Hi thereThank you for your interest.  Many of the yarns offered in my shop are commercially produced sock yarn which I acquire in “bare” form and hand dye.  MY favorite supplier is out of Miami and deals in mulesing-free fibers from South American sources.

I own many pounds of gray and white raw corriedale which I got from a 4H homeschool group my kids were involved in.  I have a huge box of russet llama fiber from the llama of a dear friend in Northern IL, as well as many bags of various natural color llama fiber I acquired off a local farmer who advertised her shearings on Craigslist.  And I have about 15 boxes of raw alpaca fiber in varous natural colors, some of it first shearings, which I got from a friend who owned a haul-off business. He cleaned out an estate which had the boxes of fiber in a barn and he didn’t know what to do with them.

I haven’t had time to spin or mess with the fibers since moving (we bought a house the end of Feb).  Corriedale just takes several washings by warm soapy soak and then a couple of cardings, and TADA!  Beautiful fluffy wool that can be spun or dyed and then spun.

Llama or alpaca is moar of a pain, because the animals dust bath.  So it takes several warm soapy soak washings, followed by usually SIX cardings (OMG SO MUCH CARDING I WANNA DIE) to get out all the weed seeds and debris.  The fiber is to die for but not cheap because it’s labor intensive.

For probably 10 years I spun only on a drop spindle, but a couple years ago I got a wheel, which I couldn’t spin 4 inches of yarn on.  A friend of mine (and a long-time spinner) traded me wheels about a year and a half ago.  I can now spin on her wheel.  She had figured mine out but says it’s very finicky, def not for a wheel beginner.  Additionally, 3 of my daughters spin, all 4 knit, 2 of my 3 sons, and my husband knit (or have knitted things).