Our First Order!!

Today, we placed our first orders for yarn!! This is so exciting – and rather nerve-wracking!!

We are purchasing most of our yarn from Cascade and Universal. We will have a variety of fibers available – wool, wool blends, cotton, cotton blends, acrylic, silk, etc. And we've got an array of yarn weights coming, from cotton thread to bulky yarn.

And, don't forget the raw wool that we took to the mill last weekend. The local wool will be available in DK and worsted weights. We aren't having it dyed, so we'll have natural white, gray heather, and dark gray.

We've ordered a few books and patterns and will be sorting out needles and notions next week.

Consider this just a taste of things to come! As the yarn arrives and we start setting up displays, I'm sure I'll have much more to say on this topic!!

Road Trip!!

On Saturday, Patrick and I took a road trip to take our wool to Blue Hills Alpacas and Fiber Mill in Bruce, WI. Like any good road trip, this one was full of good music and fast food. Unlike previous road trips (at least that I've been on), the van smelled like sheep because of all the wool; thankfully, we had air conditioning to keep the smell from getting too bad on the way there and to get rid of it on the way home. We spent a total of eight hours driving, so we had lots of time to talk about ideas for selling yarn among other topics.

Nancy, the owner of the mill, was more than happy to show us around the mill and explain the different steps in the process.

1. The wool has to be washed to remove debris and grease. (I don't have any pictures of this step, but she does it in a couple of large sinks – each washing requires a couple of hours.

2. The wool is then carded to get the fibers to line up. She showed us some hand cards that were used for manual carding of wool, a very long and tiring process.  Then she put some wool through the machine carder and showed us how it works.  There are lots of gears and pulleys and cylinders.

3. The carded wool is then fed into a pin drafter which further aligns the fibers to get them ready for spinning.

4. The last machine takes the wool and actually spins the yarn. The same machine will also ply the yarn, but it's a separate process than the spinning of the fiber.

We also got to see Nancy's sock knitting machines, her loom, and some rugs that she has made using Tunisian crochet techniques.

Patrick and I learned sooooo much while we were there. I am still just fascinated by the process and how the fleeces that we skirted a couple of weeks ago are going to become yarn in the next several weeks. And, it will end up for sale in our shop!

I’ll post when the yarn is finished and ready for sale in the shop so you can come see for yourself how it turns out!

 

Hitting The Ground Running . . .

We are home from Family Camp 2011.  It was a wonderful week of relaxing up in the Northwoods – probably my favorite week of the year!  We were without computers and the internet for the week (well, except for Patrick being able to connect on his Blackberry, but I’m not bitter or anything) so we couldn’t do “real” work.  That didn’t keep us from dreaming and brainstorming while we were there.  We came home with lots and lots of ideas – some of them even good!

Tomorrow morning, Patrick and I will be taking the wool that we skirted to the mill for processing and spinning.  We would like to have that yarn and roving available when the store opens, but that may be stretching it.  But, we will have the yarn from local sheep within a month or so of opening.

Before camp, we met with our first yarn rep.  Next week, we are scheduled to meet with another rep.  We will also be contacting the other vendors whose products we’d like to carry.

And, then, there are all those ideas . . . We came up with some interesting ways to display yarn.  We also talked a lot about shop layout and can’t wait to start experimenting with the furniture.  It’s going to be a busy, but fun, couple of weeks!

Coming up: Blue Hills Alpaca and Mill, Project updates

More Wool!!

This afternoon/evening, the whole family went out to Lamb's Quarters to finish skirting wool. To be honest, the kids were just going because they didn't have anything else to do. Neither one was at all interested in working with raw wool. And, to be honest, the fleeces do smell like sheep, and a big part of skirting wool is removing the fecal matter that gets caught in the fleece. So, I guess I understand their perspective.


Today, we finished the last of the fleeces - 100 pounds total! And, here are the pictures that I promised in the last post:





We plan to take the wool to the mill in 2 weeks or so. After that, it will be about three months before we get the yarn. We are going to have a section of our wall with pictures and explanations showing the sheep whose wool we used along with the skeins of yarn. I'll definitely give you progress updates as we go!




Addendum: The shop now has phone and internet!! And we meet with our first rep tomorrow!!

Next time: Project updates

Skirting Wool

I love, love, LOVE wool yarn.  But, being something of a suburban/town girl, I don't know much about what happens before the yarn gets to the yarn store.  So, Patrick and I are rectifying that situation and getting some great local yarn for The Knitting Nest.

Today, we went to Lamb's Quarters where Jane Haase taught us how to skirt fleeces.  Skirting a fleece means taking out the really soiled sections of the wool as well as areas of excessive vegetable and fecal material.  The mill will wash the wool, but skirting needs to be done before it goes to the mill.  We chose our 11 fleeces that we're going to buy and then Jane showed us how to do the skirting.  I was a little afraid that I might be grossed out by the process, but it really wasn't bad.  (It probably helps that I can't smell really well and that I worked as a physician for 10 years which has it's moments of grossness!)  We got two fleeces skirted before it started raining.  We hope to finish the skirting this week so we can take the wool to the mill in a couple of weeks.

(I wanted to put some pictures right here, but I'm having trouble with this blog editing program.  Pictures will be coming soon!)

Patrick and I really enjoyed our time skirting the wool.  The work isn't hard, but it is important to do a good job so that the mill doesn't have to do extra work (which would cost us more).  We also learned an awful lot about wool and sheep.  I'd read about "staple length", but I got to actually see how it's determined.  Jane showed us the sheep, which were pretty skittish around us.  Eventually, I want to have pictures of the individual sheep whose fleeces are made into yarn.

Eventually, I'd like to teach the kids in the knitting/crochet club from the elementary school or the library about how wool comes from the sheep and gets made into yarn.  I also want to teach them about different types of fibers and why they are used for different purposes.

A serious advantage to working with raw wool is that the lanolin makes our hands nice and soft!

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Progress - June 21, 2011

Things are definitely moving along with The Knitting Nest. However, we're also leading a knitting/crochet club this summer with the local library, which is also tons of fun.

Patrick has been diligently working to get all the utilities for our retail space changed over into our name. He's also been working to get our phone and internet service set up.

Today, Patrick and I met with a graphic designer who is going to make our logo and set up our website. We had a great meeting with lots of ideas shared and can't wait to see the final product!!

The library knitting club met for the second time yesterday. We had one adult woman helping and another who came for the club. We also had three elementary school girls there, two of whom had been in our elementary school knitting/crochet club.

Last week, one of the girls who had been in the club at the school did a bracelet (their first project) with minimal help. She remembered how to cast-on and knit, and I taught her how to bind off. This week, she started a hat. She's going to knit it flat and then sew up the seam in the back. Her biggest challenge is not going be the actual knitting, since the only new skills she will learn are decreasing and sewing a seam. The most important thing she'll learn from this project is persistence - she can't make a hat in one session.

Another of the girls was not at the group last week, but came this week. She was in the school club in the spring, so remembered how to cast on and knit. She made a bracelet this week and is ready to try another project next week. I guess I'd better get busy and find patterns!

The third girl in our group was new last week. Patrick taught her how to cast on and how to knit. She started a bracelet last week, so I taught her how to bind off this week. This bracelet was great for a first try, but it was clear that she had added stitches on some rows and dropped stitches on other rows. (Our motto is "just keep knitting". We will teach them how to fix mistakes later. Right now, we just have them keep knitting through their mistakes.) After she bound off her first bracelet, she started another, needing very little help with casting on and knitting. By the end of the session, she had another bracelet, but this one with nice even rows and no dropped or added stitches. She put one bracelet on each wrist so that she can show off her progress. I definitely need to find patterns for these girls.

One of the other really fun things that happened yesterday is that Linda (a friend who is helping with the group) and I got to spend about twenty minutes unraveling a very large tangle of yarn and then reballing it. I think I might take my handy ball-winder next time. It's not all that helpful for unraveling, but it makes putting the yarn into balls much easier!

That's where we are right now. I'll try to keep taking pictures and posting when I can. This week, we are a little occupied because my parents are visiting. Next week, we are going to learn to "skirt" a fleece (get it clean enough to send to the mill). We are going to purchase some wool and take it to the mill for processing. I am excited about learning more about wool and about being able to carry local wool in The Knitting Nest.

OK, more later!!