Goats!

I have a few different things that I've been meaning to post about, but the only thing I can think about right now is: goats! Our three milk goat ladies arrived here this past sunday, and this week has been full of as many visits to the barn as we can fit in. We even contemplated sleeping in the barn (we're still thinking about it!). They're all registered purebred nigerian dwarf goats with fancy papers. Oh, and they're all under knee high - I think the average height at the withers for a nigerian dwarf goat is about 20". Get a ruler. It's little.



Let me introduce them:



This is Cameo. She's the daintiest of our goats and looks a lot like a fawn with her coloring and body structure - but she's also the most fearless and aggressive! She's our current herd queen.



This is Tarot. She's a big scaredy-cat but is coming around quickly. Tarot and Cameo are about the same age and I have a feeling they grew up together, because they stick together a lot.



And this is the lovely miss Cowalily. She's my goat (Lucius picked out the other two). She's a year older than the other two and so a bit bigger. I think she's just gorgeous.



We're going to take our does to visit a buck this fall and be bred, so next spring we will have tiny baby goats and milk. And my first pygoras will be arriving in about a month or less, so we will have a nice little herd soon! Next we need to think of a farm name so we can get started building a website and getting business cards and such in preparation for selling at farmers markets. I think we should just go with Folktale Farm, but L hasn't been very receptive to that so far.

I'll be back to talking about fibery things soon, I promise! I updated my etsy shop on thursday and it's already empty again - but I'm working on another big update in a week or two.

home sweet home

Hello! I've sort disappeared from the face of the internet for a few months there - did you miss me?

There have been some big changes going on in the little world of folktale, mainly: we bought a house!





A house...and 4.5 acres!



And the past few months have been a blur of moving and adjusting. We bought this house from the Thornes, who are amazing. We didn't know this when we first found the house, but they're involved with the maryland sheep and wool fest and have a booth there selling wool, yarn, and seedlings (I'm pretty sure we even bought stuff from them in the past).

I love this house. It was built around 1950, and it reminds me of my grandparents house a bit (which was probably built around the same time). I'll have more pictures of the inside (including my small craft/fiber room) when it's a little more organized and set up, but here's part of the kitchen:



I have a small veggie patch going in the garden, but about 99% of the garden is giant weeds and wheat right now. The garden is huge. Huge!! Since we don't have a tractor, my plan is to build a ton of raised beds and then have some fruit trees and berries and herbs in the back. I'm really excited to be able to grow things, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with sustainable organic gardening. I did a bit of companion planting with my vegetables - carrots and calendula in with the tomatoes, and a "three sisters" patch with corn, squash, and beans planted together.

We also have chickens! They're pretty spoiled. I still can't get over their funny little dinosaur noises and their silly chicken mannerisms - they manage to make me giggle almost every time I see them.



And the best part: I'm going to have a small fiber flock. My first pygora goats will be arriving this fall, and we'll have a few miniature milk goats as soon as we finish fixing up the barn. I haven't decided whether or not I want to get sheep - I'm going to think it over and decide next spring after we've been living with the goats for a while.

I'm about ready to re-open my etsy shop. I finally made it through nearly all of my custom orders, and I have a nice little stash of handspun yarn stockpiled for the shop. I'm hoping to update sometime in the next few days - I spent this morning taking pictures of yarn on my window seat.



I kind of forgot about this until recently, but when I was about 12-14 years old I went on a field trip with my school to a place where you take a series of tests and then they give you an extensive list of ideal careers for you. My top careers all turned out to be things like "llama farmer", and the 12-year-old me found this hilarious. But man, those must be some crazy accurate tests, right? And I guess it's good to know that I'm suited to raising fiber animals ahead of time, haha.

Homespun Yarn Party tomorrow!

I'll be vending at the Homespun Yarn Party in Savage, MD tomorrow - this is my second year selling there, and last year was awesome so I'm even more excited for this year. Lots and lots of local fiber people will be there, plus my favorite soap maker. HYP is located in the historic Savage Mill, which used to be a fiber mill but is now full of shops & restaurants.

I will be debuting some naturally plant-dyed combed top for sale tomorrow. I have naturally dyed yarn, too, a bulky wool/mohair blend. I'm so very happy with how it turned out:



And I am most especially happy with the greens. Green is my favorite color, and I have never before managed to so successfully dye such pretty shades of green with natural dyes.



In fact, I'm keeping this one (there are multiple chains of this colorway + a few others). And I'm kind of hoping the rest don't sell...



Another thing I'm happy about are my local fiber corespun yarns, spun from local kid mohair, local merino, and organic local blue faced leicester/border leicester wool, all processed by me from raw fleeces.



















I have one really pretty tailspun skein, organic local bfl/border leicester from a sheep named Hadley.





Aaand, lots of other novelty yarns. Leafy yarns, several skeins of the cherry blossom yarn from my last post, patchwork yarns, a bunch of yarnbow self-striping skeins, and one yarn that incorporates plush stars hand dyed & handsewn by me from a recycled wool/angora blend sweater.







My only problem will be trying to fit everything on the table!

Fresh start

I love the beginning of the new year. It's when I get a fresh start and get to re-think and re-organize and plot new things. I pick out what I need to work on to improve my business and my personal life. It's also right before spring and shearing season! I'm currently trying to decide what to focus on with my fleece-buying from local farms. I got some lovely samples of this years fleeces from one of my favorite farms:



My only problem right now is narrowing down my choices, because I want it all! I'll be talking more about the local farms I get my wool from later this spring, after I start making my fleece-buying trips.

I'm planning out lots of new yarns for upcoming shows & my etsy shop, mostly spring-inspired. Here is one of my favorites, Cherry Blossom:







I've had the idea for this yarn in my head for over a year now, and I'm really excited that it turned out so well. It's spun from a blend of natural chocolate brown merino wool locks from local sheep that are kept as pets, plus a bit of local natural brown rambouillet/border leicester locks, local natural charcoal kid mohair locks, local natural pale caramel kid mohair locks, and a bit of natural off-white loose hemp fiber. The cherry blossoms are hand-felted from merino x wool, recycled tussah silk, and hemp gauze, then hand dyed and embroidered by me. I have a lot of this gorgeous chocolate merino, so I'm spinning up quite a few of these skeins.

While my thoughts are turning to spring, its really very wintry here. We were hit with 30 inches and then another 10-20 within a few days, and everyone has been trapped inside on and off all week.



(Picture taken by L) That's okay, I don't mind being stuck inside - I know once spring actually gets here, I'll have a harder time focusing on getting work done, so right now I'm trying to be productive. By the time spring finally rolls around, I plan on having a nice little stockpile of yarn!

Yarn sale + preview

I'm having a sale in my etsy shop: 15% off plus free shipping (to the US + Canada) for the rest of December. And I have about 10+ yarns to list this week, so there should be more to choose from soon! Including the first half of my luxury patchwork yarn mini collection:



(there's only five yarns, despite all the pictures) which will be listed on etsy all together, probably tomorrow afternoon/evening. Phew! Finally! Those yarns were so much work (but worth it) - it took me two entire months to dye, prep, and spin all the ingredients.

Happy winter, everyone! I can't wait until all the gift-making and house-cleaning and custom-order-spinning is done and I can enjoy all the cold crisp air and snuggly woolies and homemade treats and family time!

Customer Appreciation: Patchwork Mittens!

It's been ages since my first (and last) post showing a few items knit with my patchwork yarns. This post is long overdue! I have quite a few finished objects made by customers to share, and I decided to start with a mitten-themed post because mittens seem to be by far the most popular thing to knit with my patchwork yarns. I think it all started with knitting school dropout's mittens:



Which you can find here and here on ravelry. Ever since I first saw the pictures of these, people have been requesting custom yarns from me specifically to knit mittens, and many more patchwork mitten pictures have popped up. Here are some of my favorites:



folktale mitts, made by doodles in string



super duper handspun mittens, made by knitting and dogs



copy cat mittens, made by mahimahi4



panama jack handspun mittens, made by sewdotty



and lastly, esmerine fingerless gauntlets, also by sewdotty. I really love the detail pictures of these on the ravelry project page - this particular skein had puffy blips of fuzzy white angora or mohair.

If you've made something with my patchwork yarn (or any of my yarns) and have pictures, I'd love to see them! I can't describe the feeling I get when I see things made with my yarn - sort of a mix of delight and awe and a happy thrill. I have enough pictures for a few more customer appreciation posts, so there will be more to come. Thank you to everyone for allowing me to use your photos!

P.S. If you want some patchwork yarn of your own, now would be a good time to request whatever colorway you'd like, since I'm dyeing my way through the rest of my merino x wool! I have a nice pile of patchwork yarns ready to list in the next few days, plus I'm working on finishing some 'limited edition' one-of-a-kind patchwork colorways that incorporate lots of luxe fibers like local angora bunny fluff, local kid mohair, local naturally colored wools hand-processed by me, whole sections of firestar sparkle, recycled banana silk threads, and more.

See you this saturday!

Here's my last little preview of my wares for Crafty Bastards! The show is this saturday, October 3rd, 10am-5pm, at the Marie Reed Learning Center at 18th & Wyoming in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. I'll be in booth #2 along with Molly Miller by Appointment.

Sheepy Sachets - these are hand sewn and stuffed with organic herbs blended by me, either lavender & rosemary or peppermint & eucalyptus.



A small army of Yarnbow skeins...I'll have quite a few of these, all from the same dyelot. They each have 32 different hand-dyed colors and self-stripe with no repeats.



Tailspun organic local border leicester locks from a sheep named Barley:





One of my favorites! This is called Kite Flying, and it's a blend of local cormo wool and merino x rescue wool, with puffy coils of white angora bunny fluff and tons of little kite-tail bowties of recycled sari silk fabric.





A sampling of some of the corespun local kid mohair yarns I'll have available:



And, a selection of wooly patchwork yarns (I also have some in organic cotton). These are almost all spun from local small farm roving:



Crafty Bastards is my favorite craft show of the year. I'm planning on stocking up on Biggs & Featherbelle soap (if I can find time to run to their booth). I'd also really love a hat from Rocks and Salt, and to take a peek at Maryink, but I doubt I'll be able to leave the booth long enough to actually shop. Crafty Bastards is so great...what other craft show has both a breakdance battle and a bike valet service?