My order from the Sheep Shed Studio came in today! (First of all, WOW is that ever fast shipping, I ordered it on Thursday and it came all the way from Wyoming... thanks Priority Mail!)

The first thing when I opened the box was this roving. It's a little "sample", about 1 oz of fibre. I've heard that Carol always includes a little "gift" with orders. Looking at the website, it looks like a mill end from the "Blacks" category.



I love the texture of it. It's a little coarse, and the fibers have a slight crimp to them. They tend to stick together rather than pulling apart easily. It will probably need a little pre-drafting before I spin it.

Now for the real treat...


That's two whole pounds of white roving, exploding out of that teeny little box. It came sealed up in a bag, so I didn't have to worry about damaging the fiber as I cut the box open. It must have been vacuum-packed, because it sprung to life immediately when I opened the box. Luckily I'm working with this right away and won't have to worry about packing it back in!

The roving is soft, cloudlike, and luxurious. I've read that sometimes the Sheep Shed rovings have a little bit of pink-tinted mohair in them, but this lot doesn't appear to have any. Whether you get some or not is all luck of the draw, a nice surprise in my opinion. I picked a few fibers out and they appear to be mostly uncrimped, with an average staple length between 1 and 3 inches.

So what's all this for?


A scarf. I nidding one.

Today I'm talking about The Sheep Shed Studio, a company located in Wyoming.

The Sheep Shed team buys unspun fiber from Brown Sheep and processes it to re-sell. They offer mill ends (imperfect rowing requiring a little more work by the spinner) and "grab bags" of fiber (smaller pieces of roving, batts, etc), as well as regular high-quality rovings.

The mill ends come sorted by color, "brown tones", "black tones", "blue tones", or "Whites". You order by the pound.

The rovings come in a wide assortment of colors, and Carol also hand-dyes some of the rovings into beautiful variegated colorways. These cost a little more, but are worth it if you don't know how to dye yourself and still want a gorgeous, hand-painted yarn.

I placed an order for two pounds of white mill ends (only $25 including postage/handling!) yesterday morning, and received a confirmation by 8 PM, saying that my order is going to be packaged and shipped by Monday. So far I'm very impressed by the professionalism and quality of service.

I'll give you another update when I get my order!

One of my readers pointed out a problem in my Elephant Tea Cozy pattern. I have fixed the pattern, but if you downloaded it before today (March 18, 2008), please make the following changes: