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June 29, 2010 07:08:00
Posted By Pagewood Farm
We have a family in Inglewood, California, that has been instrumental in the growth and success of Pagewood Farm. In addition to being great friends, they skein our yarns from the mill cones to production skeins. After Robin dyes them, they skein and label our finished skeins. In addition to skeining, Consolacion (the mother) loves to iron the silk scarves for our needle felted silk scarf kits. Veronica (her daughter-in-law) has her own picker to make up the mohair Tinkerbelle puffs.   When daughter Jackie moved home, she started up on processing.

It was natural that when we developed our Flora yarn (Thick N Thin hand spun yarn with small flowers needle felted onto it) we offer the needle felting portion to them. The ladies love it. After all: they are getting paid to do a crafting project that many do for relaxation and pleasure. Several times, I have stopped off at their Inglewood house and found the ladies soaking up the sun in the backyard, chatting, watching the children play, and needlefelting. And one day…….I saw this:

trino

This was not staged. It was Trino (the father) taking a break to help out with the Flora. I took this picture and we all had a great laugh about posting it on our blog. But, there was nothing funny about the quality of the yarn he was making. It was good.
‘Cause guys can do it too.
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Categories: About our products, Humor, New products, Needle Felting Kits, New products U-knitted Nations
 
June 29, 2010 06:33:43
Posted By Pagewood Farm

I don’t know if I ever told you how I became so knowledgeable on fiber topics.  Pagewood Farm started as Robin’s knitting hobby. She would buy yarn and knit the yarn. Like many knitters, she became bored with the milled yarn that was available and found hand spun yarn. That was pricey! So, she bought a spinning wheel and took spinning lessons. So, she would buy hand dyed roving and spin it. And that was pricey! So, she started buying undyed roving and hand dyeing it herself. On her 4th or 5th addition to her spinning wheel collection, that became pricey!
She sold her extras on e-bay and on business trips or vacations, she would stop off and sell to yarn shops. Hand spun yarn led to hand dyed mill spun yarn and we have Pagewood Farm.
But, that’s not my blog topic. While a hobby, she would drag me to all of these fiber shows. The one thing that they had in common was that after a couple of hours, I would be bored. The other thing they had in common was that the vendors sold nothing that interested me. One show, the spending urge overtook me and I bought a drop spindle. Now I had something to do while Robin was taking in the various yarns. That was back when I was a big biker looking guy, so it made quite an impression on people watching me drop spin.
Robin used to treat my work like an indulgent mother of a toddler. As if to say “let’s put it up on the refridgerator, honey.” She didn’t seem to think much of drop spindling. It wasn’t real spinning like on a wheel. Too slow and she didn’t know how to do it. I would eye her spinning wheel and try it when she was gone. I finally taught myself to spin and when I am practiced up, I can spin a very good product.
So, when Grace, at Wildfiber in Santa Monica, California, started using a drop spindle I was there to help her. Whlle on the road trip to Sock Summit,  I would give her pointers, constructive criticism, and ways to improve her technique. So, when Wildfiber wanted to give a drop spindle class, who did they call? I agreed to it. And then I realized that I hadn’t touched a drop spindle since Pagewood Farm got busy. Could I have forgotten how to ride a bike?
Nope. I practiced up to and from TNNA; got it solidified in my mind how to communicate what I knew;  and reviewed a couple of websites and videos to make sure that my self-taught methods weren’t off the mark. And they weren’t. The class went well. The students seemed pleased. And I return for the second half in two weeks.
So, guys can do it. And I’m not the only one.
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Categories: Mohair, About our products, Humor, Needle Felting Kits, New products U-knitted Nations
 
June 24, 2010 06:05:15
Posted By Pagewood Farm

Sorry for the delays in getting more TNNA postings.  We have been really busy getting TNNA orders shipped.  My blog entries are the first to go when I am short of time.

We had a lot of visitors.  Unfortunately, many were placing orders and our booth was so hectic that I didn't even think of taking pictures.

One of our visitors was Jean from Bag Smith.  They are using our Hand Spun Bouquet for a purse.  It was in a knitting magazine recently.  Jean came by to show us some other projects they have using Hand Spun Bouquet.

Jean1

Above, here she is in a cute knit hat in the Black colorway of Hand Spun Bouquet.

Below, she came by in a lovely shawl.

Jean2

Notice how she focused all the flowers in one spot.  The felted flowers of the Hand Spun Bouquet can be moved on the yarn to spread them out or to get them all together.

Also stopping by the booth were the wonderful ladies from Ravelry.  They had lots of events.  It's great to see the growth of that website.  I'll even admit that I follow some of the posts;-)  Here they are with Robin.

ravelry

We had some great samples of things made with our yarns.  Below is a beautiful shrug using our Hand Spun Bouquet in the Orchid colorway on the sleeves.

sample1

Next, we have a fantastic purse made from Hand Spun Bouquet.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  It looks way better in person.

sample2

And finally, we have a couple of items made from our newest product: U-Knitted Nations - Fuzzy Purls.  Fuzzy Purls are a hand spun thick and thin yarn with synthetic fur tufts attached.  It is a great new product from Pagewood Farm.  Below we have a sweater using Fuzzy Purls in Black with Gray as an accent.  With it on the hanger is a thin scarf (or boa) knit from Black with Black.  When naming the Fuzzy Purls, we decided that the easiest way to do it was to name the base yarn (Black, Brown, Natural) and the color of the tufts.  As in Black with Black; Black with Gray; Natural with Cream; Natural with Brown; Brown with Light Brown; Brown with Medium Brown; Brown with Fox; and Brown with Leopard.

sample3

Coming soon: what other colors could be used for the synthetic tufts????? 

Use your imagination.  We are.
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Categories: About our products, TNNA, New products U-knitted Nations
 
June 20, 2010 07:47:33
Posted By Pagewood Farm





I left off with photos of the booth.  Here are some more.

booth6

On this left grid wall, you can see an assortment of our new Fuzzy Purls.  70 yards of hand spun yarn with synthetic fur tufts.  Check out our FaceBook advertising page for all the colors.  Farther right on this grid wall you can see our Giant Purls, 70 yards of hand spun yarn with felted balls on them.  They are available in Natural or any of 15 dyed colorways.  Straight up the edge of the grid wall you can see a shrug in the colorway "grasshopper".

Below is another view of this same grid wall.

booth5

This has a better view of the shrug (Robin even needle felted some mohair onto it).  On the right edge of the grid wall, you can see our Needle Felted Silk Scarf Kit sample (in blue), a sample of our new "Child's Needle Felted Silk Scarf Kit (pink) and our Chiffon Silk Needle Felting Kit (navy blue).

Below, during one of our rare slow moments, you can see the various colors of Hand Spun Bouquet that we had on display.

booth

Of special interest is the white purse in the upper left portion of the photo.  Above the black boa and beside the black scarf.  We weren't going to use this pattern when it was first submitted.  The photo didn't do the purse justice.  When we saw it, we fell in love with it.  It will be available for purchase in shops carrying Pagewood Farm Hand Spun Bouquet.  But, you don't have to buy a pattern to knit with Hand Spun Bouquet.  We have 4 free patterns that we give to retailers ordering Hand Spun Bouquet.  They have our permission to copy them and give them to their customers who purchase Hand Spun Bouquet.

booth4

booth3

Here is more of our Hand Spun Bouquet.

Coming next blog:  Some visitors to our booth.
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Categories: Events, About our products, New products, TNNA, New products U-knitted Nations
 
June 16, 2010 07:06:16
Posted By Pagewood Farm



This is my first year going to TNNA in Columbus.  I have been going to the west coast shows.  Normally I stay home and mind the "farm".  But this year we have Cis Mezin (formerly of 3 Kittens in Minn.) and we felt comfortable with Robin and I both there.

One thing that we had to deal with were the "Pink Dogs."  They usually stay  home with me.  We found a lady that boarded dogs at her home and it looked like a good fit.  Unfortunately, nobody told Jolene that she wasn't going.

jolene packed

To ensure that we would have someone there to put up the booth (in case of travel issues) we decided to go separately.  I left Wednesday.  Robin left Thursday.  That gave me a Thursday alone in Columbus.  I put it to good use by playing in the first annual TNNA golf tournament.  I came in second.  The other guy came in first.  I think we need to work on attendance!  We had a great time playing at Bent Tree.

Friday came and it was time to put up the booth.  Robin and I  had some help from our two "roadies."

roadies

You may know them as Cia Bullemer (left), our Southern California sales rep and Grace Akhrem (right) one of our designers (and participant in the Sock Summit Road Trip).  They worked really hard to get this booth together.  We also had some fantastic help from Debra, the owner of Yarning for You in San Marcos, California. 

The booth was a gorgeous array of colors.

booth8

Robin took this photo which shows the grid wall with the Hand Spun Bouquet.  It was a big seller and the LYS owners loved it.  Look for it soon in your city.  You can see some samples of the pattern support we have.  To the left of the Pagewood sign is a sample of the FREE scarf pattern and to the left of that is a sample of the FREE boa (Crochet) pattern.  Left of that are some patterns for our hand dyed yarn and nestled on the floor is our hand spun roving (check it out spinners).

booth7

This section was a new product debut for this show.  We call it Flora.  We took our Thick N Thin yarn (the base yarn for the Hand Spun Bouquet)  and needle felted mohair flowers onto it(similar concept to the hand spun bouquet).  They were very popular.

For those of you that want to create their own Flora, we have kits which contain all the materials.  Just add creativity and a Clover needle felting tool and mat.

booth2

Here's the back of the package showing the contents.

booth1

I've got more  (much more) to share with you this week.
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Categories: creations, Events, About our products, New products, TNNA, Needle Felting Kits, Pink Dogs, New products U-knitted Nations