back to spinning it later.

I am also knitting up 2 pairs of socks for Heather's two girls. They love to see me spin and knit when I am over at their house and they asked me for socks a couple of months ago. I am on the heel flap of the first sock (I love how fast they are going being children's socks). I am bound and determined to turn one or both of them into fiber arts geeks (Heather knows about my devious plan and has no qualms about it) so they're each getting some nice soft, warm, squishy, sock inspiration!

I'll try to post another Ravelympics update later this week!

New Product Line, Shop Update and Life Update

Apologies for the radio silence and the resulting long update post which follows:

First Things First:

I want to extend a huge public thank you to Lime and Violet from the infamous Limenviolet Podcast for their amazing mention of my shop in their Yarn Porn segment.

I am featured on Episode 97: Ketchup for any who are interested. I am deeply honored and blown away by their praise of my shop and products. When I first conceived of my business I dreamed that some day I would be featured on Limenviolet and I am overwhelmed that it actually happened!

In Shop News:

Introducing the Llady Llama Fiber Co. line of hand-turned drop spindles:

Each spindle is unique and hand crafted with extreme care and attention to detail. Both the shaft and whorl are made of lovely oak. The whorl is notched to securely hold your hand spun yarn over the whorl.

All wooden surfaces are sanded silky smooth and finished with a beeswax and orange oil wood finishing product. The metal hook is hand bent and is glued securely in place. Some spindles also feature a tung oil dark walnut stain.

I currently have only top-whorls listed but I will soon have up some large bottom whorl plying spindles as well. I may also have spindles made out of different woods in the future.

The spindle weight ranges are approximately as follows:

Llina: 10-16 Grams

Lluna: 17-28 Grams

Lleto: 29-40 Grams

Llampetia: 41-58 Grams

I also just updated the shop with some new hand painted roving!

In Personal News:

Life has been absolutely crazy with familial health scares and job/financial weirdness, but we're hanging in there.

On the positive side Rachel and I celebrated our 6 year Anniversary yesterday!! It seems like only a heartbeat ago I met the most wonderful woman in the world!

Rewinding A Bit:

I received an Ashford Traditional Wheel for the holidays from my parents!

It's a previously-loved, double drive, single treadle and I absolutely adore it!! I've been busy spinning up the 14 oz (!!!) of roving that came with it and I'm planning on dyeing it a lovely purple when I'm done and knitting it into a huge shawl (and will probably have lots of yarn left over).

I've finished plying the first batch of singles and already I have 4 oz. at 613 yards with still about 10 oz. left to spin.

While my Mom was cruising Ebay looking a spinning wheels she fell in love with an antique Dutch wheel. She ended up purchasing it and after some resistance she gave into my insistence that she learn to spin so that the wheel would be more than decorative. I started her off on one of the new spindles and then showed her wheel spinning on my wheel while I was home for 2 days over the holidays. She has learned very quickly and she can now use her wheel, has made her first yarn, and is hooked on spinning! Haha I've been telling her I'd make her into a spinner! I am very proud of her!