YARNS

I now have an Etsy shop, sheepandshawl.etsy.com and I am also glad to ship to you via email order if you don’t do Etsy or if there’s something you want to buy from the inventory that’s not on Etsy yet!  About half of the store’s yarns are on Etsy.  Email me for yarn quantities and advice:   liz@sheepandshawl.com

While my brick and mortar shop was open supporting Fair Trade and sustainable ecological farming and processing were my goals in purchasing.  I also worked to promote our local farmers who raise fiber animals  – sheep, alpaca, goats, and rabbits  – and fiber artists who hand-spin, mill-spin, and hand-dye to give you luscious yarns to knit with or rovings and fleece to spin your own yarn.  Most of the local yarns I carried were on consignment and went back to the vendors when I closed.  A few I bought as inventory, so those are listed below, along with commercial yarns I carried.

Yarns I carry:  I. Local Yarns, II. Commercial Yarns

I. Local Yarns from New England; or base yarns hand-dyed by artists in New England

CRANBERRY MOON FARM – Border Leicester wool, light worsted 2-ply, and Border Leicester/SIlk Blend, bulky single ply. All undyed.

JAMIE HARMON – Naturally dyed, multi-colored Merino/angora/alpaca blend yarn from Vermont.  I carry heavy worsted weight multi-color skeins (“rainbow yarn”) and DK weight solid colors. Emily’s favorite yarn and great for soft warm mittens!

KANGAROO DYER  – Poets Seat hand-dyed yarn, 50% superwash merino/50% silk in fingering and DK weights. Well-known local artist Gail Callahan from Greenfield, Massachusetts,  creates beautiful colorways when she dyes her yarns.  She teaches classes in dyeing locally, and I also carry her Color Grid cards, useful for all color play  – in your home, your garden, your fiber art. (Yarn is not locally sourced but dyer is!)

II. Commercial Yarns

THE ALPACA YARN COMPANY – Astral, a unique blend of alpaca, tencel, and wool with a sheen; Classic Alpaca Tweed,  a blend of  85% baby alpaca/15% “Donegal” nylon tweed. “We are a small woman-owned business. Our small staff designs all the yarns we sell as well as hand-dye many of them in our small facility in Pennsylvania. The owner has owned alpacas for nearly two decades and can be found at her farm when she’s not at work at the warehouse.”

BLUE SKY FIBERS ( formerly BLUE SKY ALPACA) –  Soft 100% baby alpaca yarns, sport weight, sourced from Peru and Bolivia; luscious organic cotton in worsted weight “light and lofty” and “skinny cotton”  spun with a sleek twist.  “Blue Sky prides itself on sourcing product from sustainable resources, paying a fair wage to its suppliers and being respectful of the earth and the community. … The organic cottons handspun by a Peruvian women’s collective help sustain a centuries-old tradition of eco-friendly cotton cultivation in the region.”

BROWN SHEEP – Brown Sheep Company is a family owned and operated yarn spinning mill, located in Mitchell, Nebraska, founded in 1980.  They buy the majority of their made-in-the-US wool directly from the growers who have a variety of good wool breeds such as Corriedales, Rambouillets, and Columbians.  We carry Burly Spun, Lambs’ Pride Bulky, and Nature Spun Sport.

FIBRA NATURA, Good Earth 53% cotton/47% linen, worsted weight, 179 yds/100g, made in Turkey.

GREEN MOUNTAIN SPINNERY – Mountain Mohair 70% wool/30% mohair, worsted weight; and Alpaca Elegance 50% fine wool/50% alpaca, 2-ply DK weight.  Founded over 20 years ago in Putney, Vermont, the goals of this small spinnery are “to create yarns of the highest quality, to help sustain regional sheep farming, and to develop environmentally sound ways to process natural fibers.” All fibers used are grown in the U.S.  No chemicals to bleach, mothproof or shrinkproof yarns are used.

MANOS DEL URUGUAY – Alegria; Clasica; Silk Blend “tonal” and “space-dyed” ; Fino fingering-sport weight; and Serena.  “Hand-dyed by the artisans of the Manos cooperative ….  [Using this yarn] promotes decent working conditions and fair wages for women in rural Uruguay.”  Celebrated 50 years in 2018!

• Alegria, 75%merino superwash/25% polyamide, 445 yd/100g “sock yarn” also great for sweaters! [The following colors are out of stock: Thistle, Cielo, & Orquidea; but Crema, a natural white is not in the photos is in stock in the store]

  

  1 Teal, 1 Royal left, + 1 Crema (off white)

  

  2 Quilt left

  
  
  • Clasica 100% wool, 138yd/100g handspun, hand-dyed worsted weight

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  • Serena yarn, hand-dyed 60% baby alpaca/40% pima cotton, 170 yd/50g sport/DK weight

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  • Silk Blend, 70% merino/30% silk, 150 yd/50g sport/DK weight, hand dyed, “tonal” and “space-dyed” [Out of stock of 5 multi-colors]
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MOUNTAIN MEADOW WOOL – all inventory NOW ON SALE.  Mountain Meadow Wool Mill opened in 2007 as a women-owned business with the mission of creating a company that sustains Wyoming sheep ranching.  They work with local ranching families for environmental agricultural sustainability and economic opportunity.  They produce 100% natural yarns, using bio-degradable soaps and non-petroleum vegetable based spinning oil;  no chemicals are used to bleach, shrinkproof, or mothproof the yarn;  and yarns are hand-dyed using natural techniques.   Sheep & Shawl is carrying three of their yarns:  Mountain Merino “Dubois” fingering weight, Mountain Merino “Laramie” worsted weight, and  Mountain Merino Mountain Fusion “Teton” bulky weight.  This yarn is a collaboration between Mountain Meadow Wool and Mountain Colors.  [Mountain Colors is a small wholesale yarn company located in Montana’s beautiful Bitterroot Valley.  They produce multi- and solid-color hand-dyed yarns for all fiber artists.]  “Mountain Merino” is a blend of Rambouillet, Cormo, Targhee, Merino, and Columbia breeds.

PEACE FLEECE Sport weight wool, 75% Rambouillet/25% Mohair, made in the US. 

QUINCE & Co. – All Quince yarns we carry are on the Etsy shop, sheepandshawl.etsy.com.  Organic Linen: 1) Sparrow sport weight, 2) Kestrel worsted weight ribbon. Grown in Belgium, spun in Italy.  This is a luxurious linen! Wool:  100% wool in 3) Lark (worsted), 4) Osprey (Aran), 5) Puffin (bulky), and with 50% alpaca in 6) Owl and Owl Tweet (both worsted). 7) Willet is sport/DK weight “California Cleaner Cotton,” a responsibly grown cotton, super soft, and includes four color grown cotton, not dyed, in natural, green, brown, and red colors. 

 

STONEHEDGE FIBER MILL Shepherd’s Wool Merino, worsted weight, made in Michigan.

SWANS ISLAND – Ecowash Organic Merino (all inventory now on sale) in both sport and DK weight. 

SWANS ISLAND – All American Sport Rambouillet wool.  Produced in Maine, this yarn is “handcrafted in small lots using … minimal processing and a low micron count [that] gives our Merino its incredibly soft feel.  The variegation in each skein is unique to the hand-dyeing process.”

SCHOPPEL –  Gradient, a slow color repeat DK weight merino yarn.  Made in Germany.