On Sunday I hosted a workshop organized by Gayle of Pacific Knitting Retreats. The knitters were here to find out what goes into producing a skein of yarn. You know, just like milk doesn’t come from the grocery store, yarn doesn’t come from the yarn store. Where does it come from? How is it made? There is more to know than just that it comes from sheep….the whole world of farming and then moving that fiber through the processing systems that finally bring it to the yarn lover.

I talked the whole time so didn’t get many photos, but here are the few that I did get.

First was a sheep herding demo with Ginny. After that she immediately looked for a place to cool off.

Then we went to the barn where we spent an hour or so looking at sheep, walking in the pasture, and talking about sheep management and fiber production. Jade and the goats are always front and center when there are visitors to welcome.

“You’re not leaving yet, are you?”

Gayle created kits for the knitters using my Timm Ranch yarn with the popular Lineate beanie pattern.

I love the weight and feel of this beanie and what fun it will be to knit! I will have some of these kits listed this month.

Gayle also knit samples using the American Maid cotton that I sell along with the Timm Ranch sport weight yarn. This is a fabulous sample and will lend itself to great projects in the future. Check back for when I have the cotton yarns listed on the website.

I had spent the days prior to the workshop getting ready—mostly cleaning and organizing the shop. But some of the more satisfying tasks were to dye yarn and make buttons. These are the Solano Blend and Timm Ranch yarns dyed with weeping willow leaves (yellow), which needed trimming anyway so that people could see out of the driveway, overdyed with hollyhock (green on left), and hollyhock alone (green in center). All those green yarns sold on Sunday.

I made a new batch of horn buttons. If they weren’t so time consuming to make I’d consider selling them as a kid’s sorting game. It’s satisfying to sort into shapes, colors, and size. I didn’t have time to put these on cards before Sunday’s workshop, but now most of them are on cards and I can put them on the website here and on the Fibershed Marketplace site.

Solano County sunset. I beautiful end to a nice day.