Piper from Quince&Co is here!

Quince&Co has done it again! Staying true to Quince&Co's mission to make yarns from American fibers in American mills they have found an angora goat farm to source their fiber from out of Texas.

Piper is their newest yarn which is almost lace weight bringing you this beautiful palette of 50% texas super kid mohair and 50% texas superfine merino. This mohair is soft and subtle giving you a dreamy halo. 

Quince&Co made a special trip to check out their goats! Read all about it on their blog. We are such suckers for adorable angora goats! 

Come see for yourself the lovely finish on this yarn. Yay for Piper! 

Estes Park Wool Market: Cutie-pie roundup!

Last weekend we went up to Estes Park for the annual wool festival. We love this local event--especially  because we get to meet and cuddle so many kinds of adorable fiber animal!

For your browsing pleasure, here are some of our new best friends:

Shy mohair goat babies

Curious and friendly cashmere goat

Jaime almost came home with Blaire, the American Fuzzy Lop.

Desperate to cuddle baby Shetlands.

Peg and Doc Adams, her cuddliest Shetland lamb.

Primitive breeds show, featuring Jacob sheep and Shetland Sheep

Sheep faces galore!

Gang O' Sheep

Wendsleydale shearing--Before...and after

Naptime in the goat tent! Baby angora and cashmere goats are passed out!

Happy alpaca

New Yarns from Habu Textiles + A Knitted Nest for Your Airplants!

Adorable yarns from Habu Textiles have arrived! Habu is known for their irresistible brown paper wrapped bundles and cones of yarn. These yarns knit up to create fashion forward textures using intriguing fibers--papery yarns from linen and cotton, raw silk, super fine brushed mohair...

These little guys are raw silk wrapped linen ribbon, crisp and light and like nothing else! We imagine light flowing tanks for spring.

The new Knitted Nests pattern from Coco Knits is a sublime way to use some of these lovely yarns. We picked up several super-cute air plants from Ironwood just down the street and knit up a little nest for each one.

The Cotton Linen Paper Moire yarn we used for this little nest has a confetti texture--little wisps of linen paper are caught between a fine cotton core.

Habu's lace kid mohair is super fine, for delicate knitting that seems lighter than air. It has 311 yards in this cute bundle, so this tiny package goes much further than you would guess!

This Printed Cotton "Gima" (Japanese translation: fake linen) is crisp like linen but made from 100% cotton. It is a fine ribbon yarn and with an organic printed pattern which adds to the fun texture.

Another cotton linen paper moire yarn, this all-natural yarn is a wilder version of the yarn we used for our knitted nest sample!

We hope you love these amazing yarns as much as we do!

Better Know A Crafter: Chase Gray

Chase is an extraordinary knitter and is also one of our dearest friends. She has been inspiring us for years with epic projects. When we first met her she was knitting a pair of thigh-high black stockings with eyelet detailing and she is currently working on an intricately cabled afghan! We love her lacy kid mohair shawl and are honored to feature this sweet lady on our blog.

Chase Gray

Tell us about yourself and what makes you craft.

I am a nurse and I am dedicated to transforming healthcare in America. I spend my craft time mostly knitting and wet felting. For me there is serenity in creation.

Tell us about this beautiful lace shawl.
This is the Haruni knit lace shawl by Emily Ross. For those of you that are not familiar with Quenya (Tolkien’s elven language) Haruni means grandmother. A good friend had made this shawl and I was blown away with its intricate beauty and delicacy…but once I read about how Ms. Ross had come up with the name I was sold. The shawl was put together with Wagtail Mohair in Dark Olive. This was my first lace project and my recovery from lace will be few years as it induced tears and tear outs regularly.

When did you learn to knit? 

When I was preparing to go into the Peace Corps everything I read said I needed a hobby so I taught myself how to knit. I ended up in Central Asia for those two years and they do amazing felt work throughout the region. I was inspired to begin doing my own once I had returned home.

What is your favorite animal?
The one that shares its horns or antlers and hide with me.

Thanks Chase! Happy knitting and felting!

Shiny New Yarns Are Here!

We just received a big box of the shiniest yarns we've seen in a while. We aren't talking glitter, we are talking the natural shiny sheen of silk, mohair and pima cotton.


Here is Cascade's brand new Kid Seta. It is much softer than the previous version of their yarn by the same name, and has a beautiful silk that lights up and shines inside the halo of soft kid mohair. We're dreaming of light, airy shawl for cool spring evenings.


Also just in is Ultra Pima Cotton by Cascade. This is the softest and shiniest cotton yarn ever! Perfect for light summer cardigans, shiny totes and washable baby items.


If you're looking for fun spring-timey yarns, look no further. This spring is all about bright beautiful colors and shine!

New! Ozark Handspun Yarn!

We were shivering with delight when the UPS man delivered a giant box of Ozark Handspun today! Each skein is a one-of-a-kind, silky soft, textural delight of hand-dyed kid mohair locks and wool embellished with a healthy dose of sparkles.


Adorable!

Crafty Gift Guide: For the Crafty Knitter!

Welcome to the Fancy Tiger Crafts Holiday Gift Guide! It's time to get a little something special for the crafty folks in your life, so all week we will feature some of our favorite things--some of the coveted craft supplies in the store that we dream about every day.

Today is all about the knitters!


Fancy Tiger Project Bags are great for the knitter on the go. Made from some of the cute fabrics that we carry on the sewing side of the store, they are ready to keep a work in progress tidy and portable. Clip it to a belt loop and a very coordinated knitter can even work on their project while on their morning walk. Just make sure to look both ways before crossing the street.

Fancy Tiger Wool Wash is made in small batches right here in Denver by our favorite herbalist, Tonja Reichley of Moondance Botanicals. Our wool wash is made with all natural ingredients and essential oils and is gentle enough for the most delicate handknits. Fancy Blend is sweet and floral, with essential oils of lavender, sweet orange and tea tree. Tiger Blend is spicy and citrusy, with essential oils of coriander, ylang ylang, amyris and lemon.

Letterpress gift tags with sheep and yarn are an adorable addition to your gift!

The Addi Clicks interchangeable needle set is perhaps the knitter's most wanted item in the store. Smooth and reliable joins, flexible cords and the classic sleek Addi Turbo needles make this the hottest interchangeable set around.


Made exclusively for Fancy Tiger Crafts, these hand forged copper penannulars are made from reclaimed copper wire. It makes a simple and beautiful pin for a hand knit shawl. The penannular, also known as a cloak pin or kilt pin, is one of history's oldest fastening devices!

Wagtail Mohair is one of our most special yarns. The mohair comes from a single herd of angora goats on a family-run farm in Queensland, Australia. The mohair is sheared, washed, dyed, and spun into the most lustrous yarn we've ever seen by Kevin, Betty and Gaylene.

Check back soon for more gift ideas!

Estes Park Wool Festival 2009

Jaime and I had a super fantastic time in Estes Park last weekend at the Wool Festival! We were real excited about cuddling with all the adorable animals and checking out all the locally produced goods.

The Angora rabbits were first on our cuddle list. They were irresistible! We ended up buying a few bags of fairy-soft angora fluff from Woodlake Woolies. We hope to bring some of their angora fiber into our fiber loft soon!

Next stop--cute goats! Or could they be baby unicorns? Look at how pastoral they are with their curly locks and magical baby faces!

The highlight of the trip was being reunited with our favorite lamb, Diamond Lil. First we had to fight our way through crowds of her admirers.

We were lucky enough to be asked by our friends Peg and Woody to lamb-sit Diamond Lil' while they showed their Shetlands. Lil' was getting really sleepy in our laps watching the show. She was a little bigger, but she was still the smallest, cuddliest lamb in the barn!

We were super excited about the presence of Gotland sheep at this year's wool market. Gotlands are an ancient Swedish breed of sheep who were made famous by the Lord of the Rings films - it was Gotland wool that was used to make all of the Elvin invisibility cloaks. There are very few Gotlands here in the US (mostly they live in New Zealand today) so we were super-lucky to meet them. They were so pretty with their lustrous grey locks! Jaime and I acquired some sweet Oregon-made Gotland yarn and Jaime is already planning her invisibility cloak-lette. We hope to stock some Gotland yarn and roving soon for all of your Elvin needs. Nerd alert!

Here are some other highlights from the animal side of the festival - from top left moving clockwise: a Jacob sheep with totally sweet horns, a sleepy Wensleydale sheep, the leaping llama competition, a close up of Diamond Lil's adorable wool, the craziness of showing 7 Shetland lambs, and a freaked out Wensleydale!

Of course we had to visit the vendor barn - this is where you can buy everything from a whole fleece to hand-carved drop spindles. One of our favorite booths at the wool fest is Stephania's naturally hand-dyed rovings and yarns. Jaime had a tough time deciding, but ended up choosing a really pretty madder and tesu flower dyed corriedale.

Thanks Estes! We've got our fiber fix for the summer!

New! Pagewood Farms Hand-dyed Roving & Locks

For all the spinners and felters--we now have hand-dyed rovings and mohair locks from Pagewood Farms! The hand-dyed merino roving is super soft and comes in lovely kettletastic hues.


The mohair locks with their super cute little curls are so shiny and silky, perfect for needlefelted horsey manes or luscious shine and texture in handspun yarns.

Norwood Fiber Farm Trip (Pt 2): Walkabout Ranch

The first fiber farm we visited in Norwood was Walkabout Ranch, where it was shearing day for the Angora goats. Our friends Jeannie and Howard Davis keep the adorable, friendly goats for their soft mohair fiber.

The little guys were very curious. The bravest goat of the herd became friends with Jaime, and shared a goat kiss with her.

The unsheared goats were really interested in what was going on in the barn, where shearing time was happening.

The shearer, Sunny, specializes in shearing small flocks of fiber animals. He is known in Colorado and surrounding states for his care while shearing the animals.

The ranch is also home to Cara, an Anatolian Shepherd who lives with and guards the goats. Cara was separated from her herd while they were getting sheared. She watched and worried while she couldn't be with them.

This is Cara when she got her herd back. She was literally jumping for joy.

Jeannie and Howard also raise buckskin Tennessee Walking horses. When the last goat had been sheared and the clippers had been turned off the horses decided it was safe to come back from the pasture.

They were the sweetest horses I've ever met. I got so much horse nuzzling action, it was out of control. This is Buddy and little Sheila giving me soft horse kisses.

Stay tuned for part 3, our trip to see alpaca and Shetland lambs at Piñon Wood Ranch. It gets even cuter!

Norwood Fiber Farm Trip (Part 3) Shetland Lambs and Alpaca

Norwood Fiber Farm Trip (Part 1) Buckhorn Gardens