Happy holidays and a Big Thank you !

 

It’s all about….well… happiness and gratitude in this blog. In between all the chaos, mayhem, wars (yes, plural heartbreak) and all the hard times, there is always something..some little thing..some infinitesimal, tiny thing that can make us smile. 
At this moment for me, even though I’m in pain and have to admit I can hardly walk, I am cracking jokes (a fab coping mechanism I know..lol), but I am also super inspired by the amazing beauty all around me and the amazing support I have received from all of you. I’m filled with gratitude and love and thank each and every one of you for showing so much love for our little fibre universe. Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought this would happen in the twenty years I have been dyeing, spinning and making all this fluffy stuff. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that my passion for bunnies and fluff and wool and spinning and knitting, crocheting, felting, weaving and dyeing would ever make it possible to do it for “a living” as they say.

From when I was 3 I wanted nothing else than to draw, paint and create. My parents however, being very accomplished artists enamalists (meaning creating true enamel as in molten glass on copper or gold or silver, not that plastic sh$te…everybody nowadays sell as being enamel..lol) wanted a “better” future for me so they wanted me to become a lawyer (tried that, but I’m unfortunately not confrontational enough) or a doctor (halfway there with my medical anthropology but they probably would have liked it more if it was plastic surgery…lol)..Anyway, it’s really funny that somehow, I was stubborn enough and weird enough? To somehow got my wish anyway: making a (nearly…lol) living wage creating colourful fluffy, wonderful, weird and lovely stuff for other creators to make their own dreams and visions come true. Life is strange and amazing and you can never, ever tell what is going to happen in real life. So, if you cannot predict anything, why not do what makes you happy?! Be kind to yourself and be kind to others.

For me this week has been family catch ups and making lots and lots of batts (I wasn’t kidding when I told you all to go batty, coz you did! Thank you so, so much).

 

I hope for this holiday season you will all get some time to be happy with what you are doing, what you have created and the friendship powering all of that. I am so grateful to have  this fibre, yarn and lovely community! I want to thank you with all my heart to be so supportive and amazing! To show so much love and understanding ! And, to be there even when times are tough  and my body is giving out or my brain is gIrving me  hard time, telling me it’s never enough. We are all enough as long as we care for others and …for ourselves.

With the last of the clubs of the year done and shipped on December 1st, it was time to get a compilation done to give you an overview of all the art journey clubs of 2023:

 

 

 

 

 The sign ups for the 2024 clubs are open now until December 30th (or until the spots fill up ! ) you find all the club information for the fibre, yarn and batt clubs here:  https://ixchel.com.au/collections/clubs

There’s no new product update for this Friday, but the IxCHeL shop is open and we will be shipping when Australia Post office hours permit constantly. I will not be dyeing for two weeks, but after that it will be full for pre ahead for new colorways, new yarns!, new fibres and new lots of things, fluffy things in 2024!  

We are not going away on a world wide cruise, plane ride or adventurous Indiana jones-like holidays, we are just taking it a bit easier..slower..breathing..aligning our bodies and minds and trying to get all energised to face the new year again. 

Have a wonderful holiday, however way you celebrate it. 
Be you!

Love who you are !

Do what you love and do it often!

Big hugs

Charly

 

 

Still hopping! And a big thank you !

 

It’s that time of year where I am looking forward to having a little breather, take up my knitting and spinning, and create new adventures for the new year! All this year’s art journey club productions are dyed, shipped and done (more on that later next week), major shop updates for this year are nearing their end with tonight Friday, December 15th being the last blog and fresh product update for this year AND the twelve days of Christmas event is over, shipped and a big donation has been taken care of ♥️

Thanks to all of you who have enthusiastically shown their support for the yearly IxCHeL 12 days of Christmas fundraiser event, we have been able to donate a pretty  substantial amount and even a bit more than last year ! I am so super grateful to you all ! Thank you💕

 You are all AMAZING !

Now, what to do now? After all the hectic excitement??!! And…ALL the Christmas parcel packing of all the orders! 🎁

It’s time to breathe and take stock (Paul is  doing that literally atm) before Some major baking, relaxing, spinning, reading and knitting time off.  Mind you, with the website being there and automated as it is, we decided to keep the shop open. I mean, yarn and fibres and spindles are essential products right? 😉 plus, since we are not exactly going on a holiday anywhere like on a tropical island being brought fancy cocktails with little umbrellas  in them, we might as well be there for all of our super loyal people who have shown us so much support during the last years. We love you all ♥️

There may be some delays shipping when you order now until New year, but that will not be because we are lounging about, but because post offices will close on certain days during the holiday period and Australia Post is not known for its …ahem… super expedient, super sonic shipping times. If you have any questions, requests or anything else on your mind, we want you to know we are here for you, so send us an email or a message on our social media and we’ll do our best to help and enable.

A word of warning: I will not be dyeing every day during our Holiday “break” and I will not have a dye production going on with a 100kilos a week. My body needs a rest 🤣 This year has been especially hard on my physical being: I have developed a swollen disc on my spine due to the heavy lifting, posture of constant standing in the dye studio and carders and…obviously…being me…not taking care of myself enough by stretching or doing anything rather than concentrating on the tasks at hand. I am known for being extremely focussed and determined (not to mention stubborn) often forgetting to drink or eat (although you wouldn’t know that by looking at my “inflated” being..obviously I am genetically related to those plants that can survive and grow (read: get fat) on mere air ..there’s absolutely no other explanation..lolol). Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I will not be dyeing…saying that I know that’s not exactly true because I still have a kilo custom order to dye this week, but then…it’s me, my books (planning to reread Terry Pratchett’s Discworld again -I’m in desperate need of some otherworldly satirical humour) , my ideas, hopefully my watercolours and pens and my knitting needles and probably my spinning wheel.

On that note: I have come to the terrifying conclusion that angora yarn (Anny Blatt from France) are selling their machine spun and dyed  pure angora yarns in balls of 25g for $65. I nearly fell off my chair because I handspun and hand dyed our animal friendly harvested pure angora bunny yarn for $49/50g… Somehow I missed the world going absolutely bonkers with price rises! I know! I know about house prices, rent rises, the obvious food price hikes and the petrol prices, but somehow I haven’t really changed anything for my own handmade fluff! I have always aimed at staying small and sustainable since I started in 2004..yes! That’s TWENTY YEARS ago! And I have never aimed for world domination so to speak. My personal “weird” disposition (meaning introvert, non ego oriented and also not exactly “neurotypical🤣) certainly would not allow that…lol

Anyway..I digress…again…Squirrel!! 

Next year, just out of pure essential survival necessity, I will have to make some changes. There may be some price rises since taxes, customs and power bills are pretty brutal atm and I really hope to be around for a while longer. I will also have to face the fact that I will not be able to work 14hour days in the dye room anymore. So there will be changes, but you know me, I’m planning exciting new things, new blends, new products, new fluff, new adventures! Most of all 2024 will see a big celebration of TWENTY YEARS of IxCHeL yarns and fibres ! Lots of new exciting things! Fibre and yarn fun!

If you would have asked me twenty years ago before I started on this adventure, what do I seen myself doing in 20 years time, I would not have dreamt it to look like this! No way! 
 I was a medical anthropologist, working contracts in between all kinds of other dead end jobs in between, to keep the money to pay bills coming in (anthropologists, academic and field workers don’t tend to make any money if at all..). I was working all kinds of administrative desk jobs in Europe then, just met Paul, waiting for my Australian visa and then, moved to Australia, to do other jobs that had nothing to do with my medical anthropology degree or languages (the joy of a PhD of a big European degree not recognised in Australia)..

I finally managed to land a job “working nights on St Kilda road”.. yeah, not what you think it is.  lol.  Mind you when I said out loud to people who asked me what I did and I said THAT..they all looked away and went to talk to someone else…

I asked Paul if I was saying something wrong and he laughed and said : “well…St Kilda rd has a reputation of wild women roaming to pick up men etc for you know., a good time” lolol.   See what trouble you can get into when you don’t know the goings on in a different country ?!!! Lolol

anyway, I worked for a New Zealand company doing international telephone cold calls to Latin America and Europe (my language skills came in handy at least) during the night and they were located on St Kilda road. Not quite that exciting now is it? Lolol

My brilliant idea to taking the night job was: I could work during the night and then do my painting during the day! Genius! I kept it up for 9months and then my biological clock went BOOM! But I made enoug stuff that I thought, well, I’ll quit and let’s try and sell my art work! Brilliant idea…NOT! because art doesn’t really sell..(unless maybe you’re dead) BUT..at my market stalls, I was knitting and spinning wool! And THAT got peoples attention! At the end, I sold more of my handspun yarns than my paintings or prints, so hey..what is the obvious choice? Right! You sell and make more stuff that actually sells: yarn and fibre! That was 20years ago. The first market I was at was Balnarring market and all I sold were handwoven inkle bands…two to be exact… to my father in law….(Thanks Dad !!)  Nobody else bought anything ! It’s a wonder really that I am still here.

i have done weekly markets. The whole circuit around Melbourne. And art  centre sunday markets in the centre of Melbourne, art markets, even went to Flemington market and kept driving even after I found out my breaks on the very old car I drove at the time, stopped working ! I arrived, set up and sold practically nothing. But, I still kept going! Mind you, this was a few days after I had a miscarriage! See how stubborn i am? I never went back to Flemington market though: I thought that was tempting fate…lol

and, here I am! 20 years later! Still going…selling my yarn, my fibres and my painting. Only, it’s not on canvas or paper, it’s on fibre. Who knew? Who could possibly ever predict something as weird as this?

Was I ever doubtful? Hell yes! 
was I ever desperate? Hell yes!

Did I keep going? Hell yes!

I could NOT have done this without Paul ! The times I drove myself crazy with worry about not making any money, or not enough money to cover the market stall, not enough to cover the rent let alone food, the times that most of our bunnies died of a horrible disease we could not vaccinate them for because Australia doesn’t allow these vaccinations. The multiple heartbreaks of the miscarriages I had. The cancer diagnosis’s. The cancer treatment. The cardiac arrest. It’s a bloody miracle I am still here to type this!!!!  

Paul was there every time to tell me: it’s okay! You are great! Look at the big picture! Don’t give up! You can do this! I love you! To have someone believe in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself, is priceless. So, I kept going and I am still going.

And, of course,  I am so grateful to all of you reading this and still caring and still supporting me. I could not do this without you. And THIS is ALL I can see myself doing! It is everything for me. IxCHeL is my baby, my purpose, my focus and my inspiration. It is what gets me up in the morning and inspires me to do more and better. YOU inspire me to do more and better. And, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Who knows what else I would be doing if it wasn’t for this crazy wool and yarn adventure I have been in for the last twenty years. Who knows, I would probably still be working nights on St Kilda road 🤣

Life is funny.

 

So, what’s NEW on the IxCHeL shop tonight?  it’s time to go BATTY !

So, what’s NEW on the website tonight? Batts !!

there are merino silk cashmere batts : colourful and super soft, and

Rainbow Cashmere silk batts,

Possum Angora cashmere silk batts in natural and a gorgeous sky blue;

and

Swamp Wallaby bunny silk cashmere batts too !

Your can find them all in the What’s New section.

if you have not signed up for the IxCHeL Art Journey Clubs for the next round starting in January, please have a look! All the club sign ups are in the what’s new section as well. I will be sending out reminders to all of the last club members, who have not signed up yet and probably will try to send out a newsletter later next week as well (I so have to educate myself on the marketing newsletter side of things….)

There are still batts, yarn and fibre clubs available and sign ups will be open til December 30th or until quotas are reached. So, don’t wait too long ! I will be posting an overview of what the 2023Art Journey Clubs looked like plus their inspiration artworks on next week’s blog with a special view of all the December clubs  ♥️ 

Have lots of fun exploring the IxCHeL shop and most of all: crafting and having FUN !

big hugs

Charly & Paul

An ice age survivor you can spin!

 

It would be an understatement to say (or sing!) : it’s starting to look a lot like Christmas in the studio and packing area. 
There is Christmas wrapping paper everywhere, Xmas stickers, boxes, parcel bags. Parcels being packed, and sorted (by super Xmas Elf Paul !) into bays of “to ship” and “to stash til the 12 days of Christmas event is over and if that is not all..I’m still dyeing and spinning orders and custom orders, and Paul is still at his lathe trying to produce as many spindles as he possibly can. In short: “hectic” sounds more like it here.

And, just in case you were wondering: we will be working up til December 15th and then……the weekly updates will stop until January 19th with our first celebratory 2024 update. It is going to be a very special one, because 2024 will mark the 20th birthday of ME ! (LOL…I wish) ..no, it’s the 20th anniversary of the IxCHeL business ! Oh the stories I can tell !! And I will ..lots of news in the next blog on Friday 15th !

This time of year it is always more than busy, because of the 12 days of Christmas fundraiser event and we are already over half way ! There are still 4 days to go and omg! Are they going to be AMAZING!) you can find all the details of the event here btw: (just in case) https://ixchel.com.au/collections/12-days-of-xmas 

Mainly because if all this hecticity (I believe that is a word..lol) I TOTALLY forgot to write the blog last Friday! I still cannot believe I did that..or rather.. I didn’t do that…

So much has happened in the meantime: first of all the December clubs were shipped out to every member so they would receive their parcel well before Christmas, then heaps and heaps of dyeing (of course) and spinning and carding(as usual) which was slightly interrupted by the fact that Paul fell down in the yard, hit a concrete block with a corroded metal pin sticking out (oh joy (not!) to those numpties who thought filling up a yard with building debris was a great idea!) and the pin went straight into his leg…lots of blood, visits to the doctor to get it cleaned out and taken care of and a new tetanus shot. He’s doing okay and it’s healing well. He was very lucky! It could have gone straight into his knee or bone and that would’ve been horrible. He needs to put his feet up…and so do I…soon… Not quite yet though…still a lot to do.

A very sweet thing happened here as well: we have a resident pair of “welcome swallows” nesting …. Near the back door. They built their nest from scratch with mud, twigs and fluff and it is a marvel to behold. I just wish they would have made it NOT next to the back door, because that is the door we always use (we don't use the front door unless royalty comes over so to speak🤣) and it scares the hell out of the little swallows every time the backdoor opens. They start fluttering about and hiding. I try and open the backdoor very slowly and then, hunch over so I am gnome size (well, as much as possible..lolol) but still they panic and fly off in a huff..

I have no clue if there are eggs in the nest yet and it’s too high up to see, but I will let you know once we hear the screams of hungry bellies I guess..lol

It is funny though: they both built the nest in a bit over 4days, but it’s only big enough for one bird to sit on the nest, the other one sits on the light just above the back door, and is on guard duty the whole time! So cute. I don’t know if you have ever heard welcome swallows, but their song is amazing too. I love where we live: so many birds and so much wildlife! The more reason to take care of our environment and be thoughtful about everything we produce, create and use. AThat has actually been our motto ever since we started the business: stay small, stay sustainable, stay fun and fluffy. 
Well, here are the various stages of the swallows nest for you to feast your eyes on:

 

 And just in case you’re not impressed by their mud home, these are the cuties who built it: 

 

 For tonight’s update I have planned is something super, super special! I do not have lots left of this blend so this is the time to jump on this blend adventure!

Here are some of the new colourways on the shop update tonight:

Lavender Haze 

Secret Love

 

Kingfisher

Romantics

Autumn Spirit

And many, many more! Just have a browse on the IxCHeL shop right here: https://ixchel.com.au/products/tundra

There might not be a lot of animals still around whose origins date from the ice age to tell the tale and be around for us to marvel at them and their unique and magical being, but tonight’s update is one of them: QIVIUT! Or Musk ox as they are also known as ox Qiviut is the name of the wool that comes off of the Musk Ox, a gentle giant of a creature often found in Alaska, but also in Norway, more specifically in the Dovrefjell National park.  Once hunted to the brink of extinction, Musk Ox are now considered to have the most precious, softest fiber in the world. Eight times warmer than wool and finer than cashmere, qiviut is rare and it is one of the most luxurious fibres you can choose for a garment.

  

The softness of Qiviut is something that must be touched to be believed! Qiviut is not only soft, it is also non-irritating to the skin, and is very durable - garments made from it are worn for years and can be hand washed in mild detergent. It retains warmth even when wet. 

The lightweight fibre preserves heat in the winter, while also providing cool, breathable comfort in warmer weather. This fibre has been carefully gathered by hand and no animals were harmed in the gentle shedding of it. This fibre generally sells for anywhere between $70-$100/28grams/oz, and skeins of yarn often sell for a lot more!! Fibre count is 100s+ (12-15 micron)!!!

A musk ox mum and her baby

the Qiviut (down of the musk ox)  peeking through the guard hairs

Musk Ox male in Alaska

One of the baby musk ox 

The mighty muskox (Ovibos moschatu) is a survivor from the ice age. Possessing powerful curved horns, which hang down like side bangs from a helmet-like skullcap, muskoxen are actually more closely related to sheep and goats than to cattle and oxen (although all of the above are members of the Bovidae family). 

Adult muskoxen weigh from 180 to 400 kg (400 to 900 pounds) but they look much larger on account of their thick coats and large heads. Once muskoxen proliferated throughout the northern hemisphere alongside woolly mammoths, but hunting and habitat loss caused them to retreat further and further into the remotest parts of the north until the end of the nineteenth century when the animals could only be found in the unpopulated wilderness and empty islands of northern Canada and deep in the arctic vastness of Greenland. In these remote locations tiny herds of one to two dozen muskoxen still subsist on grasses, willows, lichens and moss while contending with terrible arctic predators and fearsome cold. 

Fortunately the muskox is provisioned with fearsome horns and doughty neighbours to fend off polar bears and wolves. The herd is capable of assembling in a ring formation with horns outward to stand off wolves and ice bears (although such a strategy works less well against humans with our projectile weapons). To fight the cold, the muskoxen have fat reserves and one of the most remarkable insulating coats in the animal world. 

A muskox’s coat is divided into two layers: a long stringy layer of coarse outer wool and an inner layer of soft warm undercoat called qiviut (this Inuit word now primarily denotes muskox wool but it was once also used to refer to similarly soft warm inner down of arctic birds). Qiviut is one of the world’s premier luxury fibres: it is allegedly 8 times more effective at insulation than sheep’s wool and yet is softer than cashmere. 

The Musk Ox survived when the other greats of the Pleistocene – woolly mammoth, mastodon, sabertoothed cats, giant sloth – all went away. And it returned to Alaska by way of New York Harbour. Now, it turns out, the musk ox could again be the great survivor in our new Arctic age of extinction. Ross MacPhee, a curator in the department of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, says the musk ox’s homogenous genetic makeup suggests it has been through population stress before and can survive boom-and-bust cycles. 

“What we find with living musk oxen is they’re not exactly clones, but they’re so amazingly similar that there’s only one explanation,” MacPhee says. “And that explanation is that they had to have had a very severe pinch on their populations. We estimate that that happened about ten thousand years ago.” But that doesn’t mean it’s all good news for the cold-weather beast, which is most closely related to goats and sheep and can weigh up to 800 pounds. The pace of these changes could challenge even an animal as resilient as the musk ox, scientists say. 

Brendan Kelly, an Arctic ecologist and research scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says all Arctic species are currently endangered by the rapid speed of climate change. “For organisms to adapt – whether it’s changing body size, or changing the timing that they have their calves, and hence can match when the plants are most nutritious – it really depends on the rate of the environmental change relative to the generation time of the organism,” Kelly says. “So if there’s a really, really rapid environmental change, it’s very hard for there to be an adaptive response.” 

As I was reading about Musk Ox I found out that all of the muskox at the Myskoxcentrum in Härjedalen, Sweden, came from Ryøya, near Tromsø, Norway. What?!? Muskox on Ryøya? I knew about the Dovrefjell group and an attempt to introduce muskox on Svalbard, but I had never heard of a group in northern Norway. The search was on. 

It turns out that there is a flock of more 40+ animals now running around free on a small island named Ryøya off the coast of Tromsø. NRK’s Ut i naturen television program made a 24-minute show about “Moskusøya” (“Muskox Island”) in 2006. Unfortunately the show is in Norwegian, but even if you don’t speak Norwegian, it’s still worth watching for a while if you want to see muskox running around and scientists trying to catch them. In the Ut i naturen program, we also get to see some historic television clips from the 1960s when the muskox first came to Troms. 

In 1969, 25 muskox calves arrived in northern Norway via boat from Greenland. The idea was to raise muskox for their wool as domesticated livestock. The University of Fairbanks in Alaska had some kind of research project related to muskox husbandry (I haven’t looked into that yet) and the idea was transferred to Norway.

The undercoat wool of muskox, known as qiviut, is a highly valuable wool: it is warmer than wool, finer than cashmere and hypoallergenic. Sounds like the perfect winter clothing material, except that muskox are pretty rare and not widely domesticated – which makes it a very, very expensive material 

In 1969, the herd was established at a farm in Bardu with the hope that eventually every farm in the area could have 2-3 muskox for a meaningful supplementary income. But by 1975, calls for the end of muskox experiment were being made. According to media reports, a hunter was killed by a muskox and the muskox population was being devastated by a virus (hmmm, sounds familiar, right?). So in 1976, the herd was moved to northern Troms, and five years later, the Tromsø University is taking care of them to preserve the species. 

The Department of Arctic and Marine Biology took over the herd and moved them to Ryøya to study their behaviour and adaptation as arctic animals. Muskox as livestock in Norway didn’t work out, but who knows what the future holds. The Qiviut are still here.

While the scientists herd the muskox to collect measurements and/or for transportation to the overwintering station on the mainland, they quickly pull out the qiviut, which they sell to support their research. Qiviut is a bonus of having muskox in Norway — if you can catch them. 

Well , don’t you worry I caught some of it for you to support the musk ox population growing not only on the American continent but also in other habitats that are good for them. This will enable the species to grow, get stronger, adapt and hey, probably outlive us all, since they already did that to the woolly mammoth. 

Don’t worry, if I EVER find a woolly mammoth, I will share its’ wool with all of you … 

As far as rare breeds are concerned and especially with the musk ox, they are being monitored by scientists to see what is happening with the herds and what their health is. A musk ox can be up to two metres long. The animal is characterised by a long and dense coat and wide hooves and drooping horns. Like domestic cows, musk oxen are ruminants, and allow their food to ferment in a separate stomach prior to digesting it. Musk ox are well protected against the cold Arctic winter. They have two layers of hair--a thick undercoat and heavy outer coat of long, dark hair. Musk ox are a key species in the Arctic, but populations are in decline. A new method is helping scientists to monitor these animals in often difficult to reach, remote locations.

A new method of hair analysis reveals what musk ox in the Arctic have been eating in recent years. The hair is sampled from the animals’ buttocks where it is longest and preserves a longer time series of the animals eating habits. Buttock hair also grows continuously throughout the year and so it gives the most representative picture of the animals’ yearly food intake. “Musk ox [are] a key species in the Arctic that we know surprisingly little about,” says lead author Jesper Bruun Mosbacher, a PhD student at the Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Denmark. “We use a new method that has never been applied in this way before. And we can use it to monitor [musk ox] populations in locations where we otherwise wouldn’t visit very often,” says Mosbacher.

Musk ox are found throughout the Arctic, in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Norway, and Russia. And some local populations are thriving. 

In west Greenland, populations have soared from just 27 in the early 1960s to around 25,000 estimated individuals today, says Mosbacher. But scientists still do not know where most musk ox are or how they are faring. "No one knows how many there are among the [unmanaged] population on the east coast [of Greenland]. The most recent estimate in 1990 was between 2,900 and 4,600 musk ox within the area of the Zackenberg research station," says Mosbacher.

Mosbacher and his colleagues analysed hair from ten Greenlandic musk ox and discovered that the animals’ diet is directly linked with their environmental surroundings and the number of calves born. Fewer calves were born during and after particularly snowy winters.

 

 

"In winters with lots of snow, the animals starved and burned their layer of body fat. Musk ox live in such extreme areas and they are very dependent on sufficient body resources both to survive and to be able to produce calves," says Mosbacher.

 The scientists analysed the stable isotope composition of the hair, which indicates the type of food that the animals ate in recent years. An isotope is a specific version of an element and every element has several different isotopes. A stable isotope means that it is not radioactive and does not change into another isotope by radioactive decay.

The analytical tool is useful when predicting future population trends in the face of climate change, says Mosbacher. “Our study tries to understand how climate influences the musk ox’s diet, in a region where [climate] is changing twice as fast as in other ecosystems and where populations [of musk ox] are declining,” he says.

 

“Understanding the connection between the environment and food is important, because then we can begin to understand what will happen as the climate changes."

This new Tundra blend top are perfectly blended  super fine fibres which will make fine spinning very easy and more homogenous. 

It is not only easier to spin but also a very nice overall halo once spun into yarn. I love this blend and I hope you do too !

Have a wonderful weekend with lots of happy crafting ! 

Don't  forget to do some 12 days of Xmas shopping to help with our fundraising for wildlife  on the IxCHeL website til the 13th of December.

Big hugs

Charly

Super cute rare sheep breed to spin

  

 

It's that time of year again : everybody seems to get ready for Christmas, there are so many Black Friday Sales emails I'm being bombarded with just like everybody else I suppose and I do not know what to do first or next. I feel like I am one step away from feeling like a deer staring at the headlights of oncoming traffic, but//thanks to my chaotic organising skills (insert sarcasm) i just keep going and hope for the best. Trying to survive as a small craft producer is hard enough but I see more and more feeling they need to compete with large companies who can afford to slash their prices every now and again…for small businesses that is  just not an option, especially when you are not an on seller but make everything your self. So, I have decided very early on in my journey, which I can proudly say has been almost twenty years…(oh gawd I feel very very old now🤣), that I would do my own thing, try the very very best at all times and not do any sales..specially not Black Fridays since it has such a bad connotation in Australia ( Black Friday is known here as the bush fire disaster 1939 and black Saturday bushfires in 2009). So sorry to disappoint all of you who thought there was going to be a big sale on, BUT I am planning my yearly twelve days of Christmas event again: more on that later ! 

The December clubs are al dyed and drying as I type this, the organising of the batts and the labels and the packing comes next. It is looking so pretty!! No, I am not saying another word...but I can show you the teaser label

 

Btw: The Art Journey club sign ups for the first quarter of 2024 are filling up fast, so if you want to join the fun please head over to the ixchel shop and go to the fibre , batt or yarn club product page. If you would like to become member of more than one, please email me so I can combine the shipping for you to save you heaps of shipping costs! Here is the link: https://ixchel.com.au/collections/clubs

There are also new shop updates planned for the next few weeks of course, the dye pots will be busy !!! AND, to top it all off: THE event of the year is happening very, very soon too: THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS EVENT !!!  I may not do any sales or black Friday events or discount galore stuff during the rest of the year, but I AM doing a very SPECIAL twelve days of Christmas event with special products and extra special prices  as a fundraiser for wildlife preservation just like every year!

More on the twelve days of Christmas event next Friday ! 

This week I have a fab blend for you  : 

A Ouessant/Blue Faced Leicester/Mulberry Silk blend that is so smoochy and soft and fluffy you have to try it ! The different colours in all the fleeces blended together made a gorgeous base to dye on and resulted in amazing tonal values of the dyed tops. 

I love dyeing tops that have different coloured fleeces in them: it is magical ! spinning this blend will give you a gorgeous heathered and saturated, magical colour play yarn, that is soft and suitable to close to skin wear with a gorgeous drape.

Located 12 miles off the French coast in the Sea of Iroise, the island of Ouessant (or Ushant in English) is the original homeland of Ouessant Sheep. 

 Ouessant sheep are the most primitive of the native French breeds. For centuries, they were raised in isolation on the island where they played an integral part of the self-sufficient closed economy, providing both wool and meat. By the end of the 18th century there were over 6,000 sheep on the island of Ouessant. But economic improvements along with a move toward modernization at the beginning of the 19th century radically changed the future prospects of this small primitive breed. ortunately, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a number of wealthy families imported small numbers of traditional Ouessant sheep to the French mainland to graze the lands around their estates. 

Ultimately, this seemingly insignificant event insured the survival of the breed. Today, Ouessant sheep are sought after both as companion animals and as “environmentally-friendly lawn mowers”. 

They have also gained a certain amount of popularity in several different European countries : Most notably Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. 

A member of the Northern European Short-Tailed breeds, Ouessant sheep are distant cousins of the Shetland and Icelandic breeds. The two most distinctive features of Ouessant sheep are their size and their color. 

Considered by many to be the smallest breed of sheep in the world, adult ewes measure less than 18″ (46cm) at the shoulders and rams are under 20″ (50cm). 

Additionally, Ouessant sheep come in a number of different colors : Including black, white, brown, and grey. It is true that the small size of Ouessant sheep contributes to the breed’s characteristic charm and appeal. However, their diminutive size also means that the breed is not commercially viable in the modern world of agricultural production. In fact, one of the primary objectives for breeding Ouessant sheep today is the preservation and conservation of the rare genetic resources that are found in the breed. 

Despite their small size, these charming little sheep produce a particularly beautiful and versatile wool. Ouessant sheep have a distinctive double-coated fleece with an average fiber diameter of 25 microns and, on average, fleeces weigh approximately 750 grams (1.5 lbs.). It is important to keep in mind that Ouessant sheep are an unimproved breed, which means that from one sheep to another there is less standardization and more variability in wool type and quality than one would normally find in modern improved breeds. 

For the handspinner, this variation presents a unique opportunity : From one small flock of Ouessant sheep it is possible to produce wool that can be used for a wide variety of projects, ranging from lace shawls to hats, cardigans, and more.

 I have taken great care to only select the finest of the Ouessant fibre and blending that with the shiny Blue faced Leicester and the mulberry silk  to create a beautiful heathered effect when dyed. The natural colour of this blend is fabulous and takes the dye beautifully: because there are so many different natural colours in the base, it creates a magical depth and variety of tones. 

I have dyed up some new colourways again…(couldn't help myself..) like: Just Ken (celebrating the fabulous Ryan Gosling as Ken in the Barbie movie..I couldn’t get that song out of my head🤣), Kingfisher blues, a new take on Mermaid Reality Show and secret garden and of course: freshly Dyed versions of Pumpkin King and Autumn Glow and secret Garden. I think Secret Garden together with Just Ken are my favourites this week.

Which ones are yours?

mermaid reality show top

secret garden tops

kingfisher blues

just Ken

Pumpkin King

Goblin

autumn glow

You can find all these new tops right here: https://ixchel.com.au/products/ouessant-bfl-silk

Wishing everybody  a very happy and craft filled weekend !

Big hugs

Charly