Newsletter

Our newsletter gives details of the latest additions to this web site as well as information on my current projects. Links are provided to make it easier for you to locate the new material.

~ Maureen

2 July 2010

Big Price Reductions on Discontinued Merino Top

We are in the process of introducing new lines of high quality merino top at lower prices, therefore:

• we have reduced the prices of the discontinued merino lines
• these new low prices will be in effect while existing stock lasts

15 June 2010

2010 Spring Newsletter

I'm late, yet again, with the Newsletter! We've been waiting for some new supplies to arrive so we can update the website and give information on the various new items. Some still haven't arrived but I'm going ahead with the Newsletter anyway. The volcano in Iceland has played havoc with the mails, as most people have discovered. Customs have been super busy and parcels have been waiting for clearance for several weeks.

Because of rising prices in the wool market, we've been researching other suppliers with the goal of continuing to supply high quality wools for felting and spinning, but at a reduced cost. Also, we've found another supplier of merino prefelt which we've managed to get a good deal on. For the time being we're trialing these products with the idea of possibly stocking a good selection of them in the future. We're asking for your patience as this process goes ahead. Sometimes we might run out of colours, as it is difficult to determine in advance just how each colour will sell, so we're buying limited amounts at first.

New Products

M23D - Fine merino dyed top is ideal for spinning and felting. Customers who have already sampled this are very enthusiastic, so we've ordered a good selection of colours. The price is very good indeed for this quality of merino. The felt I've made with this fibre is firm yet fairly soft, not scratchy, with a lovely sheen.

FMP19 - Superfine merino prefelt yardage, from Europe. The weight of this prefelt falls between our more substantial natural white prefelt from Europa Wools, and our finer prefelt from Fibre Fusion. We have started with a good supply of black, red and forest green. This prefelt is 120cm wide, and is sold by the running metre. A single layer makes a fairly lightweight scarf or lightweight garment. It really is lovely stuff, and is very reasonably priced.

Workshops

Spring workshops were successful and a lot of fun:

My "away" workshops included nuno felted scarves, working with prefelt, and making vessels. Here are some examples from the Belleville Weavers & Spinners Guild prefelt workshop:

My "at home" workshops included "all you can learn in two days", and were a great success. This is something I'd like to continue. Everyone who participated was really pleased at how much they had learned, and were very appreciative of the individual instruction and flow of ideas between participants. A maximum of four meant we could really tailor the workshop to an individual's skill level and needs.

Here, Naomi shows her first-ever felting project, and Sue models her textured wrap:

I have a number of workshops scheduled for the summer and fall. Check our Workshops page for details.

I'm really excited to have a guest instructor, Haydee McFarland, who will be holding a special workshop in my studio. This technique, which Haydee has perfected, requires some felting experience, especially with layout of fibres. The resulting scarf is luxurious and eye catching. It reminds me of the ruffles on the dress of a Spanish flamenco dancer. Classes are limited to four people per workshop, and we may hold it on two days depending on how many people register.

Special Project

One fabulous weekend was spent in my studio with four experienced felters. The idea was to stretch our abilities, break old habits, try new things, and just generally share our findings. It was wonderful and we plan to repeat it in the fall. We all learned so much from each other. Left to right: Ann McElroy, Haydee McFarland, me, Diane Lemire, and Suzanne Towns. Our Nuno projects are drying on the line behind us.

Check our Special Projects page in the Gallery.

Other News

In addition to business things, we've been busy extending and planting our veggy garden. It's now about a third bigger. Spring this year was a heck of a lot warmer than last year, and everything seems to be several weeks ahead.

It's very hot, and where is the rain? There wasn't much snow over winter, and I don't think it's rained more than two or three times since. Luckily the water table here is fairly high and we have a deep well for irrigation. Our plan is to keep everything very well mulched with straw to conserve the water in the soil.

Here's our lovely shade garden - the lupins are two weeks ahead of last year, I'm sure. And here's Russell - he found a bit of shade and no way is he coming out from there to go for a walk. It's hot as blazes, over 30 degrees, and he's staying put.

4 December 2009

New Products

Teeswater/Wensleydale top. A blend of Teeswater and Wensleydale, this top is gorgeous. The staple length is 8 to 10 inches, the top is bright white and lustrous. It's suitable for both felting and spinning. You can make a sturdy hard wearing felt or a "felt lace". When the top is wetted and manipulated during felting, the fibres revert to their original curly structure, forming an open lacey fabric which is strong and durable when well felted. This fibre spins fast and easily into smooth dense and lustrous yarn, which is perfect for hardwearing applications like socks and outerwear. It also dyes like mohair, resulting in rich and brilliant colours.

I've been looking into the availability and "feltability" of local fleeces, with the idea of using them for my own projects, and also having some available on the website. So on the "special fibres" section of the site you will find batts for felting and spinning, some Tunis, and some Leicester/Corriedale adult and lamb. These fleeces were processed by myself with no harsh chemicals (i.e., no carbonising) so there is a small amount of chaff in them. I found both fibres to be fairly easy to felt, more work than merino obviously, but each forms a nice firm felt.

The Tunis is an interesting fleece, it is a creamy white with light reddish patches, and some scattered red hairs throughout. It's bouncy, and I think would make a lovely knitting yarn, but haven't got around to spinning any yet.

The Leicester/Corriedale cross fleece (adult) tends more to the Leicester as it is very curly. It felted quite quickly, with a smooth firm surface. The lamb fleeces were also curly, softer, and felted quickly.

Other news

Fall has almost gone and winter is right around the corner, although you'd hardly know it with the mild weather we are enjoying here in Southern Ontario. The fall colours were glorious this year and we managed to see them at their peak on a camping trip to Algonquin Park (a huge wilderness area about 3 hours north of us) where we heard wolves howling at night, and caught sight of bear and moose.

Now that the year is winding down, and all the shows are over, I've had time to do some experimenting with different wools. I decided to do a trial with two different wools, making simple booty slippers, to see how the fibres compared, and also to compare durability of each slipper after wear. One slipper was made with 5 layers of grey Finnwool, and a sixth layer of dyed Finnwool. The other was made with the same layers and colours, but using a crossbred Romney/Icelandic fleece.

The Finnwool felted faster than the Romney/Icelandic, and the surface is tighter and smoother. But even so the Romney/Icelandic took less work than I had thought. The big surprise was in the final appearance. The final colour of the Finn slipper is very muted and greyed, while the Romney/Icelandic colours are more vivid. I am guessing that the shorter fibres of the Finnwool migrated more easily through all the layers, "diluting" the top dyed layer. The Romney/Icelandic has longer and stronger fibres and the greyed effect on the surface is much less. Pictured here, they are waiting for their suede soles to be sewn on. The finn slipper is on the left.

And while I was in a boot making mood, I thought I'd try a version of Russian Valenki boots, using Finnwool. While the slippers are light and flexible (75g of wool each), and took about 3 hours to make the pair, the Valenki boots with a Canadian flavour are much sturdier (200g of wool each). The Finnwool felted down very hard and firm, and took me nearly two days of hard labour with frequent rest breaks. Rod called the first one "Das Boot", after the German submarine movie, because it was so huge.

Here's an interesting link with information about Valenki: http://www.rusclothing.com/valenki-felt-boots/

Down the garden path to the end of our trail - looking across the little bay towards the Trent River. A lovely place to relax after all the hard work.

16 September 2009

New Products

Natural white prefelt yardage from England: This prefelt is somewhat thicker than our Fibre Fusion line - about 50% thicker. It is one metre wide, and as many metres long as you need. It has a noticeably silky soft feel. It felts fast with a lovely smooth finish, and the price is very reasonable too. There is some veggy matter scattered throughout, some of which is easily removed by shaking. When dyed, no vegetation is visible. The reason there is some veggy matter is because the wool has not been carbonised in processing.

A quick and dirty description of carbonisation: This is a process which treats wool with dilute sulphuric acid and high temperatures. It makes the chaffe brittle and more easily removed in the next processing steps. The process inevitably causes some damage to the wool fibres and is one of the reasons why some people are unable to wear wool next to their skin.

Stash Bags: Sturdy zippered plastic bags with mothproof mesh sides, ideal for storing your wool and projects. They come in two sizes 45x38x10cm (18x15x4") for $4.00, and 68x60x20cm (27x24x8") for $6.00.

I've discovered another unintended use for these: produce ripening bags. We have lots of underripe tomatoes - some with blemishes that the fruit flies get at. The stash bags are perfect for letting the air in, while keeping the fruit flies out.

Other news

In the summer I received my long awaited Watson "Marie" spinning wheel. What a fabulous wheel this is, fast and smooth. I fell in love with it at a show where Andrew Watson had some demo wheels, and have waited almost a year for it. It was worth the wait. My interest in spinning, which had been flagging for some time, has been revived. I've been busy making up novelty yarns for embellishing felts, and yarns for my own knitting projects. One of the pleasures in life is to wear a sweater that has been processed by hand from start to finish...fresh fleece, gentle scouring (no carbonising!), carded, handspun, and hand knit. It is a great exercise in learning to take things slowly and carefully, and appreciating the process as it slowly takes form.

Our first summer in our new home was very busy, planning and planting a vegetable patch, exploring the area and the waterways right next door. Summer was very cool right until August, but we finally had some hot steamy weather just in time to ripen the tomatoes, almost a month later than is usual here in southern Ontario. Even so we have extra produce to can and freeze for the winter. The bugs were really bad though, and bug helmets and jackets were essential if we wanted to do anything outside. Thank goodness they have mostly gone.

Fall is almost here and it's time to plan and start all those wintertime fiber projects. My favourite time of year. We were thrilled to find that our place is populated with a family of wild turkeys. Earlier in the summer we could hear a female clucking in the bushes. Then a few weeks ago she finally appeared with five little ones. Now the turkeys seem to be grouping together. Several females and a whole whack of half grown youngsters frequently parade through our gardens, looking for all the world like a day care outing, with the adults chattering away together and keeping an eye on the young ones.

25 May 2009

Things are finally getting back to normal after the big move and after all the construction and changes we had to make to our new place. My studio is finally finished, and it's great to get back to work. The new space has a good size workroom, kitchen and storeroom, so everything is together and close at hand.

I've been busy planning workshops which will be held through the summer and into fall. Among the planned workshops are:

• dyeing, resist dyeing, and discharging on silk scarves, for fabulous complex colours and patterns
• wet felting, dyeing, resist dyeing and overdyeing felt scarves, for more fabulous colours and textures
• felt scarves with silk inlays --- this involves making a shimmering sheet of silk “fabric” which can be cut and inlaid into wool when wet felting
• fun with felted hats --- plain or funky but always fun with the addition of spikes, bubbles, yarns and silks
• last but not least, the ever popular light and airy nuno scarf using superfine wools, silk fabrics, and novelty yarns --- the choices are endless and the result is a soft and drapey scarf for a cool summer evening

To celebrate our move into new facilities, we are having an Open House Weekend, June 20th and 21st. Come for a visit and enjoy browsing through the sale specials of wools, prefelts and silk fibres. And have a coffee or cold drink, relax on the deck, or stroll through the gardens. Everyone is welcome. We are situated on Percy Boom Rd, halfway between Warkworth and Campbellford. The area has lots to offer in the way of rolling hills, rivers, lakes, and lovely little villages and towns.

I missed the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Conference this month, as it conflicted with the sale of our house in Milton. But we will definitely be at the Ontario Handspinning Seminar in Kingston in the second week of June.

18 March 2009

Our mail order operations are up and running again. Thank you for your patience while we were moving.

Please note our new contact information.

We have finally finished our big move from Milton Ontario to a small acreage, one and a half hours east of Toronto, midway between Campbellford and Warkworth, in the Northumberland Hills, Ontario.

Campbellford is a small, scenic, thriving little town on the Trent River, and the administrative centre of the Trent Hills Region. The Trent Severn Waterway connects Lake Ontario, at Trenton, to Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. For those interested in nautical things, here is an interesting link to the The Trent-Severn Waterway.

Warkworth is a lovely little village which has developed into an artistic centre. The picturesque Main Street is lined with interesting shops, including the "100 Mile Diner", the focus of which is to serve meals made from local ingredients and to reduce the transportation from farm to plate.

Our new home backs onto the Trent River, where it widens into a large lake known as Percy Reach, and is adjacent to Murray Marsh - 50 square km of undisturbed marsh and wetlands. The area is home to large numbers of birds, including Great Blue Herons and wild turkeys - which were successfully reintroduced into the area some years ago. Right now the migratory birds are moving back, some to stay for the summer and some to keep going further north. As I write this, great V-formations of geese and ducks are passing high overhead - it's amazing. Our plans for the summer include canoeing, fishing and bird watching.

The new workshop/studio will be finished by mid April, and then visitors and customers will be very welcome to come and browse the fibres, chat, have coffee and tea, and enjoy our lovely surroundings. I am currently planning my felting workshops for the summer. These will include making bootie slippers, wacky hats, and shaped resist dyeing on felt. I hope to have dates and descriptions on the site by the end of April.