Corespun Natural Stripes
Corespun yarn in natural colors (white, brown, grey) spun to create 6-8 stripes per 2 pound bump. Fiber content: 50% mohair - 50% Shetland wool
Fiber Farm Market at the Sheep Shed – Pittstown NJ
Join us at the Windswept Acres Sheep Shed in Pittstown NJ for a fiber fix. We’re open 2nd Saturdays, plus Small Business Saturday November 23,10AM to 3PM all dates. We’ll also be doing informal demos/ talks on different fiber topics.
- October 12
- November 9
- November 23 is Small Business Saturday 2024. Come help us celebrate small businesses!
- December 14
Cornerstone farms vending and organizing guests, demos and classes are:
Windswept Acres – fleeces, roving, yarn & sheepskins from Sue’s flock of natural colored and white Romney and Dorset sheep and NJ Blankets. Plus meet the sheep!
Dancing Waters Farm – natural colored and hand dyed mohair/ wool roving, tops & yarn from Andrea’s Angora goats and sheep, plus catnip and NJ Blankets.
Other NJ Fibershed members vending include:
- Willow Pond Farm – Sue’s raw natural colored and white fleeces (Gotland, Jacob)
Plus other local products (farm and artisans):
- G.P.K Woodcrafts & Restorations – Gregg’s locally made cutting and charcuterie boards, wooden vases and bird houses (all made from locally sourced hard woods – maple, ash, walnut)
- Glass artist – Bonnie’s handcrafted, one-of-a-kind pressed glass sun-catchers
- Honey – Mountain Valley
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Guests, demos and classes will be announced via Instagram (@windsweptsheep) and on Dancing Waters Farm website (https://www.mohair-fiber.com) as they are scheduled.
Please stop by and talk fiber! Our goal for opening the Sheep Shed is to connect local to local.
Address: 173 Whitebridge Road, Pittstown, NJ 08867
#localfibernj #localfiberarts #localfiberfarms #windsweptsheep #dancingwatersfarm
2023 Year in Pictures
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This gallery contains 15 photos.
2022 Year in Pictures
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This gallery contains 16 photos.
Livestock Veterinary Good News – Acupuncture and a NJ Vet School at Last
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is making it’s way into the tool set of livestock veterinarians! It’s especially useful for chronic conditions such as arthritis, disc disease, back pain and musculoskeletal injuries, gastrointestinal disorders, neurological problems, and respiratory issues. Check out the details in this May 2022 Lancaster Farming article.
At Last a NJ Vet School
It’s gotten increasingly difficult to find livestock veterinary services throughout NJ, so it was great to hear that Rowan University has announced the planned opening of the first school of Veterinary Medicine in NJ! It will be located in Sewell, NJ and plans an inaugural class of 60 students in Fall 2025 (pending approval by the American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education). Today there are only 33 USA accredited vet schools of which 5 are on the East Coast. With the addition of the new school, Rowan will become one of two universities in the nation to offer doctor of veterinary medicine, doctor of medicine and doctor of osteopathic medicine degrees. More details available in the January 2022 article listed below.
NJ Fibershed Blanket Project – Blankets For Sale
The background story below – to purchase go to my online store.
 The NJ Fibershed Blanket Project is a cooperative project between small farms raising fiber animals for their fleeces. This is one of their major initiatives to bring NJ fiber farmers together, and to highlight locally produced fiber products.Using wool collected from farms located within the NJ Fibershed region, the program provides a way for small-scale fiber producers to sell their fiber. Their wool was processed and made into items that can be marketed to customers seeking local products and who want to support small-scale, sustainable farms. This is a one of a kind product, made entirely with NJ wool and manufactured in the USA. You won’t find an equivalent anywhere else. |
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| Over 400 lbs of wool was collected and sorted to meet criteria for quality to ensure a final product that is beautiful, warm, and enjoyable to own.
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| The NJ Fibershed Blanket measures 78″ x 58″ (2m x 1.47 m) and weighs 2.5 lb (1.13 kg). The blanket price is $325. Purchase in my online shop.
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The wool was washed in New Hampshire, spun in Maine, and handwoven by ComfortCloth Weaving in upstate New York.
Featuring a unique and modern design with three solid color sections representing the three regions of New Jersey: North, Central, and South Jersey. The gradual transition between color blocks is a playful nod to the fundamental New Jersey debate of where, exactly Central Jersey starts and ends. The nine lines in the transition represent the nine farms who contributed wool to the project. Two versions were woven – the one with a white background is sold out but the one with a grey background is still available (this is my favorite of the two).
Page Updated: Sep. 30, 2024
Rainbow Fiber Co-op
This fantastic group in their own words:
“is a Diné-led agricultural co-operative established to improve the financial sustainability and equitable market outcomes for the largest flocks of Dibé dits’ozí (Navajo-Churro sheep) remaining on the Navajo Nation. Our mission is to close the gap between rural Diné shepherds and an e-commerce driven marketplace for their wool. We are thrilled to announce that we have officially launched our online yarn shop!
Thanks to many generous donors we executed our first wool buy on the Navajo Nation in July 2021. We purchased approximately 3,200 pounds of Navajo-Churro wool from our shepherds. We paid a stipend for shearing help and a fair price for their wool by the pound. After skirting and sorting by color we transported the wool to Mora Valley Spinning Mill, a nonprofit community-based wool mill located in Mora, New Mexico, to produce an assortment of Navajo-style weaving yarns. In November of 2021 we began offering Diné-grown Navajo-Churro weaving yarns for sale online direct-to-customer. Sales dollars generated will be used to help fund the wool buy project again in 2022.
Most of the Navajo-Churro wool products available for sale online are from non-Diné shepherds. Diné shepherds are often told their wool is worthless or paid pennies per pound at mass wool buy events. Despite these challenges many shepherds create a market for themselves through hand spinning, weaving, and teaching weaving classes. This is difficult to do at scale and an unreliable source of income. In 2020 the pandemic brought marketing activities like farm visits, classes, art shows, and fiber events to a standstill. Several medium- to large-scale wool buys were completely canceled. These impacts have continued into 2021. We saw an opportunity to step up and do something to support these important flocks.”
Fibershed.org is helping them raise money to get their idea off the ground and their first run of yarn is now available on their website!
For more info: https://rainbowfibercoop.org/
2020 Year in Pictures
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This gallery contains 36 photos.
Antique Amish Yarn Swift
I recently bought an antique Amish swift from my artist and fellow fiber friend Linda Czech. Sadly she is backing out of fiber pursuits because her cats are fixated on destroying anything fiber she creates.
I took it “for a spin” to skein a bobbin of 2 ply Jacob wool handspun I’d done for the Woolverton Inn. The swift works perfectly to wind directly from my spinning wheel without my having to lean over or stretch up and it also counts the yardage as it goes. Not to mention that it just looks really great sitting in the living room!
2019 Year in Pictures
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This gallery contains 19 photos.
Monarch Migration
The Farm has always supported butterflies by keeping butterfly preferred flowers in the gardens and in particular looking out for Monarchs by raising them from caterpillars when their numbers are low. 2019 was the best Summer for Monarchs in quite a few years so I decided to start listing results for on-going comparison of years. But first a few pics….
Healthy Male Monarch With Wings Still Drying
15 caterpillars total
2 accidental deaths
0 disease issues
0 unexplained death
7 healthy males
6 healthy females
87% survival rate
Which far surpasses the 0% observed surviving in the garden.
Chrysalis Accidents
2 fell – one was crushed while cleaning the cage as it wasn’t seen on the bottom after it had fallen. The other fell just after the chrysalis formed and it was still too wet to survive the fall. This was the last caterpillar raised (9/18/19) and it seemed to have a bad destiny from the start. It wanted to j on the test tube rack for holding the milkweed leaves, when relocated to the top then picked the zipper of the cage, etc.