More roving arrived!!!

Today I received some more roving in the mail. Yay!! I recevied my pound of natural (white) rambouilett & 2ozs of dark chocolate rambouilett (which I am ready to finish up my skein)plus some other natural rambouilett roving samples from RowanTree Woolery and 8ozs of merino from eBay.

Yes I know that all of my roving are in the natural colors. I guess you could say that I am a naturalist when it comes to purchasing my roving. I like to make my own colorways and don't get me wrong purchasing already dyed roving would most definately make things easier but I like to add my own artistic energies to my yarn. So I will continure to buy my roving in the natural colors... browns, naturals (white) and greys.

I am in fiber heaven. LOL Now all I need to arrive is my romney and washfast acid dyes and I will be all set for a little while anyway. ;o) I am a part of a spinning list where they were saying how large their fiber stashes were and there were some people with stashes upwards of 25+ pounds of fiber. I hope to one day have mine that large. LOL Right now I am happy with my psuedo mini stash of 3lbs 9ozs not including the roving that I got in my needle felting kit. I know I will gain more in my stash over time. LOL

Supplier Review: The Fiber Denn

Okay I have spun up some of the falkland roving that I got from The Fiber Denn on the top whorl drop spindle that I also purchased from them. I am really happy with the customer service that I received from them. I always seem to ask a lot of questions before placing orders because I am just anal like that and I want to make sure that I get answers so that I can make an informed decision. She was most helpful and would email me within hours of me sending my questions. I placed an order or Wednesday with her and received my order on Saturday. Talk about fast shipping and everything was packaged soo securely so I am happy about that. I will definately purchase from The Fiber Denn again. Be sure to stop by and check her out!

Lots of Fiber, new drop spindle and more....

Well today was a great postal day!!!

Here is my top whorl drop spindle, 4ozs falkland fiber and hand dyed merino fiber sample. I got this wonderful set from The Fiber Denn.

Here is the 14ozs of correidale cross that I got from Winderwood Farm and it's ultra buttery soft.

Lastly here are pics of the wool fiber that I got with my needle felting kit.



The first picutre is of the Corriedale fiber(white, black, bright blue, pink, yellow, and red). The second picture is the Merino (bean green, burgandy, lavender, and orange) which I am soo happy that I ordered some natural as I like how this feels soo soft and last but certainly not least is the Merino/ Silk (light blue, a light orange, turquoise, and green) which I want to say is super soft and luxurious. I am going to have to get some more to spin up.

Now all that's left to come is the ramboilett, merino and romney which I am pretty sure that they will all arrive with Monday's mail. Yay!!!

Plus I am also waiting for my Washfast Acid dyes to arrive. I ordered some of these today so I will be set to get dyeing once the dyes get here. Yay!!! Stay tuned...

Acid dyes, spinning wheels and my domestic top arrived!!!

Well I want to dye all this roving that I have coming. Yes I know the econocial way of dyeing my roving as I have used Kool-Aid dyes in the past for my store bought wool yarns but I would really like to try my hand at some acid dyes for my handspun yarn. LOL So I am looking for acid dyes and there are soo many to choose from. Jacquard, Lanaset, Gaywools, Cushings, Washfast, etc... I am trying to see which one si should try or should I try them all and see which I like? i have fiber reactive dyes but that seem slike a more involved process than I want to do. LOL I know there is always the alternative that I can use food coloring but will that come out brighter than Kool-Aid?? So I am on the hunt for either the acid dyes and/or food coloring. I did some WashFast Acid Dyes on eBay that I am interested in getting. I just am waiting to hear back from the seller. I hope they answer like today. LOL

Since I am in the dyeing mood I was looking on Amazon and am interested in getting the "Hands On Dyeing" book because I heard that it really helps woth color theory and all that good stuff.

And the "Spinning Designer Yarns" book seems to be calling my name also. LOL With the two them together I get free shipping, so I am really thinking about getting them to take advantage of the free shipping for the offer expires on the 16 of Dec but I want to make sure that there isn't any other book that I want before I place my order. LOL

So I am thinking about one day getting a spinning wheel. I was looking into getting the
Babe Electic Spinner or the Babe Production Spinning Wheel.
I have heard rave reviews about these awesome PVC spinning wheels. I know they aren't the conventional ones but they are cost effective and the end product is just as awesome as the wooden spinning wheels. I really excited after I heard some really awesome reviews about it. I am thinking about hinting my dh that I would rather have that than my mp3 player and embroidery machine. I said I was thinking about it. LOL I am not sure that I would want to give those things up as I have being those for a long time as well. So I don't know I guess I am between a rock and a hard place right now. ;o)


Now onto my most exciting news of all. I got the first of my many packages in the mail today. I received my 6ozs of dometic top and it is super fluffy soft. LOL I know the mailperson was probably wondering what it was. I am hoping to dive into this wonderful top later on this evening. I can't right now because my 3 little ones are way too wired up for me to try and spin anything. LOL I will give a few review on the supplier and the wool once I acutally get into the wool. So stay tuned for the reviews of this domestic wool...

Supplier Reviews plus....

I thought since I am going to talk about the fibers I receive I might as well talk about who I receive them from and all that good stuff. Just because their fiber is good doesn't mean that the customer service is good, kwim? So I will also give my take on who purchase my goodies from to help others make decisions on whether they would like to purchase from them also.

I know I said that I was done shopping but I did wind up buying a top whorl drop spindle. I have only used a bottom whorl so this will be something new for me. I have heard different preferences. So I want to test it out myself and see which way I like to spin more. ;0)

Rambouilett Wool plus....

Here is the rambouilett wool from RowanTree Woolery that I spun. It's shown in dark grey and dark chocolate. I still need to finish up the dark chocolate and start on the white. I didn't want to start on the white until I got the new order in. Hmmm now that I think about it maybe I will make a tweed with the white and chocolate brown. Darn that means that I will have to probably place another order. LOL Oh the other wool is fromt eh mystery batt that my mom gave me.



Plus I did some more shopping and just placed an order for a needle felting kit which includes:

• felting needles: 1 - 36, 2 - 38s & 1 - 40 gauge


• corriedale: 1/2 ounce each of black & white plus 1/4 ounce each of bright blue, pink, yellow, and red


• merino wool: 1/4 ounce each of lima bean green, burgandy, lavender, and orange merino wool


• 1 ounce of merino silk blend fiber plus 1/4 ounce each of light blue, a light orange, turquoise, and green

Plus another 8ozs of natural Merino wool.

Talk about building my stash quickly? LOL I will be able to do LOTS of needle felting plus I can use some for spinning as well. So that is exciting. I hope to have my packages rolling in beinning on Thursday. This should be a lovely fluffy week. Yay!!!

AlsoI am waiting to hear back from Mielke's Farms/Fiber Arts, LLC on a book in Japanese called Felting. It looks really interesting and I would really like to try it out.

I think I am official done shopping for now. I am kinda on the fence about some Merino wool that I saw at a really good price but I can't decide if I want to get that or some cormo. I am like a kid in the candy store because there are sooo many choices and I wat to do them ALL but I know my dh is going to flip when all the roving and goodies start showing up. I will have to somehow hide them to make sure that he doesn't see them until AFTER Xmas. ;o) Just pull out a few things at a time so he doesn't catch on to all of my fiber spending. I think I have 3lbs 9oz of various rovings coming. That's not as much as I thought. He still is going to be livid though. I think I may go for an even 4lbs or 3.5lbs. LOL I think the 9oz just throws off everything. LOL No I better be good. ;0)

My fiber journal

One of the spinning folks that I purchased some goodies from told me that I should keep a fiber journal. So I guess I will be doing that with this blog to chronical my adventure with the different fibers be it spinning, dyeing, crocheting and/ or needlefelting.

So far I have worked with:

Mystery Batt (acquired from my mother) ~ It spun up nicely. She gave me about 6 ozs to work my nerve and techniques up. Thanks!

Rambouilett (acquired from RowanTree Woolery) ~ This spun up awesomely. I really like RowanTree Woolery's fiber plus their customer service can't be beat. I will definately continue to purchase fiber from them.

• Dark chocolate: I really like how that spun up that I had to get 3ozs more to make a full worsted weight skein. LOL


• White: This is soo awesome too that I got 1lb more to not only make another full skein but to make a few full skiens and hand dye them too. ;o)

Also on the way to me now, I have in natural/ white :
Domestic Top 6ozs
Corrediale Cross 14ozs
NZ Romney 2ozs
Falkland 4ozs

So let's just say that I will be in fiber heaven for the next couple of weeks. LOL I have heard that Romeny is rough which if I find that to be true I will just use that to learn needle felting. Yep I have been wanting to try my hand at felting especially after seeing a woman demonstrating it at the L.A. County Fair where my mom was demonstrating bobbin lace. So I will be trying that too. Oh the joys of being a fiber artist. ;o) You can never get enough. LOL

Confessions of a fiber addict....

Well it's official. I am a fiber addict... fiber-holic. No I am not talking about the fiber that you take/ eat to keep you regular but wool. LOL I just placed another order for more wool fiber this afternoon and I will probably be placing another one or tow before this day is over.

How did this happen you ask? Well my mom introduced me to knitting when I was 15 and I really didn't care for it at the time. SO she never pushed the subject. Then when I turned 19 she introduced me to spinning and weaving but being the know-it-all 19 year old I totally didn't even care. Then at 21 I saw some hand crochet headscarves and I wanted to make me some. So I taught myself to crochet and that was the beginning to the end. LOL I crochet all the time and I have evolved to point where I create my own patterns and do free form. So I guess spinning my own yarn was the next step in my evolution. Then in 2004 while attending a Lace Day (where a lot of people go to buy bobbin lace goodies, attend workshops and show off their wares), we had to share the event space with the Southern California Handweavers Guild during their Annual Weaving and Spinning Festival. I was reminded of my mom's spinning when I walked into their part of the vent and saw some people spinning on dropspindles. That immediately caught my eye until I got nauseated (I was 3 mos pregnant at the time) but I had the lady show me how to do it. I didn't want my mom to know that I was interested since she tried to show me so many years previous. Plus at this point she wasn't able to hold a spindle very well due to her hands couldn't grasp onto the fibers like she used too. She uses her spinning wheel (which she has two Ashford Traveller and Ashford Kiwi) to make her yarn.

This year after I gave birth to my 3 child I decided that I will go ahead and try my hand at this drop spindle thing and the rest is herstory. So now I will use this blog a journal of sorts for my fiber addiction. ;0)