Spring Means COLOR!

I love the spring and summer months! I love the warmth and the color coming back to the earth. Lately I've been busy washing, dying, carding, and spinning ALL DAY LONG because it's so darn gorgeous outside. Here's a couple of the yarns I've spun up in the last couple days. They are corespun with some of the new art batts I created to list in the Etsy shop:

I'll be doing a shop update next week with a bunch of the new creations. In the meantime... I am headed back outside to get to work!

Touch of Heaven Shawl

Finished the shawl named "A Touch of Heaven". It was inspired by my next door neighbor, Heaven, who is only 12 years and battling leukemia. I started this shawl right after we helped her mom get her in the car to rush her back to the hospital. Her 3rd round of chemo has been especially hard on her. The orange in the shawl happens to be color of Luekemia Awareness ribbons. :) This shawl contains black finn spun in three different styles, orange lockspun wenslydale, grey and orange huacaya alpaca, lockspun mohair, corespun angora, and it's trimmed out in tail spun suri alpaca.

Scheduled Events

Shearing Day 2012

April 6th, 2012 8am - 1pm This once a year event is full of fiber, friends, food, and lots of hard work! The farm is open to visitors who would like to participate or watch. We will be serving food after the hard work so please let us know you're coming so we can have an accurate head count for food. Dawn@MadaVemiAlpacas.com

Felting The Easy Way Class

April 14th, 2012 10-4 Join me in the fiber studio for this super easy felting class. In this class we'll make a gorgeous scarf and eat lunch while it's felting! Just $75 per person includes lunch. Email Dawn@MadaVemiAlpacas.com for registration or more information. Space is limited.

Let's Get Naked: Toes To Clothes

April 28th-29th, 2012 - 9-4 This fun event combines all aspects of fiber... shearing demos, vendors, classes, and FUN for all ages. I will be teaching spinning classes at this event and have a vendor booth shared with several other alpaca farms called the VA Alpaca Consortium. You can check us out here: http://www.bestalpacasinvirginia.com/ For more info on the event visit the site at: http://www.lgnfiberfestival.com/default.html For more info on Graves Mountain Lodge visit http://www.gravesmountain.com/

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Carolina Fiber Festival

May 18th-20th, 2012 - NC State Fair Grounds in Raleigh, NC. I'll have my handspun yarns, plenty of art batts, felted scarves, and gorgeous woven shawls with us. I'll be spinning in my booth throughout the day so stop by and say hi. http://www.carolinafiberfest.org

Corespinning

May 12th, 2012 - 10am-5pm Bring your wheel and join me in the fiber studio for a day of corespinning. $75 includes lunch. Email Dawn@MadaVemiAlpacas.com for registration or more information. Space is limited.

 

Learn To Dye Fiber

June 2nd,2012 · 10:00am - 4:00pm Join me in the fiber studio for a day to DYE for! $75 per person (includes lunch) You'll learn how to dye yarn, roving and raw fiber using various dyeing methods. Learn how to dye fiber in a crockpot, solar dyeing, rainbow dyeing, and more. Email Dawn@MadaVemiAlpacas.com for registration or more information. Space is limited.

Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival

September 29th-30th, 2012 - 10-6, 10-4 Come enjoy the fiber festival in Berryville, VA. There will be vendors from all over, classes, food, and fun. I'll be teaching a corespinning class on Sunday from 1-4 if you're interested in learning some corespinning techniques. http://www.shenandoahvalleyfiberfestival.com/

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Virginia Fall Fiber Festival

October 6th-7th, 2012 - 10-5,10-4 Join me for this exciting fiber festival in Montpelier Station, VA. I'll be teaching a corespinning class on Sat. http://www.fallfiberfestival.org/

Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival

Oct 26th - 28th 2012-Join us in Ashville, NC for this incredible event! This is one of the largest fiber festivals held on the east coast and Plyed and Dyed will be there selling our products inside the McGough arena on the lower level straight across from the entrance at the far end. http://www.saffsite.org/

Shearing Day April 6th, 2012

The BIG day happens once a year and this year shearing day is scheduled for Friday April 6th. We have a team of 4 guys scheduled to show up first thing in the morning. They move at a fast pace and will most likely be out of here shortly after lunch.

We'll have the alpacas rounded up and waiting for them. All we have to do is hand them a lead line and collect the fleece. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Actually, there's alot of work involved and we can always use the extra hands.

Once the fleece is collected it needs to be bagged and tagged with that animal's name. Ideally, it would be incredibly wonderful if I could get it skirted at that time too. In all these years I've never managed to pull that off but I'll keep dreaming about it. :)

After the bagging, tagging, the fleece is taken to the fiber studio to await further processing. By then all of the alpacas will be naked, enjoying the spring breezes, and we'll be ready for some food. We set up a good buffet for the shearers and guests to pig out on after a hard days work. Most likely the shearers will eat and run because they will have to move on to the next farm on the list and with any luck I'll start skirting the fleeces so they can be washed, dyed, and processed into yarns at a later date.

If you're interested in watching or participating in shearing day please let me know so I can keep a head count for food. You can reach me on Facebook, or through our website http://www.madavemialpacas.com or you can give me a call at 434-770-1972 to let me know you're coming. You can also find me on Ravalry as "PlyedandDyed".

The Blog is On...

To blog or not to blog? That was the question. It's time consuming and basically a PITA unless you have something posted worth reading, right? After quite a bit of thought I decided to begin the blog as a way to reach a broad spectrum of people who were interested in fiber arts. I get alot of calls, emails, and PMs, asking how I did something, what I dyed with, what process I used, etc so I'm hoping if I post some of the things I do using this blog it might help someone else out there. It's also going to be a place I can let people know what's going on here in the fiber studio, where we're going to be if you want to see me in person, and possibly some goodies about the alpacas that hang out here with me.