Dye Days

  There are few things more splendid to see mounded up on the table then pounds and pounds of fiber, waiting to be dyed, carded and spun! I am changing suppliers as I was not happy with my last batch of fiber. So imagine my delight with all my new fiber when i discovered how soft and exquisitely silky it was. Such drape and buttery smooth fluff. I wanted to keep every last bit  for myself, but of course that is not possible and my shop was getting empty, so I set to work dyeing it up.

 Some of my dye stock was low, particularly the yellow. So I ordered a few colors and then set to work doing as much dyeing as I could without completely exhausting my yellow stock. BFL/Silk is an amazing combo to dye up, the colors are so unique and there is such depth to the colorway. 

 The above fiber is my new colorway ARCHIPELAGO is in my 85%/15% BFL & Silk blend and it is simply stunning. The above colorway sold right away so a few days later I dyed another to spin into yarn for my shop.  I also did the same colorway in Kid Mohair. It comes out a little different on mohair then on the wool, the colors are deeper and there is less of the natural color showing through, but it is still amazing.

All in all I am very happy with my new fibers and I am excited to be able to share some new colorways and blends with you all.  You can find all the loveliness here at Turquoise Owl Fibers.
For those of you who don't spin, but would love to knit or crochet with these fantastic fibers, there will soon be some of my colorways available as handspun yarn  in my shop! Stay tuned for updates.

Treasury Time :: Plum

Plum Floral Crown. Brid... rosesandlemons $38	Peacock Corsage or Hat ... HappilyFeather... $29.95	Bridesmaid Bouquet with... VVDesignsShop $55	Sola Shell flowers -- ... SuperiorCraftS... $24.95
ADELAIDE - Plum Purple ... TheHeadbandSho... $30	Plum, Grey & Purples - ... VellaWovens $60	Marbled Puni Collection... TurquoiseOwlFi... $20	Italian Plums and Anise lemonbird $12
Perfect Plum Kit - Set ... WillowTreeMine... $16.95	French Lace Plum Embroi... ShadesofGloryF... $28.99	Vintage Style Purple Pl... berratosun $80	Masham Plum Ombre Batts... TheSheepsCompa... $20
Plum Purple Lily Earrin... VestasStudio $12	HandSpun Bamboo Yarn Pl... kittygrrlz $32	Velvet Flowers Yoyo Mil... MaryNotMartha $6.25	Purple / plum Romantic ... cuteNtrendy $5.5

My Plum Punis seem to be quite popular for Treasuries. I do wish someone would decide to buy them and spin them up! But it is nice to see that they are loved in other ways. I'm sharing the latest Plum Collection Treasury. Feel free to stop by and visit the Treasury on Etsy. If Plum is your color, then there is sure to be something you will like!

Shop Update

There is a shop update as of today! Feel free to stop by and check out the goodies!
I would have listed more today but it was one of those days where little errands kept popping up and things needed to be done. Not to mention it was raining. And thundering. In fact there was lighting in the mix too so let's just say we were having a regular Thunderstorm! And when it storms I just want to curl up all cozy inside and enjoy the weather. A book, a snack,  a cuppa= Perfect. I didn't do much curling up though. There was a lot of tromping about through puddles and mud, in and out and all about. I felt quite damp by the time I arrived back at the house.
But once I was home and cozy, and had my coffee & an episode to get in my Doctor Who fix for the day, I buckled back down to shop related projects like batts and photo shoots.

So stay tuned, there are more batts and roving coming soon!

January Fiber Updates

 Hello my friends! It is good to be back here in blogland with you. I will admit I have been spending more time on Instagram then on my blog. Probably because the camera on my phone is nicer then my point-and-shoot. And it is fairly instant, far less work then editing photos and doing up a blog post. But I am determined to be a little more regular on here, as time allows, and not neglect my poor blog and my wonderful followers. 
 First up are shop updates. 
I am keeping fairly busy with my shop. Things slowed down around Christmas but are picking back up within the last week. Spindle sales are on the rise and that is a blessing. I get so excited every time I sell a spindle. Actually I still get so excited every time I have any sort of sale. Each one is a blessing and an answer to prayer.
Newest in my shop right now are my Marbled Puni Collections! 
I am working on carefully carding up unique fiber blends on my hand cards and selling them in small amounts. These are similar to batts, but are already split up into sections as you can spin straight from a puni. They will make beautiful heathered yarns and depending on the content, will be lightly textured.
If you haven't seen them yet please do stop by and check them out!
** Concerning Punis, I will be doing a special post about what makes a puni, and the difference between punis and rolags. Stay tuned!

 In my own personal non-business-related Fibery dealings, this is a little of what I have been working on. Bright and early New Year's day, (yes, I mean about 12:30am!) I dumped out my container of woolly odds and ends left over from other carding projects. I wanted to see if I could make some order out of the chaos and maybe card them into rolags/punis. Yes, I know I could use them for felting or stuffing, but they seemed to pretty to use for anything other then spinning. I lashed them neatly onto my hand cards as shown above, then away I carded.

 As you can see they turned out beautifully! They have some short,, blobby spots. And I had to deal with a few more noily sections then I usually do, but overall I loved them. Since I was using scraps they ended up being a mixture of merino wool, angora, silk, bamboo, llama, and sari silk threads. 
 This was my project basket on New Year's Day. Although I ended up just working on my scrappy punis and never did get to spin on my Christmas yarn. I carded, spun, and plied all of my scraps on January 1st, in between the general chatter, food, games and time spent with my wonderful family. 

 Here is the resulting yarn, my first handspun of the year 2013!I am not sure on the WPI of the yardage, I will have to measure it again.

 As for my Happy Christmas yarn, it spun up fairly quickly. I dithered back and forth on how I should ply it. Two ply to blend the colors more? Navajo ply for longer color repeats? Normally I don't have trouble deciding what to do with my plying but I wanted this to be perfect so it sat as a single for a little while. Two different people advised that I do two-ply. So that is what i ended up going with.

And I absolutely LOVE the way the colors ended up! It is a very unique yarn, and some of the colors are not "me" at all. But as a whole I love it and I am already designing a shawl pattern with it. This was only 180 yards of fingering weight yarn. I have already knit almost all of it and I am plying the second skein for it. Depending on how the shawl turns out I may turn it into a pdf for sale on Ravelry. I'll be sharing pictures with you soon!
What about you? What projects have been keeping you busy in your spare time thus far in the New Year? I would love to hear all about them!

Sale in the Shop this weekend!

Starting right this very minute, I am running a store-wide 10% off "Black Friday through Cyber Monday" sale! I have no idea how this idea will float, or if I'll ever do it again, but I figured it was worth the shot. So if you have a hankering to stock up on roving, spindles, or yarn, now is the time and place to do it! Be it gift giving, gift making, or just splurging on yourself, feel free to come on over and browse to your heart's content!
Visit my shop for more information and details.

Inside Out:: Two

 Inside:: Saturday afternoon at the bookstore with my brother, a stack of reading material, a cup of chai tea, and a tasty dessert! It was a lovely treat. A few hours in the bookstore is such an enjoyable way to spend part of an afternoon. 

Outside:: My fiber, which was not due to arrive for another two to three weeks, showed up on my doorstep this past Wednesday! And so I happily carved out a slot of time in my schedule to do some dyeing. It was especially important to me to have a dye session or two as this weekend was extremely windy and very warm. High 60's, low 70's to be precise. Perfect weather for drying fiber on the line!
I dyed fiber late on Saturday, and I hung 8 ounces outside to dry over night. But I was unsure if it would rain so I decided to keep the rest inside to hang out in the morning. Well, the wind picked up during the night and when I woke up around 5am and heard it I resigned myself to my 8 ounces being lost or in a sad snarl. I had forgotten to put the clothes pins on. 
But, lo and behold, I looked out when the sun came up and the fiber was still on the line with only one tail blowing loose in the wind. I was so very thankful! So Sunday the rest of my fiber blew in the wind, fluffed up beautifully, and is now waiting in a box for me to braid it. I did braid a little last night, Lord willing I can finish it up tonight and then list some tomorrow!
I was extremely happy with the way the colors came out. I dyed some of my regular colorways, plus also created a few new ones. I'm looking forward to sharing them!

My First Handspun Yarn

Hurrah! My first skein of hand spun yarn! Granted it is not that even in consistency, and I have no clue how many yards are here, but it is my own. And I am very happy with it. Sorry the picture is blurry, between the cream yarn & the camera I had a difficult time getting a clear, but not overly brilliant, picture. Last night I finished spinning it up. Then I plunged it in hot water for a moment, then in cold water to shock the fibers. I whacked it a few times and hung it in the pantry to dry overnight. I really have no idea what I am doing, I am just following what cousin Debi did. I really need to do some research on spinning, and what to do with the spun yarn etc. I also have no idea how to ply. I feel like there is so much to learn! But one thing at a time.

Now I'm off to spin up some more yarn. Unfortunately I only have a tiny bit more of this roving left. I need to order some soon. I am dying to try spinning in color......it seems like it would be so much fun. Hmm....maybe I will go browse Etsy for roving first.

Etsy Store Coming Soon!

One of my long time dreams is soon to be realized. I am going to finally open my own Etsy store! Currently I am in the process of getting all my ducks in a row for that, as well as making up the items I will be selling. Naturally it will be knitting related! I hope to some day branch out further, but, for now, will be starting fairly small. Or so that is the plan, but who know where the Lord may take it! I am excited about it. I have long wanted to sell some of the things I make.
There is a lot for me to learn about the whole process, I feel like I am making slow progress. But, Lord willing it will all come together soon.
Anyways, that is my most recent news.
I am at my Grandparents, where I just realized, I can still post! My blog will just be devoid of pictures until the weekend. So you will have to bear with my words, minus the pics!