Fiber

Here at Blackberry Blossom Farm, we use the fleece from our Pygora Goats and the wool from our Shetland Sheep, as well as other fibers, to make one-of-a-kind, luxury products. Making our items requires many steps, and is truly a farm to yarn endeavor.

I'm excited to announce that we will be participating in the LIVE January Wool and Fiber Arts sale! Our time slot is on Sunday, January 30th at 10:30 a.m. central time. To view our show/sale (whether or not you want to buy any products), click on the given link to access our Facebook page, where our sale will appear on January 30th at 10:30 am central time. We will have dehaired Pygora cloud, luxury batts made from our homegrown fiber, fiber sampler packs, fine fleeced shetland roving, and more available! We'd love to see you there!

Blackberry Blossom Farm WAFA Sale (BBF Facebook page)

Check out our Etsy store, farmtoyarncharm!

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Steps To Processing Pygora Fiber

Step 1: Shearing

To do this, we use shears to clip the fleece off of the goat, starting with the topline, going down the side, and then clipping around the underside and neck.

Step 4: Carding/Blending

This step is where we put fibers on our drum carder and turn the wheel handle so that the fibers become aligned to form an easy-to-spin batt. This step is also where we blend other fibers and colors in.

Step 2: Washing

This is where we put the fleece in delicates bags and soak it in hot water (The hot water has some very gentle fiber soap in it), and then dry it on racks. When washing Pygora fleece, we have to be extremely delicate and gentle so that it doesn't matt.

Step 3: Dehairing

Dehairing is when we take the washed fleece and put little bits at a time on dehairing combs. Then we comb it by hand until the coarse guard hairs are gone or down to a very small amount; after this we're left with a fluffy cloud.

Step 5: Spinning

Here is where we split the batt into strips and spin the strips to make yarn. We can use different techniques to make different styles of yarn: art yarn, single-ply, two-ply, thick, thin, thick and thin mixed together, and more!

Step 6: Dyeing

This is a really fun step! To dye the yarn (or fiber in other forms) we heat up water and vinegar and add a little bit of acid dye to the mixture; next we add the fiber! Once the fiber has sucked up the dye, we rinse it out and dry it.

Step 7: Knitting/Crocheting

Lastly, we knit or crochet the yarn into a variety of finished garments, including scarves, cowls, and hats.

Steps to Processing Shetland Fiber

Step 1- Shearing

We use clippers to cut through the dense shetland fiber, once a year.

Step 2- Washing

The fiber is washed with special soap and in small batches in order to scour the whole fleece.

Step 3- Carding and Blending

We put the fiber through our carder, to align the fibers and make it into a batt. This step also includes the adding of other fibers into our batt, whether for color, texture, or both!

Step 4- Spinning

Next we hand spin the batt into yarn. This yarn is a soft and durable yarn with tons of memory! We usually choose to spin single ply.

Step 5- Dyeing

Sometimes we will dye the yarn using special fiber dyes to add lots of beautiful color!

Step 6- Knitting or Crocheting

The last step is knitting or crocheting the yarn into a one of a kind garment if we choose not to sell the yarn as is.