I have always been terrified of dyeing roving. You hear all these horror stories about all the things that can go wrong when dyeing roving. Things like OH MY GOD FELTING!!! Our roving is super-nice and extremely expensive to produce, so I never want to take a chance on wrecking a lot of it during the learning curve.

But then I decided  it was time to man up and face my fears. Here is my first attempt:

I managed to dye about 12 ounces of our Cormo Top without any noticeable felting. The thing is though, I don’t spin. So I had no idea if I had done a good job with the dyeing or not. Luckily, my friend Kris came to the rescue. I gave her four ounces to spin up last Saturday and on Sunday she gave me this:

Isn’t it lovely?

The moral of the story: don’t let other people’s horror stories keep you from trying new things. I will definitely be dyeing more roving for our shop but I want to celebrate my initial success with a giveaway.

To enter to win 4 ounces of my inaugural roving, just leave a comment on this thread telling me something that you have been afraid to attempt, why, and when you are going to take a stab at it. Two winners will be chosen at random from all comments posted before midnight on Sunday, February 21, 2010. One comment per person please.

Completely gratuitous shot of Feenat.

As promised, I’m having a giveaway just for the Spinners this week. Why? Because we love our spinners and we don’t do nearly enough to celebrate them!

One of you lucky ducks is going to win one full pound of our luscious, buttery 100% Cormo Combed Top AND one full pound of our absolutely lovely Kid Mohair/Cormo Blend Roving. That’s enough premium spinning fibers to keep you busy for a good, long time.

Here’s the deal: Leave a comment on this thread telling me the best and worst parts of moving. Why? Because I am in hell over here people, and I want to hear stories that are worse than mine.

But there’s one more thing you have to do- tell your spinning friends about this giveaway. I don’t care how you do; email, twitter, facebook, blog, post on ravelry or tell your guild, but somehow you need to let them know that Juniper Moon Farm is giving away a spinners stash.

Entries close at midnight EST, on Sunday, October 11th, 2009. One winner will be chosen at random and the winner will be posted here. The winner has 24 hours to claim his or her (but probably her) prize. Sound good?

Good luck!

Today’s meet-up at my friend Cindy’s farm in Parker, Texas was so lovely. Cindy was a wonderful host and loads of fun people came with their knitting and spinning wheels.

Cindy had name tags and home made drop spindles for everyone.

I brought yarn and did a little dyeing demo.

Everyone was so sweet and I was especially excited to meet Susan (on the right) and Mary (not pictured, darn it!). I feel like I’ve known both of them forever!

Laurie and Joann (please forgive me if I’m not getting the spellings right!) were wonderful spinners and just as sweet as they could be. Laurie’s going to do some spinning for us for the shop.

Anna brought the yarn she dyed on Thursday at our Dyeing Workshop. Absolutely lovely.

Sierra had a great time gathering eggs from Cindy’s laying hens.

Cindy and the other spinners worked hard to teach me to use a drop spindle- they each deserve a medal for patience.

I kind of got the hang of it by the time I had to leave and Cindy sent me home with a spindle and a bag of roving to play with till I go home. I just might become a spinner yet.

Thanks to Suzy for taking all the pics while I visited and did my demo. Somehow neither of us manage to get a picture of our lovely hostess or her handsome husband. 

All told it was a storybook day. Thanks so much to Cindy and Family for having us!