My event season starts on Saturday, September 9th at Pond Springs: General Joe Wheeler Home for a weaving/spinning demo. Then, on October 7th, I’ll be vending at the Rocket City Highland Games & Scottish Festival in New Market, Alabama. On November 4th, I’ll finish up with the Hartselle Holiday Market (Hartselle, Alabama). I’ve been busy weaving tartans, table runners, and washing fleece for handspun yarns & carded fiber batts since June…and I finally feel like I’m making some progress. Check my Instagram page for videos and more photos.

Almost all of my tartan scarves are woven with Peruvian highland wool (Corriedale/Merino cross), but there are a few that will be woven using a merino/silk/cashmere blend. Tartans woven so far include Wallace (hunting & modern), Barclay, Middleton, Robertson, & Gordon.

Since the Southern U.S. is experiencing heat advisories, I’m taking the opportunity to wash fleeces since the drying time is minimal. I’ve washed around 10 pounds in the last two months, but I’m hoping to up my game over the coming weeks. Fleeces include Icelandic, Cotswold, Shropshire, Shetland, & Gulf Coast Native. I’ve also been sampling these fleeces along the way. Some of the excess fiber is now available in my fiber shop, Mythos Yarns & Fibers.

Other recently knitted and woven items: Soundtrack sweater (finally finished; pattern by Marie Greene) using Organic Merino yarn, a handwoven table runner using Zwartbles & Hill Radnor wools, and a handwoven scarf using 1764 Shepherdess hand-dyed Corriedale wool (handspun yarn).

As hard as I tried to resist, I ended up going on a fleece-buying rampage in late December and continued into the new year. I told myself that I would shop my fiber stash (and, in my defense, I have done that too), but there were so many new breeds I wanted to try. So, here I am, 20 raw fleeces later–and I’m still ordering more.

I’ve sampled 3 of the Swedish fleeces that I bought in late December (imported from Sweden): Helsinge, Swedish Finull, Rya, Värmland, & Gestrike.

The next raw fleece I bought was a Cotswold fleece from Georgia–another SE2SE breed that I hadn’t worked with–from a sheep named “Rose”.

Cactus Hill Farm had a great sale in January, so I snagged a Wensleydale-X fleece from them. I have washed, carded, and spun a small sample–which turned out amazing.

I found a Scottish Blackface-cross raw fleece on Etsy that I couldn’t pass up. There were only 2# left, so that’s what I ended up with. While it’s fun to spin, it was problematic to ply–so I ended up keeping it as a single-ply yarn.

I also bought some commercially-processed fiber from Hearthside Fibers–all breeds that I hadn’t worked with before: Hebridean, Texel, Bergschaf, Exmoor Horn, Zwartbles, Herdwick, Dehaired Yak, and Lonk. I’ve spun several 100g braids so far, but haven’t gotten through all of them yet.

After ordering a white Miniature Cheviot fleece “Dahl” from Heartsong Hollow Farm (Ottawa, KS), I ended up ordering a black fleece “Snicket” from her a week or so later. I’ve knitted samples from both of those fleeces.

I found Kind Fibers Sheep Sanctuary (Tennessee) on Etsy, so I ordered partial fleeces from 4 of her sheep: “Loral” (Romney/Jacob), “Lilac” (Romney/Jacob), “Andromeda” (Merino/Romney), and “Peppermint Patty” (Romney). I’ve sampled three so far–and knitted a sample from Lilac’s fleece sample.

---

I also knitted a beanie from the Manx Laoghtan fiber I bought from Hearthside Fibers and spun a few years ago. That was my first knitted project of 2023.

---

I have an American Tunis raw fleece that arrived from Oregon (Mystic Rose Reds) this week, but I haven’t started any processing on it yet. I’m also ordering a California Red fleece from her as well, but it hasn’t shipped yet.

In late December, I ordered some British raw fleece samples (100g each) from Marie Redding Arts on Etsy. I knew from reading reviews that it would be a long wait time (mail strikes, etc.), but apparently, my package got lost in the mail, so Marie mailed another package and I received it this week –minus about 400g of another fleece that I ordered from her (which is on the way, hopefully). Breeds include: Tyrolean Rock Sheep, Soay, Lonk, Lleyn, Boreray, Hebridean, Castlemilk Moorit, Swaledale, and Shetland.

All-in-all, not a bad start to 2023. I’ve definitely been spinning a lot more than 2022, but I suppose that goes without saying since I was ill most of the year.

Read full post on my Substack site: Loom & Spindle

Read full post on my Substack site: Loom & Spindle

A week or so before my surgery at the end of July, my GCN-cross ewe Mocha died suddenly. This left us with Tilley and Mocha’s lamb, Sean (now a wether), so I decided that we needed another sheep to round out the backyard flock.

My friend and nearby GCN sheep farmer had several wether lambs that she needed to get rid of, so I bought the smallest one she had and we brought home Timmy–the smaller of a set of ram twins.

Timmie is pure Gulf Coast Native wether–his parents are from a flock who were originally in Mississippi–and he is super sweet.

He and Sean were born within a week of each other, but he’s a good bit smaller than Sean (probably because Timmy is a twin and Sean was a singleton).

Timmy loves animal crackers, so now all three of the sheep get them as treats on a regular basis.

For the last several weeks, I’ve been working on a raw fleece project for a local sheep farmer who raises Babydoll Southdown sheep. She needed three beanies for Christmas gifts, so I got to work as soon as I got the fleece from her. I’ve worked with her sheep fleeces before, so I was pretty familiar with the wool breed. It’s not my favorite breed of sheep wool to work with, but I was willing to knit beanies since they don’t take a long time.

The main issue with the fleece was the short staple length (about 1.5″ after scouring) and the amount of very small VM in the wool. In the end, I was able to produce a decent 2-ply yarn though.

End products: two adult beanies & one baby beanie using two-ply, worsted/aran weight yarn. One of the adult beanies was a bit smaller than the other (length-wise), but it still fits an adult head easily. I used a different pattern for the smaller one, so that was the reason for the difference between the two adult beanies.

All three beanies together weigh 4.25 ounces, so I probably used about 10-12 ounces of raw fiber for the yarn; less than 300 yds of 2-ply yarn.

I got back on my wheel a few days ago, trying to get my mojo back after surgery. Now that I can physically spin and do other fiber-related activities again, I’m having trouble deciding what to do. I’ve had a bit of brain fog since I came home–which probably explains some of the indecisiveness. I finally decided to grab some fiber and start spinning. I wish I could say that this instantly brought back my fiber mojo, but I guess it’s a start.

I’ve suffered burnout before–after 6 years of full time fiber arts–but this feels different. It’s not that I don’t want to do something with my fiber and yarn. It’s almost like I can’t concentrate when I get started on something. I’ll cast-on yarn for a beanie and then after a few rows, I’m already sick of the project. I’m sure this will eventually pass and I’ll be back at it full steam in a few weeks. I’m trying to be patient with myself for now since I haven’t even reached the 6 week post-surgery mark yet. A little spinning is better than no spinning, so that will have to be enough for now.