Hearts Handwarmer Knitting Pattern

Hey Folks!  We are super stoked about two things.  First, we are finally back to offering some new yarn crafting patterns with today's "Hearts Hand Warmers"!  And secondly, this also marks our first in crafting kits we will be offering in our Etsy Shop!

For being our loyal follower, we would love to offer you the pattern for free here.  (Speaking of, don't miss future patterns and updates by signing up here for our little newsletter!)

For our new kits, we will be offering quality and eco-friendly materials with our patterns in fun, reusable packaging whenever possible. In this kit, the first of its kind, we will give you just the right amount of our hand spun wool which we dyed (using non-toxic food grade dyes) in fun bright colors, as well as the warming pouches made from organic cotton fabric and filled with organic flax seed.  This is a fast and easy gift for your beau on Valentine's Day or a special little gift for yourself!

You can find one of our kits here!  We have several different color combos, so make sure to peek around!

This is just the start of our kits, so if you are not a knitter, don't worry, we will have some other yarncrafting kits for you all soon!

Ash

My very own refurbished spindle spinning wheel!

Squee!!  Guess what I have!

My very own refurbished spindle spinning wheel!

Isn't it cool! It has a few little things that still need a little tweaking, but it's quite nice! 

Here is the before.  My parents found the wheel at a swap meet locally, but it did not have the mother of all, whorl or spindle.  

Loading up the new find from the swap meet.

We looked it up, and it looks like it very well could be a tradition Ashford wheel.  After buying just a few supplies, my dad was awesome and turned a brand new whorl and mother of all.  (The two tall posts that hold the spindle and whorl.)

How pretty did he make those?  I love them!

Newly custom hand turned whorl and mother of all posts...beauties!

We decided to start with a spindle spinning wheel.  It is a great way for us to modify this wheel to get something up and running and I am loving it.

Playing with the new wheel. Excuse the mess....

I am still getting the hang of it a little, but as soon as I jump off this computer, I am carding a bunch of fiber and getting to it!  Can't wait!  Thanks, Dad and Mom!

And I just have to add....this is how we roll.  There are ways to do things outside the box.  I didn't feel I could afford a brand new wheel, but I really wanted to have one.  Initially we were going to make this cute Thrifty Fox spindle wheel from these plans we bought on Etsy, but then happened upon this wheel in need of love.  So here is my little soapbox speech - If you want it bad enough, you make it happen.  It is okay to not have THE in-thing.  What matter is you are trying.  No regrets. Oh yeah, and it also helps to have awesome supportive people in your life. (In this case, the hubby and parents!)  So surround yourself with supportive people as often as you can. (Okay, stepping off the box now...thanks for listening.)

Stay tuned for some yummy yarn from my new toy!

Ash

Almost time for Fiberton to get our geek on!

It is almost here!  We have admittedly been a bit M.I.A. lately, and it is all because we are getting ready for this weekend, when we go to our very first gaming, comic and pop culture convention - Zapp Con! This is not just a first for having a table at a convention, it will also be the first time we leave the animals over night alone...not just one night but two!  So needless to say, I have been a bit on the anxious side.  But we are also really excited, as it will also be a ton of fun.

Some of our prep has included:

Dying wool for the hubby's needle felting...

I am in love with these colors!

As seen here....

To make items like these...

Attempting to ply yarn with the kitties 'help' before it gets dyed....

This is how you do it, right?

 Creating pages for a project and custom order idea book...

Creating milefore beads for stitch markers.... 

Before baking...

Like these...

I was pretty excited about these! I need some of these for myself I think!

And some of my hubby's pixel or 8-bit art like these bows...

8-bit bow tie

And 8-bit hair bow

Whew!  We still have plenty to do to prep (like cleaning the house...ugg...) but it is coming along quite nicely!  We will share pics of the con and other updates next week for sure!

Talk to you soon-

Ash

It's Fall! That means apples and yarn!

Guess what? It is Fall now!  Today!  (Even though the temperature it is still in the 100's here...) And to help usher in the new season, this past Sunday we went out to our local 'you-pick' orchard and collected a bunch of apples!  Which means soon I will be making and canning apple sauce, apple butter and apple pie filling.  Although I may have to go get more apples if I want to do all that....

Our local 'you-pick' orchard...we braved the 105 degree
afternoon for our apples.

But oh, Sundays really are quite lovely for a drive in the country!

The hubby enjoyed the drive, too.

Not a bad haul for our quick afternoon out.  

Fall is also the perfect time for lots of cuddly yarn!  We have been trying to spin up a bunch and I just loved this nice plush pile of freshly plied and washed alpaca yarn.

Cozy, comfy yarn!

I am trying to spin a bunch up for a show that we are heading to in mid-October.  You can, of course, find our selection of yarn here at our etsy shop!

And we recently gave these little cuties a trim so I now have some super soft baby angora fiber to blend into our yarn.  Look at this face!

Little Jet is too cute! 

Soon I will share our stacks of yarn and pics of our freshly canned goods with some recipes, too!

Ash

Our exciting yarn release!

This has been a day I have been quite excited about...our yarn release day!  So, without further delay, I would like to introduce you to our new line of completely hand processed and hand spun yarns!

Ok...maybe a little further delay...I feel like I should give a little background.  But skip down if you don't want the backstory and just want to drool over yarn.  I will completely understand!

I have been into yarn for a large part of my life.  My great grandmother taught me how to crochet from a very young age (I think I was 11) and I loved it.  Later I taught myself how to knit so I could make a variety of fabrics with my yarn crafting.  It was always really quite difficult for me to leave any yarn store without at least one skien of yarn.  So when we started talking about starting our own business, I was quick to pitch the fiber farm with hand processed yarn idea.  And that was before I'd even learned how to spin yarn.  I knew that I would love spinning, because the end product was YARN!  How could I not love it?

And after a great shearing season with all the wonderful alpaca folks in the area, and after successfully breeding 4 more angora rabbits, it was time to get down to business and spin us some yarn.  And even though it has been a bit slower than I would have liked, I am excited to release the first of our lovely line of yarns, with many more to come.  It has taught me so much about the animals we get our fiber from, the extensive process it takes to hand make yarn from start to finish, the qualities of each fiber and how they work together.  I must say that I am most excited about our alpaca and angora blends.  So soft, with a lovely halo, and as close to hypoallergenic as you can get when you have natural fiber from animals.

    

    

These are our blends so far of 50/50 angora and alpaca fiber.  I love the colors...the brownish red alpaca or light grey alpaca with the white angora are just too much fun.   These ones are both a worsted weight.  The hubby has been helping with the winding them into lovely center pull balls and packaging them up so they are all ready to go when they find their new home.

    

This brown is straight alpaca and is a neat light brown with red hues.  It is a bulky weight yarn.

   

And this lovely black yarn is 100% llama fiber.  While it has a slightly courser feel, it is still surprisingly soft.  I would compare it more to the feel of a sheep's wool with a little more guard hairs. It would make a very warm scarf or squishy rug or addition to a lovely blanket.  I am currently knitting a shawl out of some single ply and can't wait to try it out.  It is turning out quite nice!

If you are interested in learning more about any of the yarns, we have linked all the pictures to their corresponding listing.  We would love to hear your feedback, too!

What is on the horizon?  Some lovely black and white blend of angora and alpaca, and in a month or so we will be shearing bunnies to get some new angora colors to blend...stay tuned!

Ash