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It truly is a small world! I received an email from my brother-in-law & sister last week. While at the family reunion, they went house shopping. I’ve got to tell you - Orofino, Idaho (where my family came from) is a very small, rural town (pop. 3070). It would be considered fairly remote by some folk’s standards (not by Idaho standards - but, heh, this IS Idaho we’re talking about). I got a good laugh from this email - and it truly made me smile! Am copying it here for your reading pleasure….
Hi Terry,
Don’t know if Michele told you how famous you are. We were up in Orofino, looking at my dream home out in the woods. The lady who owned the place was chatting with Michele, and mentioned she wanted to have some goats. We’d noticed a spinning wheel in the house and a loom out in the shop earlier. Michele got to telling her about your goats, and your spinning, dyeing, etc. When we told her who you were, she asked, “does she advertise in Spin-Off magazine? And wasn’t there an article…?” We said “yes” and she waxed enthusiastic about your products for a while.
Your reputation precedes you. It didn’t get us an instant discount on the house, though.
How cool is that?
Terry
Susan and I met Carol Rhoades at an NwRSA Conference last year in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She was very intrigued by our Pygora fiber blends and purchased some. We had a very nice chat with her and she wondered aloud whether or not she could do one of her “Fiber Basics” articles on Pygora for Spin-Off magazine. We told her that we would be more than happy to work with her on that project, should she decide to do it.
Fast forward to about March of this year, RIGHT AFTER we sent our natural colored clip to the mill for dehairing - we get an email from Carol - and she was wanting some fiber for her project. We were really bummed out that we’d just sent our natural colored B fibers off to the mill, but we had some A/B fiber in cloud form that we sent her, along with some gorgeous raw, white fleece from Lisa at Hawk’s Mountain Ranch, and samples of raw B and C fiber from our goats.
We were nervous. Ah geez, what if she didn’t like the fiber. We knew she’d be gentle, but we were hoping she would love it as much as we do. Well, we were floored yesterday - we both received our copies of Spin-Off and were blown away at how nice the article was. Thank you, Carol, for your kind words, your insight into our goatie fiber, and for writing such a great article.
Wow!
I was doing my good deed for the quarter yesterday for my local spinning/weaving guild. We were doing a public demo of fiber arts in tiny Kalama, WA. Late in the day two girls came up with a business card of a local fiber gal who was also demo’ing and invited us over to chat. I recognized the name on the card as a gal who recently got into Pygora goats and I looked forward to meeting her in person.
Off my friend and I went to chat with this gal. I showed her what I do with my Pygora and she showed me a bag of her stuff (it was Pygora blended with llama and wool). She’s a really nice lady - but - ummm - the bag of fiber roving was FULL of guard hairs. OMG! Sometimes you see this with non-spinning fiber animal people, but this gal was sitting there spinning! Do I say anything about the guard hairs or not?
I’ve heard so many anti-Pygora statements over the years due to improperly prepared fiber (not dehaired, mostly). I waited until nobody else was around and then quietly and as nicely as I could, I pointed out that spinners wouldn’t be very happy with those pokey guard hairs and the Pygora is such a soft, luxurious fiber, why not present it in it’s best form? I don’t know her well enough to know if I offended her or ??? Ack! Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all? What would you have done???
Terry
I enjoyed my “Amtrak” lace scarf so much, that I’ve started another one. I decided to skip the beads on this scarf as well. I just don’t want to weigh down my airy Pygora! This is a two ply laceweight, handspun by moi. The fiber is a blend of Pygora and silk, hand-dyed and carded by yours truly. I am very happy with the color and the yarn!
We’re back home! What a wonderful vacation - Maryland Sheep & Wool festival for me (with a tiny side trip to the Mannings - wow!), and Gettysburg for Gary.
Maryland was fun, but very crowded - here’s a photo of the sea of cars in part of the parking lot - it’s difficult to capture the magnitude in one photo….
Did I mention Maryland is a CROWDED festival? All those people, and well, I DID see someone I know! I spied Judith MacKenzie standing in the Tshirt line. So I stopped and talked Pygora goats with her.
Here’s a photo of the crowd - again, it’s difficult to capture the magnitude in one shot…
And forget the sheep barns! I tried a few times, but it was too difficult!
The shopping was difficult (read: combat shopping) and there was far more yarn than I had expected. Lots of spinning fiber, but definately a high percentage of yarn compared to BSG or OFFF. Here’s a shot at one yarn booth:
What did I buy? Oh, a couple bits of fiber (in the name of research, mind you!) and what I really wanted: a Golding spindle! I had always admired the hand-carved celtic knot version and I did purchase one. It is a bit heavier than I like for spinning laceweight or Pygora, so ahem, I had to buy a smaller/lighter one as well (and forgot to take a photo of the smaller one!). They are a dream to spin and are gorgeous to boot!
That wraps up my MS&W report! I must say, you’d better eat ALOT of Wheaties if you want to vend there! whew!
I’ve finally gotten the loom almost completely warped - just need to tie on the front beam!
I’ve been attempting to be a good girl and work some out in the studio - have been dyeing and carding wool in preparation for blending with our Pygora fiber. My Gary really helped me out this year - he built me a gorgeous and highly functional picker!!
Here’s Shadow, our little kitty - he’s standing up…really!
We took a walk down our back road and found Molly! We don’t see her much as we tried to make her afraid of humans. The neighbors who live down the back road didn’t agree with our tactics and now have 4 pet deer that wander about (Molly and her offspring). Here’s Molly saying hello to Gary
Happy New Year!
Ok, so it’s November already! When I think of November, I think cold and rain, dark storm clouds overhead, a fire in the woodstove, and an interesting knitting project (ok - so that covers my weekend/not at work vision - I’ll spare you the ugly “at work” vision). So as I make my way outside this morning, I see all kinds of signs of the impending cold weather season:
don’t laugh - you wouldn’t if you’d been suspended upside down in the dark, hanging by your seatbelt as we were last winter….
It’s been cold in the mornings, some stuff frozen, but not a hard freeze as of yet…but I’ve got the electric water bucket all plugged in and ready to go!
Ugh! A huge brown sea of dead maple leaves. I won’t show you the gutters on the house and barn. It’s not pretty.
Gotta have wood for that crackling fire in the woodstove! We’re ready!!
This, however, was completely unexpected!!!
Now for an animal update. Not sure if I shared the fact we lost Scooter this summer. Not sure what happened, but he had gotten out one night and never came back. His brother, Hunter, was beside himself for the next week. It almost broke my heart to see him literally moping around. So we went and rounded up a new buddy for him. His name is Shadow. Hunter hated him for about two weeks. Now they’re best of buds…here’s a close up of Shadow (difficult to do because he’s so BUSY!) And another shot of Hunter (left) and Shadow playing together.
Here is why a goat owner needs a super strong fence (and why we never have to use the weed whacker next to our fences…)
That is Thunder. He’s far from being underfed. He just can’t seem to help himself!
And lastly - a photo of some really yummy fiber we’ve been dyeing - it’s a great blend of wool, llama, and mohair and it is really NICE! Pin drafted roving, too! And see our new package label? I’ve been working on that for a long time and finally created something I really like!
Terry