NY Sheep and Wool Festival: Report from Rhinebeck

Amber and I just returned from a long weekend in upstate New York where we went to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival which is commonly referred to in knitting circles as Rhinebeck. It was our first time attending and it was amazing. Rhinebeck is a wool festival similar to our Estes Park Wool Market--only times 1,000. There were so many people and so many booths of amazing things to buy! We were a little overwhelmed at first, but we got the hang of it after a bit and managed to find some things that we couldn't leave without.

HOLY SMOKES!

Nice work, nature.

We stayed with the lovely ladies of Kelbourne Woolens in a house in the Hudson Valley. What a beautiful fall setting for a wool festival! We spent a lot of time knitting at the house when we weren't buying fiber and yarn at Rhinebeck.

There were so many vendors selling local yarns, rovings and fibers. Amber and I had recently spun through our stash of roving so it was a free-for-all for us to buy more! We both picked up a sweater's quantity of longwool roving to spin-up during next year's Spinzilla.

Amber's roving purchase matches her Apple Cider doughnut perfectly

Longwool roving was seen and purchased

Loop had beautiful batts and art yarn

Outlander Adventures' Icelandic yarn Poetry mittens

There were plenty of sheep, alpacas, goats and llamas as well! We love seeing all the different breeds of sheep. Icelandic, Shetlands, Border Leicesters, Cotswold - all the sheep were in attendance!

Merlin the Leicester Longwool

Sheep Parade!

Icelandic Sheep Baby

An adorable Teeswater

Llama parade!

Ysolda Teague had some exciting news at Rhinebeck - the release of a new book "The Rhinebeck Sweater"! She was doing book signings for pre-sales of the book which will officially be released on November 6th. We have it on order and can tell you already that it is an amazing book, everything you'd expect from Ysolda with 12 gorgeous sweater patterns by amazing designers.

The best part about Rhinebeck was seeing and hanging out with so many awesome people! Ysolda, Cal Patch, Jill Draper, Maryjane Mucklestone, Ravelry, Sonya Phillip and more were in attendance and we loved meeting up with peeps for hot cocoa and doughnut breaks.

Sonya Phillip and Allison Page show off their Empire yarn from Jill Draper

Cal Patch and Jill Draper help us display all of our purchases!

Til next year, Rhinebeck - it was awesome!

Lucky Cat Crafts: Rare & Unusual Fibers are here!

Handspinners, you won't believe your hands when you feel Lucky Cat Crafts' unusual and amazing fiber blends!

polworth/mugasilk  |  yak/angora  |  camel/mugasilk/yak  |  merino/mugasilk/yak |  merino/mulberrysilk/possum

Kim, the adorable lady behind Lucky Cat Crafts, has these fantastical fiber blends specially milled in small batches.

We love the warm smoky palette of colors she has created by blending unique undyed fibers in soft greys and browns.

Below is a handspun yarn made with Lucky Cat Yak/Angora, a blend of two downy fibers that are so fluffy soft and ethereal, it almost feels like you are touching sunshine.

Lucky Cat Crafts' fibers are a dream to work with! They are perfect for a special project and extra soft against sensitive skin. We hope you love them as much as we do!

Sweet Georgia Yarn and Roving!

We are thrilled to welcome Sweet Georgia yarns and rovings to our line-up of inspiring craft supplies! Sweet Georgia is the company of Felicia Lo out of Vancouver, Canada. Felicia hand-dyes all of the fiber and yarn using bold and saturated colors - of course, we love them.

BFL sock is a lovely sock yarn made up of 80% Blue Faced Leicester wool and 20% nylon. The Blue Faced Leicester makes for a super soft yarn and the nylon adds strength. We have BFL sock in 18 semi-solid colors...perfect for our Laurelhurst KAL!

We also have hand-dyed roving braids! These 4 oz beauties feature tonal colors on a superwash merino base. We can't wait to see what you spin up!

New Pico Accuardi Heritage Breed Roving--Naturally Dyed!

Pico Accuardi kettle dyed roving is here! Based in Portland, Oregon, Pico Accuardi is a dye company you may know of from their amazing sock yarns. Jaime knit her fabulous Daybreak from their naturally coffee dyed Stumptown colorway. We love their inspired dye combinations and were thrilled to discover that they are naturally dyeing heritage breed wools for spinners.

The Fiber Exploration Kit is a great way to get familiar with the variety and texture of different wools. In the kit you receive naturally dyed fiber from Masham, Polworth, Wensleydale, Gotland, Corriedale, Shetland, Falkland, Finn and Blue Faced Leicester. It is amazing how different breeds of wool can be so different! Silky or springy, soft or wiry, these wools are a rainbow of colors and great for needlefelting or spinning.

The various heritage breed wools also come in four ounce braids. These are great for hand spinning and wet felting. There is enough here to finish an entire project such as a hat or scarf.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, the sheep:

Falkland, Gotland, Wensleydale | Blue-Faced Leicester, Shetland, Corriedale | Polworth, Finn, Masham

Craftastic Halloween Project: Woolly Monster Felts

Get ready for spooky Halloween fun with these felt monster heads! Here's how:

Materials
wool roving in lots of colors
felting needles

Optional
water
soap
Futte Futte felt ball maker

Start by making a felt ball. We like to make a bunch of them before the decorating fun begins by using the Japanese Futte Futte wet felt ball maker. You can also make felt balls by rolling the wool roving between your palms with some warm soapy water, or by needle felting them. You can make them uniform in color or mix a couple of colors together for a crazy monster. If the balls are mis-shapen or have weird wool dreads hanging off of them, that's okay - imperfections just make scarier monsters.


Once you have made lots of wool balls the fun can begin. At this point you may want to invite your friends over for a monster making party. Use your felting needle to add tiny bits of contrasting wool for your monster's eyes, mouth, hair, fangs and/or drool. Just place the wool on your monster head and poke it in about a 1/4" to 1/2" deep holding the needle at a 90 degree angle to your monster ball. You can roll the roving up into a fuzz ball between your fingers first to bring it together and make it easier to felt. Use the needle to poke and shape your fuzz ball into an open mouth, wacky eye, or tiny tooth.


Pin a monster to your lapel, make one for your most ghoulish friend, or put several on sticks and start a monster puppet theater! Wool monster-making is fun for kids and adults alike on a dark, spooky evening.


Happy felting!

New! Imperial Stock Ranch Yarn and Roving!

One of our favorite things about having a craft store is supporting small companies that we believe in. Imperial Stock Ranch is an amazing historical ranch out of Oregon that has been in operation since 1852. They boast sound, sustainable practices for both their meat and fiber production. They raise Columbia sheep and mill the fiber themselves without harsh chemicals or extreme temperatures.

We are excited to offer the Imperial Stock Ranch Sliver Roving which is a springy wool in amazing heathered colors. Hand-spinners, this is an amazing wool to work with and drafts like a dream!


We are also carrying their very unique pencil roving. Pencil roving is an unspun bulky weight fiber that can be used to knit or crochet. This is the closest American-made version of the traditional un-spun Lopi wool from Iceland so we can hardly wait to get knitting with it!


Imperial Stock Ranch is located in Shaniko, Oregon. They shared with us photos of their beautiful ranch, Columbia sheep and their Maremma guard dogs. Here is Babe and Bruno proudly watching over their huge flock. Did you know Columbia sheep are an American made breed?


Imperial Stock Ranch has gorgeous patterns designed by Leigh Radford for the pencil roving so you can dive right in with these inspiring projects.



The Heirloom Throw is my favorite and I will start just as soon as I can decide on a color!

New! Crooked Fence Alpaca Roving and Mill-Spun Yarns!

We're in love with the new Crooked Fence Alpaca roving and mill-spun yarns!


These cutie-pie alpacas from a few small farms in Utah make the softest, warmest fiber. Alpaca fleece comes in tons of natural colors--white, beige, silver, rose-grey, charcoal, chocolate, natural black and everything inbetween. Crooked Fence then mills them into endless natural color combinations for tweedy and barber-pole style handspinning.


If you aren't ready for handspinning we also have alpaca yarns from Crooked Fence. These chunky, mill-spun, super soft yarns have the look of a beautiful handspun but are made in a small, local mill owned by the farmers, where they and other small alpaca farmers bring their fleeces to be processed into roving and yarn. They are so special and lovely!


And now, here is a cute baby alpaca for your viewing pleasure.


...or is she a baby unicorn?

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.

Spinning and Felting Supplies Galore!

We've been hard at work on our upstairs spinning and felting room. We have tons of new fibers: merino, silk, mohair, alpaca, bamboo, sparkles, locks and more!


We have the softest Merino wool in tons of luscious colors for spinning into the buttery soft handspun yarns. We have every imaginable color of Corriedale wool--great for felting.


Our new one of a kind batts are fluffy and sparkly and super fun to spin into one of a kind yarns. We make them here at Fancy Tiger and put a lot of love into each one.

Tweedy Goodness!

We just received a box full of Peace Fleece tweed wool roving for spinning and felting. I'm in love with tweed! I'm currently daydreaming about spinning tweedy yarns and then perhaps taking a little break to needle felt a growling grizzly bear wearing an adorable tweed sweater. Check out how luscious it is! How can I choose between colors like Blueberry Borscht and Kamchatka Sea Moss?



We also have tons of Peace Fleece's tweedy yarn in the shop for all of our knitters and crocheters!