It's Here!

My Phat Fiber Super Box came yesterday! Morgan and I plunged in, organized and took pictures! Jessie of Phat Fiber, showed-off the samples in a video and then sent the video contents on as the Super Box. When Morgan and I opened it up, I had to laugh because she must literally show the sample on the video and then sweep it into the box. Baggies were opened and left empty, lables are scattered, it was hilarious! I decided since I'll have to review the video to match up the tags anyway, I'd take all labels off and get some great shots of piles of fluff and yarn.

The theme for this box was "Day of the Dead," and it has to be the most consistant, coordinated box I've seen.

The bags and pattern (yes, I count the pretty organza bags; I re-use them all the time!):

 

The accessories:

A close-up of the 16! skull stitch markers I got! There was only one set, Vampire Diaries, that wasn't skull-themed!

The yarn (it's all so-well coordinated!!!!):

There were lots, and lots, of "Sugar Skulls" colorways. Here's a fun shot of them:

And (drum roll please!), here's the fluff!!!!!

So many huge samples and ALL gorgeous colors! I am one lucky girl!!!

Oh what a week!

I've had a great one, and I'm so excited, I just have to share!

First, I won the Phat Fiber Super Box!!! What doesn't that mean? For posting my purchase from a Phat Fiber contributor (The Critter Ranch) in the Phat Fiber incentive thread on Ravelry, I was entered into the drawing for the monthly Super Box prize.

The Super Box contains all the samples that have been sent into Phat Fiber for a given month that are included in the monthly box preview video. I know, if you're not in the Phat Fiber world, it's complicated. Just be assured that it's a huge box full of yarn and fiber and I'm really, really excited about it!

On top of that, an added prize changes every month and is AWESOME! This month was a knitting bag from Namaste! I've wanted one for over a year now, and can't believe it's on its way to me! I got to choose what I wanted, and I picked the Laguna bag in espresso:

AND I got a $25 gift certificate to a Phat Fiber contributor's shop of my choice! Can you believe the prizes just keep coming? I've chosen to get some yarn from Stimpylab! Can't wait for that, too!

OK, now on to my next great news for the week . . . I had a meeting with the Roycroft Campus Corporation yesterday to discuss holding classes there! I'll be offering classes through the Roycroft beginning in January! I'm in the process of developing the class offerings and setting the schedule. I'm thrilled to be working with such a wonderful group. Here's a look at the beautiful facilities that we'll have classes in:

And last, but not least, HAY! For those of you that aren't farmers, there's a hay shortage EVERYWHERE!!! We don't usually contract for hay because we have such a small farm that a hundred bales isn't typically a problem to come by. Not this year. When we contacted our regular hay provider, he had NONE. And told us that no one has any left. We then started an all-out panic search asking everyone that we've ever met for available hay to buy. 

Finally, today we have some good news! Dick Martin, our "regular hay guy" was working with us to find people with some still available. Luckily, one of the 87-year-old farmers that he plays cards with has some! We took delivery of 10 bales today, with 75 more coming next week, and the remaining 15 the next!!! I've never been so happy about grass. 

My Buns are Burning

I know I'm a bad cook, but come on!!! This week's attempt at getting my Phat Fiber samples ready has been fraught with problems.

I should have known better when the theme was set as "The Sweet Shop" to stick with a candy inspiration and not go for baked goods. But do I listen . . . noooooo!

I decided to make "blueberry muffins and coffee" roving. Let's just say, the first half of the rovings ended up heavy on the coffee. Or, as Brendan (I just can't continue using my kids' fake names!), put it, these were well done muffins. Yup, I sucessfully interpreted a burnt muffin.

But the colors are still great--I really like it a lot and these will go out in the box anyway. But, I still needed to dye the rest of the wool and wanted to try for the lighter look that I had originally  envisioned. So I threw in the remaining 5 braids of roving into two pots and started again.

Everything was going well, and I added the final "blueberries" on the final flip of the wool, put the pot back on the stove and got busy carding in another room.

Do you know where this is going?

Here's a hint: I started to smell the problem . . .

Do you know what burning wool smells like? It's not good!

Here's what burned wool looks like:

I literally burned my blueberry muffin wool!!! How bad is that?!!

The final outcome was three braids saved, one partially ruined (it'll become some handspun) and one completely ruined.

You see, I use a low-water kettle-dyeing technique for adding spots at the end of my dyeing process. And you shouldn't walk away from it and get busy carding in another room!!! Urg.

With the three saved braids, I did get some good muffins though:

Now, with the two ruined braids, I had to come up with something else to add to the Phat Fiber box, because I wasn't going to meet my 50-sample goal.

Luckily, I had some great colors already dyed up in Finnwool and made these "Skittles" batts:

There's only 12 of them, but I'll have some full-sized batts up in the shop next week along with some full-sized Blueberry Muffin and Coffee rovings. But that means I need to dye them. Wish me luck!!!

Now you need to head over to Wonder Why Alpaca and see what everyone else is up to this week!!!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

This month's Phat Fiber theme is "The Music Box," and I've interpreted my song of choice (Deep in the Heart of Texas) through my fiber content as well as my color choices. But for all the fanatics, here's the song:

The stars at night, are big and bright,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The prairie sky is wide and high,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom is like perfume,
deep in the heart of Texas,
Reminds me of, the one I love,
deep in the heart of Texas.

The coyotes wail, along the trail,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The rabbits rush, around the brush,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The cowboys cry, "Ki-yip-pee-yi,"
deep in the heart of Texas,
The dogies bawl, and bawl and bawl,
deep in the heart of Texas.

My Aunt Betty gave me a music box when I was a child that played the song.

Though not in the song, the heart of Texas, for me, are the cotton fields and cotton farming (as discussed here in the cotton post). And I wanted to feature my uncle's West Texas cotton in my mini batt samples.

Just a reminder what a small (yet huge when it's in your living room) bale of cotton looks like:

And here are this month's samples:

Well, they at least have burlap around them! I had to make them a little prettier than a real bale in order to show off the fibers. And speaking of fiber, here are the ingredients in raw form:

Clockwise from far left are natural cream BFL, blend of turquoise Shetland and turquoise Firestar, chocolate BFL, and a blend of cotton and Peruvian wool.  The final, full-sized batts have twice the percentage of the turquoise as the samples. Here's the full-sized, 2.25 oz. batt:

They'll be available at the release of the video (around Dec. 10) and then again when the boxes arrive on doorsteps!

I'll also have many, many batts available with cotton for sale throughout December. The finished yarn has a great tweed texture, and it's fun to spin!

To wrap up my Texas cotton theme for the month, my parents were in town for Thanksgiving, all the way from Granbury, Texas! And they helped me assemble all the little samples!

Samplings and Techniques

With my first ever Phat Fiber box, I decided to try some new techniques with all the little samples. Here's a review of what I've tried so far:

From Mama Jude's sample:

She had some great fibers in a cone sleeve just like a Christmas tree! And she added twinkle lights for us to play with. Play I did, but my technique is seriously lacking. I spun her fiber thick/thin and then plyed it with some smooth Corriedale/Alpaca I made.

I tried spinning in the lights, and to my credit they are technically in there and not coming out, but they dangle. They're not suppose to dangle. I need to work on my spinning add ins! I think I need to actually get out the book for that one!

I also need to get a flyer that is a little more appropriate for large add ins!

For my second technique try, I decided to follow Jacie Bogg's tutorial from the Winter 09 issue of Spin Off for making coils (or beehives). Here's how it went:

 

 The fiber is from Sky Loom Weavers and titled "Harvest." It's 100% Merino, which is the perfect fiber for coils! It drafted beautifully and was quite the pleasure to spin!

The yarn that is plied with it is from Rocky Mountain Dyeworks and was a 3-ply yarn that I separated into 1 ply for an almost cobweb weight. The colorway is called "Northern Lights" and matched "Harvest" wonderfully!!

I'm giving myself a break from being too critical of my attempt, because even Jacie Boggs says it takes a few trys.

Also, when the thick sections were too thick, they were catching on my flyer and hooks, so maybe my husband needs to make me a new flyer for specialty yarns! (He built my spinning wheel, so he's my only shot at a larger flyer!)

Here are my good coils:

Here are my bad coils:

I'd say it's about 50/50 for the good to bad ratio. And it's very over-spun. I think a few more practice runs and I'll have it down. Now . . . what to knit with beehive yarn? Any suggestions?