No Wool Here The July Phat Fiber Box

Remember the awesome birthday gift I got last May? Well, I have been watching the PhatFibers site since then as well as the group on Ravelry. I decided after doing several podcasts on non wool fibers with my daughter, that I would get the July no sheep box. And it was a wonderful collection of shiny goodness and other goodies and I wanted to share it with you.

So lets open the box!



ohh it's just jam packed! Lets start with the bright colors that first catch your eye.

A package of firestar from Gales Art, dyed silk cocoons from Hampton Artistic Yarns (she suggests snipping them up into art yarn) and a shiny purple bag of dyed mohair locks.

Now the 'blues' it amazed me how many samples actually coordinated in their colors. Bag with the purple ribbon, dyed milk top from SilverSun Alpacas, to the right dyed bamboo top from Sweetpeafibers, and in front in the braid dyed bamboo from Moonwood Farm.

More fiber! The blue is dyed bamboo, the brown is natural color llama (I think based on the photos on the label) from the Critter Ranch, and in front a light yellow batt of alpaca and angelina from Maude & Me.

Now the handspun yarn samples. Oh but first in front my favorite thing in the whole box, a tiny drop spindle, with ceramic whorl and a teeny sample of bamboo yarn from Serendipitous Ewe. Love it! If you go back in the back near the box edge you see another ingenious way of displaying a yarn sample, an old fashion wood sewing thread bobbin. This has an amazing lace weight seacell and silk yarn wrapped on it. I want to make it into a necklace! It's from Knit it Up. The pink yarn sample is kitchen cotton from It's a colorful Life. The pink in the back reminds me of the sari recycled yarn, and I was spot on, it's a handspun of tencel, mohair, recycled sari silk, bamboo and ramie from Coolclimates. The green in front of that is alpaca yarn dyed with indigo and osage orange from Mama Jude's (you know how I love the natural dye stuff and this is a very good example of what can be done with multiple dips) Last the black worsted weight alpaca from Northern Bay Handspun.

The pink is reclaimed acrylic yarn from Jag's Funky Fibers. The large batt is a blend of cotton, bamboo and silk or angora from Desired Haven Farm. The lipgloss (Cowgirl lipgloss, it's sparkly!) is from Calizonadesigns. The orange yellow skein of yarn is bamboo from Christina Marie Potter.

Just when you think the box is empty you realize there are patterns in the bottom and some goodies in that clear bag. There is a stitch marker from Marcie Phillips In stitches. There is a stitch marker that looks like peas in a pod (hey, I am a gardener so I love it!) from Yarndemon. There's a sample pack of gift tags, really nice designs to put on your handmade gift with a place for fiber content and care from fibergifttags. And there is a yoyo with a button, ready to adorn some knit or crochet item from desert garden farms.The spiral hat pattern is by Kelly Jensen and the hoody pattern (in cotton of course) is a design by Kira K Designs. The goody bag contains lots of business cards with discount codes for online shopping. I made paper bookmarks to be included in these bags to advertise my podcasts. I put pictures of different non wool fibers on the bookmarks (like silk, tencel, cotton) and then information for the podcast episode that tells how to spin these fibers. I know many spinners are very familiar with spinning wool and I wanted to use this great opportunity to help spinners feel more comfortable with fibers that are not wool. I hope this adds to my already wide and welcomed listener base.

This box sure did brighten my day when it arrived!