Hi, this is Sugar Gay Isber and this is my podcast Jewelry as your side hustle, Jim's
Great in Growth, but today we're not going to talk about jewelry.
We're going to do something totally different.
Another friend of mine from the Craft Alliance, I don't know what to say it wrong, CIA, Craft
Industry Alliance, and we met on a Zoom call and it's just lovely to get to meet her.
And so over the next hour, we're going to learn all about yarn, which is going to be
my next, I guess, second passion.
I don't know.
So here we have Kim Langley from Preveyor of Fine Yards.
And welcome to my podcast.
Thank you.
I'm so happy you're here.
I'm excited.
Where are you calling from?
Where are you?
I am in my, what I call my business room in Madison, Wisconsin.
Oh, the beautiful Madison, Wisconsin.
It's so gorgeous.
And that's why you're wearing a beautiful sweater, because it's like cooler up there.
Today it's going to be like 105 here in Texas.
Yeah, it's not 105 here.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's still summer and it's still nice, but you know, it's not, we, we've passed our 100
day, 100 degree days.
Oh, so it's so nice to get that summer over with and then we go into those crisp fall days.
So tell me about you, how, how long have you been in the yard purveyor business?
Tell me this kind of story of how yarn became your thing because it's, it's a whole thing.
It's different because it's not like I grew up wanting to start a yarn company.
You know, I kind of fell into it.
I, I'm an analyst by trade, a financial analyst.
I used to work on budgets, different industries from television to state government to politics,
but always doing the same thing, budgets, numbers, you know, fiscal analyst stuff, right?
Different sectors, same thing.
And I just decided at some point is like, oh, I know it was 2008 when everybody was
getting laid off during the housing crisis.
I remember.
Oh yeah.
So I was again, one of those people and I did a lot of interviews and I was living in
Hawaii on Oahu and it became Hawaii got hit really bad.
I mean, you would do interviews and instead of doing one, I would be doing two, three
interviews for the same position, like with against 20 other people.
You know, it was just like, it was really bad.
So I decided, okay, I need to do something else.
So I started a yarn store because I'd always been knitting and I looked at it from a business
perspective, it's like, what are the things I know best?
We looked at them, you know, looked at the market and I knew there was a yarn store closing
and I knew it had been a pretty stable environment.
You know, it's not a huge market, but it was stable and they'd always had a certain, they'd
always had three yarn stores on the island.
So I figured, okay.
And I took a long time looking for space.
A friend and I, we would drive every back road on Oahu.
We drove all over Honolulu looking for space and I finally got a space and I was yarn story.
And I was the yarn lady on Oahu for six, eight, seven years.
And you know, just sold yarn and I really liked it.
You know, it was fun.
It was low key.
And then for various reasons, I needed to move back to the mainland, you know, the continental
United States.
Not amazing move.
Yeah, well, it was a, you know, it was interesting.
And I originally thought, well, it's okay.
I'll go back and I'm in the Midwest because I'm from the Midwest and it was like family
type reasons.
So it's like, that's how I ended up in Madison.
And I was going to start a yarn store again, but you know, retail is really brutal.
It's like you always on, you know, I was open six days a week.
And even if I wasn't at the store, I was still working on things.
So after I decided to take a break for a month or two, and then I said, yeah, I don't want
to go back to retail.
And I looked around at wholesale.
I looked at some other, other sectors.
I managed an organic farm for a while.
Was a business manager on an organic tomato farm.
That was a good time.
That was great.
Tomatoes.
I'm tasting them right now.
Yeah.
And then I found out about this woolen mill and I decided, well, if I'm serious about
wanting to understand the fiber industry and kind of see where I can go with that, I decided
to work at this woolen mill because, you know, my theory is always be, if you want to learn
something, just get a job somewhere in the industry, usually at the bottom and figure
out how it works.
Oh my gosh, that must have been so interesting.
So I like probably like train loads.
I know it comes in train loads sometimes the amount of wool that people get to go and do
it.
Well, yeah.
The final type of woolen mill, it was, the equipment is over a hundred years old.
Oh, I love it.
Okay.
So think, you know, that Lowell, Massachusetts, the mill drills, they would have been very
familiar with these machines.
Same machines.
The technology for spinning yarn hasn't changed much since 1880.
I mean, and this mill, I was going to say they have more safety precautions, but this
mill, because it was very, you know, the owner had removed all the safety features because,
you know, for one reason or another, it's like you need to check something, you'd have
to remove the safety covers.
So she just started leaving them off.
Okay.
So, yeah, it was like old style, but it was interesting and I was doing prep work.
So before wool can go on a mill equipment, which is huge.
I mean, we're talking a building the size, the length of a basketball court.
Wow.
You know, and the equipment, the carter, I can't even compare it.
It'd be like, it would barely, if you were to put it on a basketball court, it would
probably reach to the half court line.
Wow.
I mean, it's two machines.
They're huge.
They actually kind of built the building and left the end wall open in order to put these
machines in.
Wow.
And she got the machines 30 years ago from Massachusetts.
Yeah, they had built the building, left the wall open on the end, and then the semi, basically
they had to get special equipment to get them off and into the building, and then they built
the end wall.
Wow.
You know, it was like, and then eventually they built another, they needed more space,
and then they built like a, another section onto that building.
So now if they were to get them out, it would be really tricky.
Yeah.
So this is like a set thing.
So carding wall, let's talk about that.
So you get this big chunk of wool, you have to clean it somehow first, right?
So that's what I did.
I would clean wool because there's two ways of doing it.
So if you're doing the carter, there's, it's really two things.
So you have people that are selling wool by the bale, which is usually 500 pounds.
Right.
Okay.
So the big wool is going to be 1000 pounds of wool can be washed in a scouring plant,
of which there are only two in the United States.
Wow.
Okay.
One is in North Carolina.
One is in San Angelo, Texas.
Yeah.
I knew seeing, I was already thinking San Angelo's got a big wool.
I've been to San Angelo.
Yeah, a big wool industry down there, and that's where the big scouring plant is.
So, but to go into that scouring plant, the minimum is 1000 pounds.
Wow.
So that's how it is.
Well, basically you, oh, to wash wool on any level, it's, you need very hot water and
soap, like dish soap, that kind of soap.
The oils have to come off the lanol.
Lanolin, which we call the grease.
So this wool and mill had two distinct segments.
They would process large quantities of wool for their own yarns.
They would buy a clip and they'd have like maybe 2000 pounds of wool that they would
process for their own brand.
Then they did what's called custom spinning.
And this means anybody who has a few sheep or is buying wool from various people and
wants to make their own yarn, you can take it to a woolen mill who will do custom spinning.
And that's what I did was I would go through that wall because often people bring in stuff
that maybe is good, maybe is not, or it's got to be gone through because the mill equipment.
So yeah, and you don't want crap in it.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I would, what's called skirt, which means I lay the wool out on a table, like a screen
and that way any dirt falls through.
And then you kind of look at it too to make sure it's like quality wise because the mill
can't take, if wool is weak or has breaks, it will just break into the equipment and
it's not going to do anything.
And that's caused by various environmental factors.
So one of the things I would do is I would look at that wool and I would pull it apart
and check the fibers that they were strong.
It's called grating.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And then I would also, skirting means basically you're going to go through that wool and you're
going to look for thistles.
Sticks.
Shit.
Yeah.
You know, crap.
Hard pieces of what we call tags, which is grease that is the lanolin that has gotten
a lot of dirt attached to it and it forms like clots.
I mean, clots.
Almost like a clod.
Yeah.
And it hangs in lumps.
I've seen that on sheet before.
Yeah.
And that's the kind of stuff you have to remove.
So all that has to be pulled off manually.
Wow.
And then we wash it.
When we were washing it, we had, there are different ways to wash wool, but when you're
doing these smaller quantities, the woman I worked for at that mill, she had developed
a process using old Maytag washing machines.
Oh, I love it.
And these machines were like 20, 30 years old, right?
Okay.
But what she'd done is had the agitators disconnected.
So basically you have tubs that spin.
Right.
And the thing is to wool, people think wool, oh, it's going to felt, it's going to, you
know, get all messed up if you put it in anything, right?
Hot water.
Yeah.
But it's not true.
To felt wool, you need two things.
You need agitation and hot water.
So if I, and to clean wool, you need hot water that's at least 150 degrees.
Get the oils out.
Yeah.
Because that lifts the lanolin off it.
So what you do is you fill these washing machines up with 150 degree hot water, put your soap
in, which is just basically it's similar to dish soap.
I mean, we just got it in 50 gallon tubs is all, you know what I mean?
But yeah, I use dish soap to wash wool.
Yeah.
And it works really well.
It's a decreaser.
Yeah.
It cuts the grease.
You put your soap in, stick your hand in with a, on with a heavy rubber glove over it.
Okay.
The soap is all mixed in already because you're not going to move that wool.
So you want to make sure your soap is all dissolved in throughout the water.
And then I would just dump the wool in and let it settle into the water.
And then you just press it in so that all the wool is under water and you let it sit.
And then you're not, cause you're not agitating it.
You're just putting it in the hot water, pushing it down to make sure it's all covered.
Yeah.
Put the lid down, let it sit for 20 minutes, hit the machine to spin.
So you spin that water out.
And that's just, you know, what do you call it, a certificate force?
Yep.
So all the wool ends up on the size of the machine.
Yep.
Again, as an agitation, it's just pushed back.
Right.
And then you can fill it up again with hot water.
Oh, and do a rinse.
Well, usually depending on the wool, we would do two washes and then three rinses.
Wow.
And if there were certain types of breeds, certain breeds have different levels of grease
in their wool.
Yeah.
So most breeds of wool, we did two washes and washes are really just soaks with soap.
Right.
Yeah.
And then three rinses, which is just using the clear water and spinning it out and filling
it up, letting it sit, spin it out again, would generally get you very clean wool.
Okay.
Now it's going to dry off this kind of stink.
Yeah.
And then actually you have this really beautiful, suddenly from being gray and dirty and all
this crap in it, you get this brilliantly white wool.
It's amazing what water and soap can do.
And then you have to dry it because it's got to be dry before it can touch the machines.
And you dry it on racks that have to be able to have the water.
Air has to circulate above and below the wool.
Yeah.
So it's a screen, like a screen.
Yeah.
The screen and we had the screens attached on racks going up the wall.
And then you have a fan at one end.
You have a couple, just a couple fans.
So the air circulates and then that's how you dry wool.
And then once the wool is totally dry, you know, we bag it.
We used to use these big heavy duty clear, but like just plus a bag to move wool from
one, one piece of the thing to the next, right?
You had stick it in a bag, move it over to the picker.
And then the picker is a machine that goes, the wool goes through and it fluffs it up,
separates the fibers, fluffs it up.
And it also allows things to like fall, like any little sticks that are still in it or
right.
So we call VM vegetable matter.
Okay.
And then from the picker, it goes to the carter.
So in the carter is this big machine and you put the wool in at one end and it goes over
a series of drums with like a mesh, little wires sticking up from a mesh that hold it.
I don't know how to describe it.
It's like, it's a picker.
So it's picking.
So I'm kind of thinking about like when they do with cotton, they like comb it.
Sort of.
It's like, yeah.
Except that what it is, is it's big drums.
If you can think of a big circular drum on it, like a 50 gallon drum, but these are like
my size.
They're massive.
And then on the outside of the drum, there are all these little wires, one inch long that
are sticking out and pointy.
And as the drums go around, the wool catches on the wires and then it catches on the next
drum and there's a series of these drums, like four or five of them of different sizes
from very big ones at the bottom to smaller ones at the top.
And as the drums go through, as everything is turning, the wool is getting pulled from
the bigger drum up through the system till at the end, it's on a smaller drum and it's
all coming being pulled off the drum in a sheet.
It's called a web.
Wow.
And that web then goes over a conveyor into the next machine where again, it goes through
this process of being constantly pulled out and put into a web and pulled out and just,
it's constantly being pulled and folded basically.
So one machine is wheel, I mean, these drums that are pushing the fibers through and spinning.
And then on the other system, it's just that web is being pulled out and thinned and pulled
out and thinned so that at the end of it, you've got that web is in like a half inch
wide pencil roving.
Okay.
So still on the roll.
Yeah.
And it goes on this big roller that takes two people to lift and then that would go on
the spinning machine.
And now it's going to become thinner.
And then the spinning machine makes it has a bunch of, it's going to put it on cones,
not really, what are they called?
They're wooden.
I'm blanking on the proper name for it.
Okay, but it's kind of like a pagan.
It's like spinning it around.
Right.
Exactly.
And the thing is, yeah, I mean, if you, there's lots of places you can Google for that.
In fact, I can give you a link that you can show people how to look at a spinning meal
and operation.
But once it goes through that, so then you have this pencil roving that goes onto these
cones.
And it's all, the whole thing is about being thinner, thinner, thinner, right?
Right.
So you get the single plies.
And then the single plies, those cones are going to go on a different machine where all
the singles are put into two plies or three plies.
And that's when you actually have yarn.
A single plie is not that great.
But you know, and you do these things, you know, by shifting the machine, the machine
is run by, you know, the gears, you change the gears to make it either how thin you want
those singles to be.
And then again, on the plying machine, you can adjust the machine for how, you know,
how you want to apply the, what we call the twist.
I mean, that's a very, very short version.
But where does the color come in?
Cause, Oh, but that's much later.
Oh, really?
After you have, there are two ways to do colors.
So the most common way is that you dye the yarn.
So after the yarn is applied and it's put into the length of the yarn, like if you want
a skein, which could be any length, you know, maybe 250 yards or 400 yards or 100 yards.
Wow.
Okay.
So once you've got your skeins, that's generally when people are dying yarn.
And then you have a, how you want to do it?
We had a 30 gallon, what actually it looks like a, it was a restaurant piece of equipment
from a restaurant where they would make soups in.
Oh, wow.
Cause it's a standalone, huge 30 gallon thing.
And that's what she dyed yarn in myself.
I don't have that luxury of having that standalone with its own gas source thing.
And I dye yarn in smaller quantities and just use a stove top, you know, for my heat source.
But the, you're not just sticking it down like spaghetti, like it's on, like it's not
a, yeah, but they don't make a mess.
No.
What you do is you have it, the yarn is, each skein is tied off.
So it's not going to tangle with very loose ties.
And then my system is similar to what was done at the woolen mill, cause I thought it
was very practical is that the skeins are then tied together on, she would use a twine.
Just regular twine, like bailing twine.
And you use these links of time because it's really rough.
So it's easy to find cause the yarn is not.
So the twine is rough.
So you can reach in and feel the twine and find it.
And so you'd put like however many skeins of yarn you're dying, you would split them
up into different bundles on the twine kind of evenly and then put them in your dipot.
So in the dipot is just hot water, water with your dye mix in it, whatever your dye mix
is.
And then you let it soak as you increase the heat.
And then as it heats, there are a couple of different, this is where people get very
proprietary about how they do their dye process.
Like when they put in their mordant, some people put the citric acid in at the beginning
of the process, which means your dye is going to strike very quickly.
Some people are vinegar cause you need an acid.
What is an acid?
And then, but other people are kind of proprietary because if you put the acid, your mordant
in it, different points in the process, it changes how your yarn, how it takes, right?
When the dye does its final stick, right?
Yeah.
Is there a fixative or is the vinegar also the fixative?
No, that is.
That's what I mean by mordant.
Mordant is what causes those dye molecules, the chemistry to change, but it can't be just
the mordant.
You also need heat.
So if you were to do, try to dye, acid dye in cold water.
When works?
Well, it might work eventually, but it would take a lot longer.
And to be honest, I've never tried it to say, I definitely say it doesn't work.
But the idea is that you need heat because the heat with the acid, it causes those dye
molecules to bond with the wool molecules and that's what's the stick, right?
And if you get the heat up and you have your right amount of acid, your dye is not going
to run.
It's going to stick.
It's permanent.
It's not going to do anything.
Like when I dye yarn, you look in my pots, you don't see any color.
The water is clear.
After you've rinsed it.
No, before I've rinsed it.
When I dye yarn, my stick, I put my mordant in it and how I do my process, that means
that when I go to take the yarn out of that pot, the water is clear.
I have almost what's called 99% take up.
There's no dye in the water.
Okay.
I've dyed things with writ dye like tons over my lifetime.
And there's always dye in the thing.
I could explain why writ dye because writ dye is a, it's not just for acid.
What they do with writ dye is they put in dye for both cottons, which is a different
dye process and per acid.
So the idea with writ dye is it's going to the part of that dye powder that's meant for
acid will stick and the rest will wash out.
Okay.
So you're going to get a lot more rins with writ dye.
Yes.
Else it's going to come off in your washing machine.
Have you ever?
Yes.
I've done that a million times too.
Like, oh my God.
But most, you know, but my, one of my frustrations were when there was a time when it seems like
everybody was going, is going to be a hand dyer and people would be posting on boards
and stuff on Ravlery about, so is all the dye supposed to run out when you dye yarn?
And I'm like, yeah, no, no.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yeah.
You don't want that.
You're wearing a sliver and you get wet and all of a sudden you got a puddle of blue
at the bottom of your feet.
You know, and the thing is, like I said, my process is the water is clear.
So that usually I only have to rinse things once or twice and that is remarkable.
But it is between wool dye, wool dye.
Well, and this is dying wool, which is, or silks, which are acid dyes, right?
Right.
Um, cotton is a whole other process and I don't deal with cotton yarns anymore.
So I'm out of practice on that one.
And then what about like Angora wool and some of those more?
Well, it depends.
Angora can be two things.
It can be from a goat or from rabbits, but both of those are protein fibers and protein
fibers are acid dyes.
So any protein fibers, so that means wool, cashmere, Angora, mohair.
I've dyed mohair.
I'm trying to think if I've dyed Angora.
Maybe a blend.
I don't think I've ever, I don't think I've ever dyed at 100% Angora, you know, from the
rabbits.
I don't think I've ever done that.
But in principle, because it's a protein fiber, it should have the same, it's the same process.
Protein fibers are acid is the more than you want an acid dye.
And so now you've dyed it in its wool.
And now when you want to blend like two colors together or three colors, which I've seen
a beautiful wools and.
Oh yeah, there's all kinds of do wait.
I mean, indie dyers.
I mean, I'm talking about dying in a pot, right?
Where you're doing a solid or a semi-solid.
If you want to paint it, then that's a different process.
You know, you literally, you can paint the yarn.
There are so many different ways to dye yarn.
And there's another way to do it, which Mills can do, which is you dye the fiber before
it goes through the carter.
And then that cut that dry dyed fiber can be carted in a specific order to create a pencil
roving that is going to show up with long segments of color, right?
Because you're putting it and you do it by weight.
I'm like, for example, you may dye 40 pounds of wool blue and another 40 pounds gray red
and then another 20 pounds yellow, right?
And then you're going to decide you want, so you've got red, blue and yellow and you
can make now wool that is green, purple, orange.
You just have to put it in the carter in the percentages together and that carter is going
to mix that yarn.
So that visually when you look at it, it's going to look whatever color you want, right?
Or whatever color it is, but even if it looks, say, orange, if you look at it very closely,
you're going to see that the fibers are yellow and red, but together from a distance, they're
going to look more orange.
Or you do an orange and you throw in some red to get you a heathered color or you do
a natural gray, but as you're putting it in the mill into the carter, say you put in that
gray wool, that natural gray, and then you throw in 20 pounds of that same wool that
has been dyed green.
This is going to give you a heathered yarn because those green fibers are going to be
mixed into it through the carding process and it's going to come out as a gray wool with
flecks of green.
Think tweed, heathered, and those kind of things have to be done at the mill level,
right?
Because you need that carter to mix the wool, which can be quite fascinating, but I'll tell
you it's a pain to clean the carter afterwards because before you do the next job, you've
got to clean all that stuff off.
Perfectly, yes.
I prefer to dye personally.
This is just my personal preference.
I much prefer dyeing skeins to dyeing 30 pounds of loose wool.
The techniques are different.
How you corral it and what process you use to do it is a little different.
It must have been a wonderful job so that you really understood everything about the
product that you're going to be selling and you understand that it's a fine wool.
You understand the grading process.
How invaluable was this job to you?
Oh, this is how I fell into having this yarn business because as I'm learning to skirt
this wool, I'm realizing that I can tell what breed it is by the feel of the fleece and
looking at it.
The woman I worked for was extremely knowledgeable about the fiber industry.
She'd been in the business for 30 years.
She knew all about it.
I kept learning more and more about the wool and I became fascinated about how the different
breeds presented.
Certain breeds are known for different qualities.
That got me really interested.
That's how I decided to start my own yarn brand because there wasn't a lot of…
There are very few people doing breed…
When I started this three years ago, in 2021, at that point, there were very few places doing
single breed yarns.
There was only one other company I could find that was really focused on local, their fiber
shed.
I use fiber shed in the sense that it's fiber produced within, I consider it a day's drive.
It's a place that can reach in the day.
To me, that's local.
Part of my reason for this is also seeing that there are all these farmers out there
with wool and nowhere to sell it because they were too small to get into the larger markets.
They didn't have enough sheep.
A lot of farmers sell to the shearer.
This is a thing people don't understand about wool.
If you buy a commercial wool, just some common brand that Michaels…
Common commercial wool, that wool comes from what's called the wool pool.
The wool pool is…
There used to be three, now there are less.
There used to be four, but anyway, there are less buyers, big buyers that buy wool.
They're the big buyers.
The shearers generally have a contract with one of these big buyers that when they are
done shearing, they will take their bags and a shearers bag carries 250 pounds of wool.
There's huge money sacks.
It's going to be wool from wherever he's been shearing.
It's not separated.
It's like whatever it is.
A lot of wool is crosses, cross-bred sheep.
If he knows, he can sell it to the wool pool, these companies that buy large amounts of
wool for say 40 cents a pound, maybe 75 cents a pound.
The wool price has gone down.
It's only gone down in the last eight or 10 years.
It used to be 20 years ago, farmers could sell their wool and have enough money maybe
to buy the feed for the winter or something.
Now the wool, they sell their wool.
It doesn't even pay for the shearing.
Often the shearers, and they've got to carry this wool around, and they've got to then
meet up with the wool pool at some point to offload it.
If they're only going to get 40 cents a pound, they're only going to pay the farmer.
Farmers like if he gets five cents.
But the wool has to come off of the sheep every year.
Has to come off of the sheep.
So it's kind of like, okay, we're always going to like, never the pause.
Right.
And the farmers are making their money on the meat.
The meat production, right?
And that's what it is.
And like I said, there was a time when fleece was worth a lot more, so it was a dual market.
But the wool market has just plummeted to such a degree that that is no longer viable.
So they're making their money on the meat market.
The wool is just something they're trying to like offload.
And then you have me and I decided, well, there's so many of these small producers that
if I could provide a market for them and pay them a fair price, get held the whole industry.
A fair price in the wool pool, then, you know, that's good for them, good for me, right?
So I go in and offer them a dollar a pound.
Which is tremendous, but you only want one kind of sheep.
But I'm particular.
Yes.
I'm only looking for sheep that are 100%.
Usually they're registered with the breed associations or there are different ways of
knowing that they're 100%.
I always get affidavits from anybody I buy from because I figure if you're willing to
write down that it's 100%, then I believe you.
Because why would you sign that if it wasn't?
Right.
Because you would kind of know too by touching it.
And I kind of, you know, by looking at the lease, I can tell if it's too much.
Yeah.
But yes, but I only buy specific types of wool.
But there's quite a bit of that out there too.
It's just a matter of finding it.
Yeah.
So when you get it, it's like virgin, never been died before.
No, I get wool.
I mean, I drive county, I drive so many county roads, okay?
I think that's cool.
And I go out and they'll pull out bags.
If I don't get there on sharing day, which I try to go on sharing day sometimes, but
that's not always practical.
So let me tell you, so like the last time I go out to this place and he knows I'm coming,
I always try to, you know, I'm trying to give them, I'll be there between 10 and 11.
Right.
Because I've gotten lost a few times, okay?
Right.
But you know, I go out, they'll have bags of wool and I will pull from the bags and
I'll pull out segments of wool.
I'll check it for strength.
I'm going to look at it for color.
I'm going to paw through it and see how much shit is in it.
And I mean, I'm pooped literally, you know, it's like, how clean is this wool, right?
How much vegetable matter is in it?
And then, you know, if it's really bad, I may only,
If you're paying for that too, right?
Yeah, because I pay for weight.
And if the weight is a lot of heavy stuff, then I say, well, I'll offer you 85 cents
a pound because look, there's all this chunks, right?
If it's fairly clean, I'll offer them a dollar a pound.
If it's, and that's when I don't know them and I don't even know if this will make a
good yarn.
Right.
Because to be honest, I've been, I've had a few times when I have bought large quantities
of wool, got it to the mill and can't do anything with it.
It will not hold on the, you know what I mean?
It's like, once it's been washed and they try to put it through the equipment, it's
weak or there's, it just won't hold together.
Or I mean, I've, yeah, so I've lost money on these things a few times.
You have to just throw it away at that point.
There are different things we can do.
Like I could tell you about some stuff that I have in bags.
If you'd like to buy pillow bats.
Oh, that's interesting.
We'll pillow, we'll inserts for pillow.
Right.
And they make excellent pillows.
And it's just one of those things that I need to start marketing, but I've been so focused
on just getting my supply line straight that it's just waiting for I have time to make
phone calls.
But that was one of the things we did because the Suffolk would not stay on the Carter.
It, you know what I mean?
It has to get pulled through the Carter.
You know, it's going to be drafted.
Yeah.
And this, this wolf for whatever reason, she could only, it would go so far and then it
would literally drop.
It would just drop on the floor.
So, but bats is a little different because it's a machine where you're putting in a certain
amount and it just spreads it that far.
Right.
So we could make pillow bats out of it.
That worked.
So I have color bats and they'll sell.
It's just a matter of when I have time to like deal with it.
They're just bagged up right now.
I had, but I have put them in pillows and I use a pillow with wool bats and it's like
I love it.
It's like the most comfortable thing I've ever had.
And natural instead of, you know, just some, it's not polyester fill.
It's natural.
Right.
It holds up really well.
And that's a vintage kind of way of doing it.
So there's a whole nother level of that because.
Right.
But there have been times where it's like I've had to throw wool away because it's just,
it's not going to go anywhere.
So it's like compost, you know, it's like, okay, it composts really well.
Okay.
Well, hair has got a lot of nutrients in it.
So I, yeah, and wool is a nitrogen fixer.
So and now there's started to be this thing with pellets.
If you've caught into that, the wool pellet thing, somebody in the Midwest, out West basically
realized that a lot of people, farms and stuff have been using wool for compost and in mulch
and stuff because you have it and it's a good thing.
Right.
Yeah.
But a lot of typical urban gardener, gardeners, they're going to look at that and say, yeah,
I know that looks funky and it smells and maybe not want it around.
Right.
So somebody figured out a way to take that raw grease wool and make it into pellets.
So it looks like something that for like an urban gardener is a much more palatable.
It still has all that rich, but it has all the nutrients of that raw because it's raw
wool.
All they've done is they put it.
They also do a kind of a flash burn on it to get out any seeds that might be mixed into
it.
So they don't have to worry about.
Yeah.
They heated up enough to kill any seeds because that is one of the problems with using raw
wool as mulch is that.
Brass seeds are in there.
All that kind of stuff.
So you're like, I use it in my garden because I know it.
So I just kind of watch for it.
You know, I think pops up, you pull it out.
Not the worst thing.
Yeah.
It's not the worst thing.
Do you have any sheep?
No, I don't.
I live in Madison.
I have no sheep.
And the thing is I grew up on a farm, but we never had sheep.
We raised goats, beef cattle.
You know, I milked goats for years when I was growing up.
Wow.
Yeah.
I have what I would call a diverse background.
Yeah.
Well, I love me some good goats cheese, but I wouldn't know how to make it.
I mean, I've probably seen a YouTube video.
No, we never did the cheese.
We just, my father decided at some point we drank too much milk.
So he got a goat and that's the milk we drank.
Does it taste that much different, tangier, like goat cheese?
Well, supposedly, but you know, if that's all you drink, you don't know that.
Yeah.
You know that.
And we used to give it out.
We used to tell people to give them tests and stuff to see if they could tell the difference.
Oh, right.
But nobody really ever did.
Oh, wow.
I didn't know.
I would have thought the flavor would have been really unique.
If it's cold.
It's still good.
I don't think it's, I mean, like I said, I haven't drank it for a long time, but there
were like three years there that that's all we drank was goat milk.
Wow.
Well, you can buy it in the store now.
So some people are allergic to goat, to cow milk, so they have to guess I have that.
So okay, so now tell me about your business.
Now, when did, so now you left that place?
Obviously at some point.
Well, I worked at the mill part time until a year ago.
And I was there at the time because it was like, I would do, I was doing the wash for
custom jobs.
So that kind of business fluctuates a little bit.
So it's like, I would work two days a week doing, I would do prepping wool for custom
jobs and I would do her run the dye pot when I was there and dye yarn for her.
And then, but you know, there'd be times when there wasn't any work.
So I'd be two days a week.
And maybe it would get busier and I'd be three or four days.
Then maybe there'd be times where it's like, you know, that kind of work does not pay very
well.
So in order for me to do, this sounds ridiculous, but in order for me to do that job, occasionally
I'd have to stop and take a temporary full time job for two months.
So I could make some money, catch up on my expenses, right?
Basically, so I could afford to work for her.
Like what it would have been.
You're very committed.
But what it did do is it gave you an education beyond an education.
Yes.
I know a lot about wool.
I understand wool, how it works.
It taught me a lot about the fiber industry in general.
And then when I wanted to go out and make my own yarns, the first ones I did were spun
at the mill where I worked.
And then I started exploring and the woman who owns that mill, she wants to retire.
So she's been scaling back.
So I mean, there's been no work for, she stopped doing custom jobs.
So basically she didn't need me anymore at all.
Because she's doing a lot less volume than she's done before.
So I haven't worked for a year, but my own business has picked up.
So it's like, I do that.
Where do people find your...
So where do you find me?
So I do fiber festivals because when I first started, fiber festivals get you seen.
You get hundreds or depending on the festival, thousands of people walk by your booth in
a day and see your yarns.
And it's great for me because it also helps me refine what I'm offering because as people
are going through your booth, you take notice of what they're picking up, what they pick
up, look at and put back on the shelf, which is almost more important than what sells.
It's like, why are things not selling?
What breeds are more familiar to people?
There's a lot of...
I do a lot of education because breed specific yarns are a niche, I would say, in the yarn
community.
Not everyone is aware of it or aware of the qualities and how it can benefit what you're
doing by knowing the different qualities of these different breeds.
A lot of people don't realize that there are breeds of sheep whose wool will not sell
no matter what you do to it.
It's not going to sell.
I would say then you can wash it and add to it.
You can wash it in the machine and it will work.
It won't shrink up.
That's really the shrinkage.
And that's one people are always totally surprised about, that I have sock yarns that are natural
wool.
They're not super washed so that weakens the fiber superwash process.
So these are natural wools, but they're from a breed of sheep that its wool will not sell.
And those are the down breeds like Suffolk, Corn Dorset, Oxford.
Chevyot is not a down breed, but it acts like a down breed.
And so those are some of the things I learned along the way.
And those yarns are interesting.
They're different.
So I do fiber festivals.
I do large fiber festivals and I have a website.
During the summer I do fiber festivals in May and like right now I'm like frantically
in my countdown phase because my biggest shows are in the fall.
So I will be at Wisconsin sheep and wool, which is in Jefferson, Wisconsin, the second
weekend of September.
Okay.
And then I'll be there.
Yeah.
And then I'm at New York sheep and wool in Rheinback.
Oh, wow.
So you're traveling too.
That's quite a drive.
It's quite a drive, but it's also like I applied there.
I went once before I kind of started this business, the year before I started this business.
I went there because it was a bucket list thing to go to Rheinback.
You know?
Okay.
Yeah.
And I volunteered to work at their fleece show so I could study with the judges because
that's also one of my things is learning more about wool.
So I'll go to wool shows, sheep and wool shows and volunteer with the, there's almost always
a fleece contest.
Okay.
And I always volunteer so that I can be around when the judges are judging and can take notes
for the judge or something.
So I learned from the judges what they're looking for, how to judge the fleeces.
It's like an interest of mine.
Yeah.
You should be a judge.
I would love to be a judge, but you know, you're not known.
So part of being a judge is the fluke of being known, right?
Right.
But I have studied with some excellent judges like Judy Moore and Letty Kline by listening
to them, which is, you learn a lot.
I bet they could learn from you.
Oh, not these judges.
They are excellent.
They are so good.
They're so knowledgeable about the different fleeces and they've been doing this for decades.
You know, live sheep, live sheep judging and fleece judging, some of them.
So they're looking at the wool on the sheep to see the wool.
Well, some judges, like one judge that I learned from Judy Moore actually started judging live,
you know, the live animal contest.
Because, you know, sheep will be, they have tons of contests at these things, you know?
Yeah.
And I'm not as conscious of the live animal ones, what they do, but she would judge those
and then she got pulled into judging fleeces because, you know, that's part of the live
judging on sheep is the fleece, right?
But then she did fleece judging too.
So it was really educational for me to be able to be at these fleece shows.
And then she judged, she was one of the judges at New York sheep and wool.
And then I decided, well, I'm going to apply to be a vendor just on a fluke because I've
been told numerous times that you have to apply many, many times before you get a spot
at New York sheep and wool because they are the penultimate fibercrestable.
Okay.
She's the wool show, right?
I got in on the first application.
Yay!
Shot.
But it's been a great experience because you see so many people go through there.
Like, I think last year they said on the Saturday they had over 30,000 people walk through
the gate.
Wow.
So do you need a trailer or because it all fit in your car?
No, I have a van, which is an old 15 passenger van, which has been stripped of the seat.
So it's all inside.
Yeah.
It's got all, it's lots of space.
So I can fit my display units, the yarn, and then my son built it out and he put a platform
in the back so we can actually put bins of yarn underneath the platform.
And then the platform has mattress and I can sleep in there.
Yes.
Once the place is cleared out, right?
I understand that.
Yeah.
It's good to be on the road, but expensive.
So.
Yeah.
And this way at festivals you can often camp on the grounds and that meets life and also
easier because I'm not big on motels, so it's like I'd much rather stay in the van and have
my own stuff and it's like my own little house and it's fine.
I like that too.
I car camp tons.
Like people would think, did she just not like to fly?
It's like, no, it's like economical and I like it.
I like it.
That's really what it comes down to.
It's like, I like it.
I mean, there are always things like I did have a bad spring this year because it was
a lesson in I cannot control everything.
Yeah.
Because and a lesson in that, yeah, I'm making yarn, but at base at the lowest level, I'm
an agricultural based business.
Right.
And I just go, you know, and then there are things you can't control.
Like there was drought and that affected some of my farmers so that you talk about fleece.
One guy, he called me from the shearing floor.
He was shearing the sheep and I was supposed to meet with him the week after to pick up
the fleece.
He said, don't bother.
He called me from the shearing floor and says, I can't sell it to you.
He goes, it's the drought.
You know, it's weak and that means weak fiber means it won't hold up in the machines.
And he was a great guy, you know, and he's a student.
He was a veterinary student.
I think he finally graduated last spring, but you know, he's a veterinary student and
he's honest enough to say that in his stuff was the best quality.
I mean, his wool was very good quality.
His sheep were well cared for and that comes out in the wool.
And he called me and said, it's weak.
It's all breaking.
So he had to compost all the wool from like 40, 50 sheep.
Oh my God.
And that's a, it's a blow to him because, and I was paying him much more than a dollar
a pound because his wool was such high quality and I'd made yarn from it before and I knew
it would make a good yarn.
And I tell people that when I buy the first time, it's like, okay, I'm paying you a dollar
a pound now, but if I can get yarn from this, I'll be back next year and I'll pay you more
and mean what I can afford to you.
I'll pay you more.
And so I was paying him more than that.
And so it's a loss for him, but it was a big stunner for me too because I have to plan,
you know, 12 months out to get a yarn.
Right.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
I have to wait for mill time.
That's the biggest holdup.
There are only so many woolen mills in the United States and the big mills like the one
I worked at, those are becoming fewer and fewer.
Like the, like I told you, I no longer work at the mill because she doesn't do custom
work anymore.
Right.
So she took herself out of the custom work job.
Well, that meant all those people that used to come to her because she had a huge client
list that kept her busy.
They had to go somewhere else.
You know, so there are only so many mills and there are not many.
I mean, I could count them on my fingers.
The wills in the Midwest, the woolen mills in the Midwest, the larger ones that have
the more stable equipment, they make the best yarn.
There's a proliferation of what's called mini mills, which are very small equipment wise.
And they really depend a lot on the proficiency of the operator to get a good yarn.
And so not just seeing anybody here, but the thing is, is if you just got that equipment,
you're not a proficient operator.
You know, it takes time.
Like anything else, you got to practice.
It takes time.
You'd be surprised when I met festivals, somebody will come up to me and say, I can milk your
yarn.
I just bought a mini mill, so send me your wool and I'll make yarn for you.
I'm like, how long have you had your mini mill?
Yeah.
A month.
Yeah.
And I'm like, who taught you to make yarn?
Well, the guy who sold us the equipment showed us how it works.
I'm like, you know, two different questions.
Right.
You know, and I will tell people, come back to me in two years and show me some of your
yarn.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Yeah, well, and look at all the information that you have gleaned over all these years.
Like that's quite a degree of information that you're learning.
I do have a burning question.
What's the most sought out color when people, like what do you see as like the trend in
people buying?
That is really interesting because I've been always trying to, I keep track of what color
I sell, you know, and it varies a lot because like I would say like, well, there's this
blue I do that sells really well at some shows and doesn't sell it all at other shows.
Wow.
So it's like demographically different.
It's a demographic thing too.
Like greens, like I do a color that I call lime.
My colors are what you would call jewel toned.
That's my signature, right?
And I've had people tell me that it's like your colors are the best colors at this festival,
you know, because they're just, I do semi solids, they're jewel tones, generally speaking,
they're very bright, kind of in your face, right?
Yeah.
Kind of like the top that you're wearing right now would be like a lime color.
Yeah.
And lime has been selling very well for the past year or so.
Lime sells very well.
Other greens sell well.
But that blue, which was the best seller for two years, it still sells very well at certain
places, but other places I find the lime goes much faster.
And the lime, I always kind of looked at it more as an accent color.
Right.
But yeah, it sells well.
It's kind of interesting because I, you never know.
And like I said, I'll do blue because blue sold really well at the last year's festivals,
right?
And I'm wondering, it's like, well, maybe blue is gone.
Maybe blue has become passe, right?
I have a color called blood, which usually reds don't sell as well as other colors, but
I had that color.
Blood, it's a really very deep, intense red.
And that was hopping off the shelves one year.
But not all the time.
You know what I mean?
It was like, okay, that went for a while and now not.
So you're really only doing two shows a year and then everything.
No, I do six or seven.
Okay.
It varies a lot.
I don't do, I know people who do shows like every weekend through the summer season, the
season, right?
But I have found that my product is more of a niche product.
So I do four or five shows in the spring.
And then in the fall, I do these Wisconsin and New York.
Wisconsin is in September, New York is in October.
And then I've done a couple other ones because I'm always kind of testing different places
to see, but I've discovered that my yarns do better at sheep and wool shows.
And I think that's just part of because they are more of a niche and they're more focused
on the breed, breed specific yarns.
So they tend to do, I tend to do better at sheep and wool shows.
So who's your typical customer?
Let's talk about that.
I think that we're moving up on the end of the hour.
So yeah, I don't know who the typical customers.
That's a really good question.
But it's generally a knitter.
It's someone who is and tends to be someone who is serious as a serious knitter, you know,
or a crocheter.
And they are interested in the idea that like a Corrie Dale has really good stitch definition
and it makes excellent sweaters.
And it's still, for most people, it's soft enough to be next to the skin, but it's not
going to pill as much because it's Corrie Dale.
And it's just a more hearty fiber.
You know, it's got more bounce to it.
It's a springy fiber.
Some people call it crunchy.
And so these are the people that actually are interested in the idea that like Romney,
I have Romney that is so soft next to the skin soft.
I mean, it's silky.
It's so soft.
And but Romney has properties like Merino, which is everybody knows because Merino had
great marketing people at some point.
And it's a very soft yarn, but Merino tends to pill very easy.
So it's like, you don't want to use it for outer garments, but Romney doesn't pill quite
as much, although it's still very soft.
It has really good luster.
And these are the people, people who are a little bit more attuned into why there are
different sheep or they're more wanting to learn more about that process and actually
do comparisons and see what the difference is, if it makes a difference.
Because when you're buying commercial wool off the wool pool, that is a blend of whatever's
in that pot, right?
And you don't know what that is.
So that yarn has not got that predictability that if you buy a breed specific yarn, there's
also a predictability factor in how it's going to act, right?
So I don't know if I would say, but I would say part of it is, and it's also people who
want to support their local community.
And that's one thing I like to emphasize is that when you buy yarn from me, it's going
to real people, you know?
It's paying for, you know, that veterinary students expenses.
It's putting, I mean, the kids that wait for me on the steps when I'm looking for their
house, you know, it's like, it's going to real people.
And I also use mills that are in the Midwest that are often smaller.
I use mills right now.
I have four mills that I use on a regular basis.
And those are also local.
So when you keep your money in your local economy, I mean, it benefits everybody, including
yourself because you're keeping businesses going that a lot of people don't realize that
if you don't have woolen mills, you're going to have problems.
Right.
It's really is the definition of sustainable.
Now where can people find your wool?
Because we're coming up at the end of the hour.
I want people to know where to find you.
There'll be links in the description below.
So but let's just talk about where do they find.
So I'm at the purveyor of fine yarns, which is a dot com website.
And you can find majority of my yarns on my website.
Although I always tell people because in the summer I'm doing so many festivals, the newer
things are not on the website until after I finish the shows.
I agree with that.
Yeah.
So you can always find out what I'm carrying in general and purchase yarn from the website.
You can find me at Fiber shows.
Like I said, in September, I'm going to be at Wisconsin sheep and wool in the second
weekend.
I'm doing a new show in Escanaba, Michigan called the North American Hill sheep show
in Escanaba.
And I think that's the third weekend in September.
It's way down in the month.
And then I'll be at New York sheep and wool.
And in New York sheep and wool, I'm in the building by the the old horse barn, the 4-H
horse barn, which is by the 4-H gate.
The first building by the 4-H gate.
So we're easy to find.
But also I am trying to move into wholesale.
So ask your local yarn store and see if they will be willing to try your wool.
Try our yarns.
Are you on Instagram too?
Yeah, we are on Instagram.
We do have a Facebook page, but I always tell people it's like I don't check it very often.
I'm not a Facebook fan.
But there's always something we can do.
Yeah.
And I post on Instagram and then it also reposts that onto Facebook.
So it has the same things.
Yes, which is so now confusing because now I have like double posts everywhere.
I'm like, oh my God, like just stop.
I know.
And then the next figure is like I do Instagram and that's what I can keep up with.
And that's about it.
So that that is Preveyor of Fine Yarns.
Yes, just all written down, Preveyor of Fine Yarns.com and then Preveyor of Fine Yarns
on Instagram, Facebook.
And your website.
And my website.
So it's pretty consistent, if nothing else.
You've done a great job.
It has really been an amazing education on a product that I do not know that much about
like just this much, but now I feel like I know that much.
And I love it that we got to like meet and now we're friends.
So if you ever need anything from me, I always tell everybody I'm your friend for life.
So please always just contact me and say, hey, it's Kim from Preveyor of Fine Yarns.
And I want to talk to you about this because we all do need to support each other.
And I always tell everybody, you don't have to cry by yourself.
Just reach out.
I'm a friend.
Sorry.
I'm just going to say that yes.
Yes, it's very hard.
Yeah.
It's very hard, but I'm proud of you and you're doing, you are on your right path and you're
doing exactly what you need to be doing.
And there's plenty of accountants in the world, but there's not a lot of Preveyor's
of Fine Yarns.
So that just seems to be a perfect niche for you.
And I'm very proud of you.
And I hope that I can like send you business one day because I know your heart is really
in your product and having handmade, sustainable wool to make hats and sweaters and heirloom
pieces.
Like if someone's going to knit something, that takes a lot of time.
So you better use the best stuff that you can.
And that really makes, then it all comes like full circle because you're using the best.
And that has a story.
It has a story.
And to me, that's what's important is knowing.
And I think when you see my ideal client, that's it.
Like I had a woman come to me recently in Green Castle and she was, she's purchased for
me past years and she comes in, she's looking at the Shetland and she's like, I'm going
to try Shetland this time.
And then she turns and she's like, wait, you didn't tell me the story.
And I'm like, oh, the story.
Okay.
That yarn was raised by a retired math teacher in Northern Wisconsin.
And she came where Bessie Belly and I'm like, you even know that.
That part I don't remember, but I do know.
I mean, I can tell you exactly where that wool came from.
What was the process of getting it, where it was milled.
And I tried very hard to be local.
I mean, it's very important to me to support all the other people out there.
Because then we all rise.
I'm a big believer in it.
You know, we all rise.
Yeah, we all rise.
Well thank you, Kim, for this amazing education and being my friend.
I want only the best for you.
And I look forward to seeing you on more Craft Alliance Industries roundtables.
Because it's really a great group.
And I have to give a shout out to Abby there, who's really been wonderful to me and all
the things that she does for us.
So I will definitely, we'll definitely let her know.
I think she needs to be on my show too, just to really talk about the craft industry and
how we're going and where we're going.
But it's people like you that make a difference in the craft industry.
So thank you for sharing your time with us.
Thank you for having me.
This has been very fun.
I loved it.
I seriously, I learned so much.
I can see you doing that whole jobs.
Every one of those jobs, I can visualize it.
Hard work.
Like seriously, girl, you win.
It's a hard thing that what you were doing.
But it was really for a reason.
Now you can speak very clearly on your craft, and that's not very, very many people can
do that.
Like you have a unique story.
So I hope that this podcast will help you get that story out there and you can put it
on your website and have people then understand your process a little bit more.
So we have come to the end of the hour.
I've gone over a little bit, but thank you.
Thank you.
And do good.
Go and do good things.
And wait, one more question.
What time of the year does sheep get sheared?
What's that time?
Well, usually they get sheared in the spring, but that gets spread out a bit because some
people like to shear before they lamb and lambing varies by breed.
Some most, there are a few breeds that lamb in like October.
Then there are most of them lamb in the spring, but spring can be anywhere from January to
June, right?
So it varies a lot.
The guy of people that are shearing in December and in January, and then I'm picking up a
bunch of wool in May when she finishes her shearing.
Wow.
It's kind of a year round process.
Yeah.
It's out there.
Yeah.
It's wonderful.
I can visualize that shearing because I've watched a little shows on that, how they can
do it in like one huge pass.
Oh, yeah.
The breed, the skin is like crazy.
So thank you again, Kim Langley from Preveyor of Fine Yarns.
And you can find her on Instagram and her Facebook page, Preveyor of Fine Yarns, and
support her business.
Tell everybody and get out there and buy some yarn and learn how to knit if you don't know
because I think it's going to be something I'm going to have to do and I'll retire in
a few years.
Maybe that's what I'll take up.
But thank you again.
Have a great rest of your day.