Fiber Mill Trip '08

Hey everyone,

We had a great time on our trip to Pocahontas! Sorry that it has taken me almost three weeks to post this. My computer was having some problems. I think it's o.k. now. I took lots of photos on the trip. I will try to explain as much as I can remember about the trip. I know I will not remember the names of the machines we saw but I should be able to at least tell you what they do. And I'm going to apologize now for the videos beinging so dark. I couldn't brighten them up. Sorry.


This one is a picture of some un-processed wool.


This is some wool they were drying after they washed it.


This is their washer for their wool.


This is something they use when they want to dye some of the wool.


Bags of wool.


More bags of wool.


And yet more bags of wool. I'm sorry but I couldn't help myself. They just had so much of it that I had to take lots of pictures of it. :)


O.K. This is a room that processed wool will go into. You will have to just watch the video I took of this to get what I'm talking about.


This just gives you a closer look. Scary looking isn't it?


This is the outside of that room.


Here's a closer look at the machine that processes the wool.



And here's the video.


This one just processes the wool some more.


I had to take two photo of it so you could see how long it is.


This is the back of it.



This is a video of it working.



Here's a second video of it working.


This one also processes wool.


Here's a second photo of it too. It's a pretty big machine.


Here's the back of it. Do you see the wool coming out of it into the blue tube looking can?



Here's a video of it working.



Here's a second video of it working.


After sending the wool through the previous machine they can send it through this one to make it thinner. I hope I'm describing it right.



Here's the video.


This machine spins the wool. This is the front of it.


This is the back of that machine.



Here's a video of it working.


This machine spins two strands of wool together.



Here's a video of it working.


This is their felting machine open.


This is a photo of it working.



I hope you can see it moving in this video of it running.


This is what it looked like after they took it off the machine.


Here's a photo of everyone that showed up that day for the tour.


Here's the wonderful people who own and operate the Fiber Mill. Click here if you would like to check out their website.

I hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures and video I took. Maybe in the fall we can go back to watch them shear their sheep.

The next meeting for our group will be on Dec. 13th from 11:30 to 3:30 p.m. I'm still working on a location for it. I'll let everyone know soon where it's going to be.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Opal

October '08 Meeting

Hello everyone,

Sorry about this being late. I've just been so busy with my new job that all my free time has been getting away from me. :)

We had a good turnout at the Nixon Library in Jacksonville. We had nine people show up. We had a good time visiting and sharing our projects with each other. Here's our group photo we took:


Our November meeting will be a trip to a Fiber Mill in Pocahontas this Saturday. I hope everyone who plans on coming makes it. I think we will have a great time. I just love road trips. Maybe sometime next year we can make another trip up to Memphis to check out all of their yarn shops again.

Well that's it for this time. I hope I can get the photos I take of the Pocahontas trip up faster than I did this post. :) Can't wait to see everyone this Saturday!

Opal

One Year Anniversary Meeting

Hey everyone,

What a great meeting! We had a record number of people show up to our meeting this time. I think we had up to 20 people show up. Our group photo only has 14 in it but some people only came in for a few minutes to see what our group was about. It was really nice having the meeting at the Cox Creative Center. I think next month we will try to have it at the Library in Jacksonville. I'll let you know soon for sure if that's where we're meeting.

Here's some photos from the meeting:


Our Anniversary cake.

Here are our winners of the door prizes:


Barbara won a necklace that says "Knit" on it.


Laurie won a pom-pom maker that was made by Nancy.


Sylvia won a Knitting Needles case and Helen won the "Happy Hooker" book.

Here are some action shots:










And last but not least our group photo:


Here's an update on what I know so far about the Fiber Mill tour for Nov. 1st. I have about nine people wanting to go so far. It should be about $10 per person for the tour. We will probably visit the yarn shop "Raven's Nest" while we're there. There is a lady that has an alpaca farm in Pocahontas that says we can come tour her farm while we're there. She told me to call her when we get an agenda together. Please let me know if there is anything else you would like to do while we are there. I'm going to do some more research to see if there is anything else we can visit while we're there too.

See you next time,

Opal

August '08 Meeting

Hello again everyone,

We had a great meeting yesterday! We had some new people come this month. Thank you Susan and Janet for joining our group! It's really great having new people join. I just love meeting people. It's so much fun learning from them and teaching them new things too. Janet told us about something none of us had heard of before. It's called CrochetKnit. She said she will bring her stuff with her to the next meeting and will show us how to do it. I can't wait! I love learning new things. :)

Some of our members brought the hats that they have done for Knitting for Noggins so far. Wow, did they have a lot done. Here's a picture of them:


We have a cute group photo this time. We all put on one of the Knitting for Noggins hats for it.


Next months meeting will be the Yarn Dolls one year Anniversary! The meeting will be on September 6th from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Cox Creative Center on the Main Library Campus in Little Rock. There will be pizza, cake and door prizes. So, please come join us to celebrate this wonderful occasion!

See you next month,

Opal

Knit In at CALS

Hello everyone,

This is going to be a quick post. I just wanted to share some photos I took at the Knit In at CALS yesterday. Judy and I went. We saw Jennifer and Barbara there too. It was fun meeting so many new people. Some of them were from ravelry.com. It's nice to finally put names with faces now.

The first set of photos are of some of the people that came to it. The last ones are of some lace knits that were on display.























Oh, yeah. They gave away 10 door prizes at the end of it. You didn't have to be present to win. We didn't get there until about 1:30 p.m. and we stayed until they gave away the prizes. Guess what? I won something. Isn't that cool? I won a necklace that says knit on it. Here's a picture of it:


Yes, I know. I don't knit but it will be a cool gift to give away to someone sometime. :)

Well, that's all I've got for this time.

See you at the next meeting in two weeks!

Opal