It’s time to start talking about Christmas Bunnies !

 

It’s mid November so it’s officially okay to talk about……..Christmas 🎄

I know,I know…too early, but I’m sure I’m not the only one preparing for the festive season and if you are a knitter, crocheted, spinner or weaver, well, those festive gifts take time to create! Sometimes a month isn’t even long enough so I’m actually a bit late to the game 🤣 but there ya go: I’ve been already making these cute Christmas bunny batts for you and preparing soooooo many things for the upcoming “12 days of Christmas” fundraiser event that I do every year. I may be known as a chaos bunny, but one has to prepare not to fall into the black hole of panic, especially this time of year…lol

So, what’s been going on here? Well, after dyeing, batting and carding and skeining all the November clubs and shipping them out this week, I immediately started prepping the December club, because all the club parcels have to go out of the door before Australia Post Christmas deadlines, while at the same time prepping and dyeing 3 mountains of fluff for the upcoming shop updates ! Never a dull moment here!

Paul aka lair of the bearded dragon has also been super busy making new lotus phang support spindles with maginificent inlays of malachite and lapis lazuli.

New hand dyed tops of super squishy Corriedale tops are new to the shop this Friday too, so please have a look at the new colourways on offer.

you can find all the new fluff and spindles on www.ixchel.com.au in the what’s new section of the shop.

I am already preparing all the December art journey clubs and they will be ready to ship late November so they will beat the Christmas shipping rush, especially for our overseas art journey club members! Here is a sneak preview of the December club label:

Don’t wait too long to sign up for the next quarter! All the details of all the Art journey batt, fibre and sock yarn clubs are on the IxCHeL shop here: https://ixchel.com.au/collections/clubs

Wishing you a very fun, super creative and relaxing weekend !

Big hugs,

Charly

Super cute small sheep to cuddle and spin

 

The weather is very wild here atm with strong winds that have taken trees down and power out. So,I am writing this in between periods of dodgy internet reception and power outages. We still have no power now, but the internet goes on and off so I better make “hay while the internet is on”..lol

This weeks update is a special blend of Ouessant sheep with bfl and cashmere. The colours of the Ouessant sheep are a variety of browns so the blend is very interesting to dye. Dye in or rather over dyeing on a base of coloured fibres is absolutely wonderful: it creates a depth of colour and tonal values that you simply do not get on a bright white. 

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 even rugs. 

 I have taken great care to only select the finest of the Ouessant fibre and blending that with the shiny Blue faced Leicester and cashmere  to create a beautiful heathered effect when dyed.

you can find all the new Ouessant bfl cashmere tops here on the IxCHeL shop: www.ixchel.com.au/products/ouessant-bfl-cashmere

Have a wonderful weekend and happy spinning !

RABBIT ON !

((hugs))

Charly 

Outlander tops are back!

 

This update is a very special one : , this one is another (and maybe one of my favourite) rare sheep ! My Outlander Scottish Soay Sheep blend ! I have done this blend first in 2014/2015 (how time flies !!!)  and is amazing to work with and super soft, so I am very very happy  to be able to offer you this blend again after lots of organising, blending and dyeing.   I cannot state enough that it is so important to keep rare breeds alive. It is however, harder and harder to get rare breed fibres organised for me to blend and dye them. It has taken a bit longer than normal this time, but it is so worth it and I hope you will enjoy spinning them as much as I have blending and dyeing them up for you.

The rare sheep breed in the spot light is the very special soay sheep of the Scottish Islands of St Kilda and Hirta ! It is a very, very rare ancient breed, with roots going back all the way to the bronze age ! 

The Isle of Soay, a name derived from the Norse word for Sheep Island, is near the North West corner of Hirta. A very dangerous, narrow channel and sea stacks separate the two. Soay is extremely difficult to access due to its steep rocky cliffs, boulder fields and lack of anchorage.

It can only be approached when seas are very calm and quickly changing weather can make getting off the island nearly impossible, it is the least accessible of all the islands in the archipelago. It is believed that sheep have probably inhabited Soay since the Bronze Age and are the descendants of the very first domesticated sheep which populated northern Europe. They are the most primitive surviving livestock breed in the UK. 
The sheep on Soay Island were not owned by the St. Kildans of Hirta, but instead by the islands various lairds (landlords). Their feudal tenants were allowed to annually collect fleece from these sheep and were occasionally permitted to take an animal, for a fee, to kill for special occasions. While Soay is somewhat larger (244 acres) than its neighbour Boreray (189 acres) Soay supports fewer animals per acre because its high central plateau is a marshy bog with little vegetation suitable to grazing sheep. 

the Island of sheep

St. Kilda is a group of islands which are the most westerly part of Scotland; they are 41 miles from Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides and 110 miles from the Scottish mainland. 

This archipelago consists of four small islands and some large rocky outcrops which are all that remains of a long extinct volcano. The islands are remote and spectacular with the highest cliffs in the UK and are the home to large colonies of seabirds. 

There is evidence that the main island Hirta has been inhabited for thousands of years but the habitation might not have been continuous. There is also evidence of human activity on the other three islands of Dun, Soay and the more remote Boreray. 

The island of Soay has been the home of the most primitive form of domestic sheep in the UK for thousands of years which have remained as a relic of early domestication due to isolation and inaccessibility. The islanders, known as the St. Kildans were the tenants of various owners of St. Kilda, they had limited resources other than the vast seabird colonies. They caught thousands of these birds and used their feathers and extracted their oil as a currency to pay their rent and to buy meagre provisions. 

The most remote island of the archipelago is Boreray which was used by the St. Kildans to harvest sea birds and their eggs and also keep a reserve flock of their unique domestic sheep, now known as Boreray Sheep. 

As more communications with the mainland improved the life of the islanders changed, they were subject to diseases brought by contact with outsiders which caused heavy mortality. There was movement to the mainland and immigration to other parts of the world until in 1930 the population became so low with so few able bodied men they could no longer sustain themselves and they chose to leave. In 1957, the entire archipelago was bequeathed to the National Trust for Scotland and has been in their ownership and protection ever since.

Tourists flocking around a spinner showing them spinning soay (1900s)

 close up

spinning magic

 now the same street is deserted... except for the grazing soay sheep that have been there for centuries

The animals on Soay have never been managed and lived feral on the island for thousands of years, no one is certain how long or how they got there.

There are dark and blond sheep with some ewes being horned and many others polled (no horns) or scurred (small or misshaped horns). Over recent centuries some animals have been taken from Soay to estates on the mainland of the UK. Over a period of time starting in 1932, after St. Kilda had been evacuated and sold, 107 animals were captured and transferred to the vacant pastures of Hirta. 

This was a significant number taken from the small population on Soay Island. Today flocks survive in both locations. 

Visitors to St Kilda will immediately notice three striking features of the sheep.
First, Soay sheep are tiny. In August, mature females average around 24kg in weight while mature males are around 38kg, making them about one third the size of most modern domestic sheep and shrinking !

Second, they are highly variable in appearance. While many Soays have the ‘classic’ Soay coat colour, which we call ‘dark wild’ (with ‘wild’ being short for ‘wildtype’ the coat pattern that features a light belly and rump patch), we recognise three other varieties (‘dark self’, ‘light wild(type)’ and ‘light self’ (where ‘self’ refers to ‘self-coloured’ – a coat pattern with the same colour all over including belly and rump patch). 

Studies have shown that the dark/light colouration is due to a gene called tyrosinase-related protein 1, or TYRP1 which is on sheep chromosome 2 and genetically dark is dominant to light, while the wild/self colouration is due to the locus Agouti on sheep chromosome 13 and wild is dominant to self. 
 There are however, very cute Soay sheep with white patches as well. (note: in angora rabbits for example there is the agouti on chromosome 13 as well, making the off spring able to have all different colours. Agouti is a gorgeous thing to have in the gene pool !).

The University of Edinburg is doing a lot of research on these soay sheep because it offers them a very good insight in the ecology and the evolution of the species. A count of the whole of Hirta’s Soay sheep population has been conducted most years since 1952 by the same method. 

It was these counts that revealed that Soay sheep on St Kilda have rather unusual population dynamics. The Soay population rises to maxima and then crashes, at irregular intervals. It is this population dynamic behaviour that makes Soay sheep so interesting for ecologists. The sheep exhibit a phenomenon known as overcompensatory density dependence, in which their population never reaches equilibrium. 

The population growth is so great as to exceed the carrying capacity of the island, which eventually causes a dramatic population crash, and then the cycle repeats. For example, in 1989, the population fell by two thirds within 12 weeks !! 

In brief, it became clear that the population dynamics of Soay sheep happen because virtually all mature females conceive each year, regardless of density, and as a result, the population can increase in one breeding season to a size which greatly exceeds the winter carrying capacity, when it may crash. Crashes are more likely to occur when there is bad winter weather, and when the population contains a large proportion of vulnerable sheep such as lambs and males. The population then increases again, over several years, before another crash. 

As ecological research proceeded, it became clear that the Soay sheep population also offers remarkable opportunities for understanding the progress of natural selection and evolution in real time. Population crashes are a period of intense selection, could they have anything to do with the maintenance of genetic variation, for example in coat colour and horn type? Does the low life expectancy of most individuals select for early reproductive effort? Likewise, the population dynamics research inspires numerous questions about the relationship between the sheep and their biotic environment, including the plants on which they feed and the parasites.

The Soay sheep have short tails and naturally shed their wool, which can be hand plucked (called rooing) in the spring and early summer. About one kilogram of wool can be obtained from each animal per year. 

This breed has extremely fine fleece and it is difficult to distinguish an outer coat. This is a clear indication that the Soay are indeed the product of a domesticated breed in prehistoric times. 
The breed also lacks the flocking instinct of many breeds. Attempts to work them using sheep dogs result in a scattering of the group: no use entering them at the Bendigo sheep and wool show dog trials: it would be extremely frustrating for the sheep and dogs. They obviously are the rebels among sheep !

 Soay sheep fleece

These sheep are extremely special and it inspired me to do a rare sheep breed adventure blend named OUTLANDER, hence its name , because I am a fan of the books and the series…and because the Soay sheep , although hairier, are pretty darn cute. I have some naked Outlander tops as well and then there are all the different colourways, fresh out of the dyepots this week available as well

have fun exploring the Outlander tops this week!

happy spinning and crafting !

You can find all the new Outlander tops here on the IxCHeL online shop: https://ixchel.com.au/products/outlander

big hugs

Charly

Get cozy with some super fluff!

 

HAPPY WEEKEND everybody!

There’s a definite cold snap in the air here ! Crispy weather or not, we are keeping warm, with new fabulous fibre blends and staying hot in the dyeroom!

All the June clubs have been dyed and are dry, skeined up, braided up and ready to be packed into nice bundles of joy for all the club members. I will be busy over the weekend making lots and lots .and lots of batts in studio for the June Batt club members and all will be ready to ship on Monday. 
in the meantime I have been spinning up custom orders and cleaning up the dye room for the next batch of excitement heading your way, but more on that later.

I have so much on my plate that it feels like being at a conveyor belt at a factory, desperately trying to keep up. For some reason that comedy skit with Lucille Ball and Ethel wrapping chocolates on a speedy conveyor belt trying to keep up, always comes to mind (I seem to have grown up with lots of 1950s and 60s musicals and shows my parents and grandparents fed me with🤣).

There are some pretty awesome new fluffs on offer this week : fabulous hand dyed rare breed Guanaco blend and Romanov blend PLUS something I could have kept for next week, but I couldn’t help myself: New BUNNY BISON BLISS. You can find the new bunny bison bliss tops here: https://ixchel.com.au/products/bunny-bison-bliss

I can only offer you the natural new “snow bison” tops you see on top of this email this week, because the hand dyed tops are not ready yet. I guess that’s the downside of winter here in the Yarra Valley…everything dries at a glacial pace…

In the coming weeks and months I will be able to offer you lots more rare breed blends again, like the very popular “Outlander tops” with soay sheep and a new batch of Navajo Churro with agave cactus! Exciting times ahead!

I almost totally forgot to share freshly batted possum batts and wallaby batts!! They are soooo soft and fluffy !! Like a cloud!

The wallaby blend batts are here: https://ixchel.com.au/products/wallaby-batts

And the possum blend batts are here: https://ixchel.com.au/products/possum-cashmere-merino-silk-batts

A reminder: the sign ups for the clubs, starting in July, are almost at full capacity, especially the batt club! You can find all the details here: https://ixchel.com.au/collections/whats-new

I will be sending out messages to all the combo club members this weekend. If you don’t want to miss out on monthly club parcels, make sure you sign up sooner rather than later. Please let me know if you have any questions: always happy to help and enable.

Wishing everybody a funtastic and crafty weekend!

Big hugs,

Charly

The big Yarn and Fibre Show 2024 is coming up !

 

A big yarn and fibre show is on every year in Melbourne, more precise in the suburb of Coburg at Merribek town hall, organised by the fabulous handknitters and crocheters  guild Victoria and, Paul and I are there like clockwork. It is fun, it’s super well organised and all the people the and the “vibe” is amazing. This year, like the last few years since the pandemic, it runs over two days and this time it’s next weekend: Saturday June 1st and Sunday June 2nd (from 10-3pm).

Exciting ! It is a fabulous event and so, like every year, I have been preparing special fluffy products for..well, since the day the last show ended..lol. So many yarns, so much handspun, so many special fibres on offer and so many gorgeous spindles, bowls, tools and more.

This year, this handknitters guild Yarn and Fibre show will be the ONLY show I will be doing so, if you want to take advantage of seeing both Paul and myself in action like Kermit the frog flailing about and trying to get our stall up and running in…eh..two hours (we only get two hours to set up) this is the time!

Also, every year, I think the same thing: do we have enough stock?I don’t have enough…I need more of this and that and wouldn’t it be a great idea to do this extra bit? By the end of all that excruciating deliberating, it is safe to say I ALWAYS come to the same conclusion when packing the van AND when putting up the stall for the show: “I need a bigger boat”! 🤣 Clearly, 20 years of doing this have not taught me anything because I still think, until two hours before the show that I do not have enough 🤣 

So, here I am, done all the dyeing (finished yesterday!) and yes, I am still spinning and plying yarn ! Paul has been doing some great organising to get everything labelled, and packed into tubs ready for transport and entering all of our stock into the Square payment point of sale system we will be using at the market so everybody can shop using their various cards if need be but if you want to pay by cash that is equally very acceptable. Actually, I think cash is always better for us stallholders, because the bank fees are excruciating..and sometimes shows are at places where there is limited reception (not this one !) so it’s always safe to have several options open I always say. Anyway, I digress…(see I’m a bit hectic atm, trying to get as much done as possible..lol).

Well, I have promised all of you an overview of what will be on offer at the show (call it a shopping list) so, here it is !  Get ready! Set? Go!

YARNS

Handspun yarns

Angora bunny natural and hand dyed

Angora bunny, cashmere and silk yarns in fabulous colours

Wallaby, Cashmere, Silk, Merino yarn

Possum Cashmere Silk Merino yarn

Guanaco yarns

Rare breed yarns with bison and vampire deer

IxCHeL sock yarn :merino, silk, nylon (100g,410m) 33 colourways !! About 20 kilos of it!

IxCHeL silver star sock yarn: merino, cashmere, nylon, silver stellina (423m/100g): 24 colourways ( over 12kilos of silver star yarn)

IxCHeL tweed yarns ! Fabulous for colourwork! 28 colourways! More than 15 kilos of solid dyed with fun tweedy colour pops!

IxCHeL cashmerino Lace yarn : 30 hand dyed colourways: over 14 kilos of yumminess

IxCHeL kid mohair Silk Merino yarn: 11 colourways!

IxCHeL Gaia DK organic merino yarn: 28 colourways with about 10 kilos of knitting fun!

Silk ribbon yarns (great for weaving and art yarn accents!)

Cotton Spiral spun yarns

Blind date yarn surprise packs !

AND THATS JUST THE YARN SECTION! Now on to the Lair of the Bearded Dragon spindles and tools:

LAIR OF THE BEARDED DRAGON SPINDLES: there will be LOTS of spindles WITH AND WITHOUT INLAY in all shapes and sizes and weights. There are drop spindles with top and bottom whorls, Tibetan support spindles, Lotus phangs, Scottish style dealgans (mini and full sized ones).

Spindle Bowls and Chalice lapbowls!

wood turned Orifice hooks, with WPI gauge (twist it little helpers)

Nøstepinne!

 
FIBRE

Will there be fibre? I hear you ask?! OH YESSSS! Sooooooooo much fibre! And here’s the list:

BATTS! (Wallaby, possum and angora batts!!)

Babydoll Southdown tops

Black Bunny Tops

Blossom Bunny tops with rose fibres

Camelbunny silk Cashmere tops

Cashmere Fling tops

Cashmerino Silk tops

Castlemilk Moorit tops rare breed

Diva Tops 

Fire Star tops great for adding to batts, felting or art yarn for that extra bit of glamour shine

Flower Power tops with alpaca

Gothic tops super black merino with lush silk in 10 colourways!

Grå Trønder rare (breed tops)

Guanaco blend tops (rare breed)

Happy Bunny tops with hemp

Hog Island sheep tops (rare breed)

Machu Picchu tops with superfine merino, silk and merino

 Magic  tops with rainbow glitz 

Manx Laughtan tops (rare breed)

Merino Silk tops 

Merino Tencel Silk tops

Mulberry Silk tops 

Navajo Churro tops (rare breed)

North Ronaldsay blend tops (rare breed)

Ouessant Bfl silk tops (rare breed)

Pearl bunny tops with chitin!

Romanov tops (rare breed)

Shetland dream tops (rare breed)

Tundra tops with qiviut (rare breed)

Viva Frida tops with Navajo Churro

Wensleydale tops (rare breed)

Yak tops

.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz… I was thinking of getting some rest after the show, but I need to prep and dye the June club immediately when I come back!

also: important notice! The online  shop will still be available but with very limited offerings. Unfortunately we can’t be in two places at the same time ..lol 

Safe to say there will be NO Friday shop update but I will definitely make it up to you when I get back from the show.

I hope to see you at the show. Please say hello and do some wool and yarn diving! 

have a fun week!

hugs

charly

 

 

 

Yakety yak!

 

It’s been almost a month between blogs! For years and years I have been consistently blogging every Friday at 8pm and it “only” took the upkeep of an online shop, social media marketing, emails and what have you to let me totally lose my medal in the consistency department.

And if that’s not the only thing: keeping lots of hand made and hand dyed fibre, yarn and spindles consistently stocked up, is proving to be extremely hard as well. In short: I cannot keep up!  Hilarious but true, I thought having an online shop and not going to weekly markets and lots of big shows would take the pressure off. Hilarious! Hilariously out of touch with reality you mean! Lol

Anyway, Paul has been nudging me to look into having a holiday, but at this point, even remotely looking into that proves amazingly hard. And yet, I always said to myself, if it is important you will find time. And that, proves to be hard as well. I think it’s to do with the fact that I have been so conditioned to working all the time, through everything: whether it be sickness, pandemics or even just hard times. My brain can’t seem to cope with anything that is not productive or creative. As soon as I sit down with a book for half an hour or even when thinking about having a relaxing bath, my mind goes in “guilty mode”…as if I’m a naughty kid doing something wrong! Am I the only one ? Do any of you experience that as well? You know, that guilty feeling of doing nothing..well, I mean something for yourself instead of working. It’s really strange and it’s obviously not sustainable or healthy. So, I had a relaxing bath last night, I read for an hour, but…I still am not closer to deciding where or when to take a holiday. If I don’t decide fast, Paul will rebel I’m sure and I can’t have a rebelling bearded dragon on my hand..lol

Anyway, no time to relax yet because in a months time there’s a fabulous market I will be attending and I still have about 30 kilos of yarn to dye, numerous yarns to spin and dye, oh! And a May club to dye and ship out…. If I was organised enough to abide by lists, I’d be freaking out….!

so, the whole house is currently filled with drying yarns and  fibres and a manic bunny, me, trying to do all the things all at once🤣 

The April clubs have been shipped two weeks ago so it’s about time to show you all the photos: 

The May clubs are currently being prepped and getting ready for a dyebath ! The teaser for the May club will be posted on my social media over the weekend so keep an eye out!

This week I have some amazingly soft and rich chocolate …. Yak tops for sale ! Check them out in the “what’s new” section on www.ixchel.com.au  

Also: new tulip wood and beech twist it little helpers aka orifice hooks with a WPI gauge.

plus NEW anniversary products sale : Stitch markers!

you can find them all on the IxCHeL website in the what’s new section!

well, this bunny is off to cook some dinner and feed the hungry masses before I have a revolution on my hands!

wishing everybody a fabulous craft and fun weekend!

Let the adventures begin !

big fluffy hugs

Charly

A Fibery Solar Eclipse

 

Happy Friday everybody! Its been another exciting busy week here with lots of new carding, blending and dyeing.

The new quarter of art journey clubs are starting again this month so that means heaps of extra prep work and getting everything from pigments to fibres and yarns, organised and ready. I will post a teaser label of the April clubs over the weekend so all of you can see what art journey adventures we will be getting into this month.

I hope everybody will enjoy the fibery solar eclipse i have organised for you on Monday, since all of us here in Australia will be missing out on this special event this monday April the 8th.

The 2024 Total solar eclipse will carve a very narrow path across Mexico, the USA and eastern Canada, but us Australians will have to wait til July 22nd, 2028 to experience a total solar eclipse. 

The next Total Solare Eclipse visible in Australia will pass straight over Sydney harbour so you better start booking your stay on a yacht now...lol !

For tonight I have some pretty amazing hand dyed tops for you: Bunny Bison Bliss tops!

American Bison mean a lot to me. Bison hold such stories and history that for me, as one with Native American roots, means something very special. Enormous herds of bison once occupied the American Great Plains, and were critically important to Native American Plains tribes as sources of meat, hides, horn, bone and sinew. American Bison were hunted close to extinction by white settlers and the American military during the western migration, but they were given protected status and the population rebounded in the second half of the 20th century.

There are now substantial populations living in the United States and Canada; all the wild-ranging herds are found in state, provincial and national parks. In addition, there are several herds owned by private farmers and even some in Australia !

socializing with the domestic Bison (Dungog Farm NSW)

As a spinner and weaver I love to play and experiment with all sorts of fibres and the Bison being so close to my heart and heritage, I could not resist to try and design a blend that would not only do it justice but also excel in its beauty, handle and all over amazing way to spin and use in our fibre art.

Bunny Bison Bliss tops have the following ingredients: Superfine 17micron merino, angora bunny , Bison, Baby Camel, cashmere and tencel. It spins like a dream!

“Buffalo,” the name most Americans grew up using for bison, does not immediately evoke the image of soft, useful fiber. Yet the bison’s downy undercoat that grows each fall and sheds each spring is the finest truly luxury fibre available. The down fiber produced by an adult bison has a fairly short staple length, and measures 17 to 22 microns. An adult cow (female) bison will have roughly 1 to 3 pounds of down on her body when the fibre has fully matured, which is usually around the first of each year. The soft down grows close to the skin and is what will keep this 500kilo animal insulated and warm through the winter months. Bison populations are now estimated to be between 450,000 and 500,000, mostly in the United States and Canada. This is almost double the estimated population of 250,000 when our family started raising bison in the 1990s. Annually, around 55,000 are processed for meat. It is from these production animals that we are able to harvest fiber during January, February, and March, when the fibre is at its longest and least matted. Before that time of the year, the fiber is still growing and too short. After that, it is shedding and being rubbed into matts and balls that just cannot be untangled. After harvest, the fibre has to be thoroughly scoured even though it contains no lanolin or grease. Bison don’t have sweat glands, so to keep cool bison wallow, rolling in wet dirt to pack a layer of soil next to their skin. As such, their short, crimpy fiber retains a lot of the prairie landscape, which needs to be thoroughly removed without felting the down fibers. Scouring bison requires a lot of clean water and repeated long soaks. 

 
Next, the fibres need to be separated, sorting the fine down from coarse hair. A bison fiber study done by North Dakota State University identified four, or possibly five, different fiber types on a mature bison. A dehairing machine can be used to separate the coarse fibres (primary coat) and guard hairs from the desired fine fibers (secondary coat). The dehairer works primarily by using centrifugal force, transferring the fine fibers between cylinders operating at different speeds, while the heavier, coarse fibers are preferentially ejected. The down is predominantly dark brown, but there are often light or white down fibers as well. There are no measurable differences between fibers of different colors, and when spun, it is all but impossible to see the white down. Unspun, it is relatively visible, but when the fibres are carded or combed and then spun, the down has a very consistent chocolate colour.

 

 

 

Bison love to rub themselves and so these big hairy poles were designed that catch their rogue down fibres every time give it a rub. 

a Bison pair

Here are some new colourways on the Bunny bison bliss tops :

Minty Rainbow

Spring Meadow

Love Birds

And, of course, there is also "Whale Song" (see the top photo of the blog) and many, many more to explore.

 

Since it is the start of a new month, there is also a new product I am offering with a 20% discount to celebrate the 20th anniversary of IxCHeL yarns & Fibres. This month i offer you the awesome solid dyed merino tops! Great to blend, spin on their own, or to ply with variegated singles.  They are also fab to needlefelt and wet felt with !

I absolutely love Merino Tencel Silk tops and it was time to do a little restock and some new colours as well. I am waiting on a new shipment of tencel and everything seems to be a bit harder to get atm so bear with me please until more stock is available.

I just love how the colours pop on this blend! 

You can find all these and more on in the "What's new" collection this week or hop to the search in the shop and type in tencel and you will see them.

Apart from dyeing and prepping all the clubs, I will be super, super busy to get a tonne of yarns spun and dyed for the upcoming handknitters guild yarn and fibre show at the Merribek TOwn hall in Coburg, VIC, on June 1dt and 2nd. So please put this date in your calendar !  I will of course give heaps of more information and share lots soon !

Have a funtastic weekend and heaps of crafty fun !

Big hugs,

Charly