Hoping everyone is staying healthy and making the best of the enforced quiet time. For those who are able to work from home - don't forget to take regular breaks to stretch if you are sitting at your computers. For those who have been stood down from their jobs, we hope that there are supports both personally and financially available to you in your country.
Our usual annual regional Fibre Festivals and Farm Market Days have been cancelled. This means we are in the process of photographing the skeins normally set aside for these events, in order to make them available here. We have 3 crates of yarn normally earmarked for the Festivals and hope to complete the photography and uploads this week, so watch out for new products.
In the dyehouse, things have been moving along. The impact of #COVID-19 has meant un-packaging and re-rinsing every skein in sanitizer and then re-packaging stock - this has resulted in another 3 days at least to allow the skeins to dry. Gloves and masks are always used during the dye process to keep us safe, but have now been added at every other step of the skein,dyeing and packaging process to keep YOU safe.
From this point on, all newly dyed skeins will be rinsed with sanitizer.
The Indigo Vats have been fermenting nicely, so this week has been Indigo blues week.
Logwood and Alkanet are currently in the process of being extracted and should be ready to go in the dyepots by next Monday - so next week will be gorgeous blues and purples.
We are working on more two-toned yarns in 5 ply Merino as these seem to be popular for socks and scarves.
There have been delays in posting as the line at the Post Office can be quite long and at times they have run out of postage satchels. We got lucky this week and managed to grab some!
Sadly, we haven't been able to get to Christan Farm to check our sheep as there are roadblocks prohibiting travel between regions. Luckily Chris and Stan have been keeping us posted on how Rosie, Ziggy and Bowie are doing. Sadly we lost our 'matriarch' Winnie to snakebite, and her lamb to a fox, so we are now down to one ewe and 2 wethers. Because of the uncertainty around COVID-19, a decision was made not to breed Rosie this year. This has been the case for many small, specialised fibre farmers as lambing season demands all hands to be on deck and in full health.
Luckily we had a great wool clip from last season and have plenty of coloured, soft, Corriedale fleece which is in the process of being cleaned and carded- ready for felting or spinning!
