SYMONS VALLEY RANCH MARKET

We have now been at Symons Valley Ranch Market since February 2015. 

We have our yarns, roving, along with handknit products.
We are proud to have a beautiful arrangement of alpaca/wool throws. 

We have hand thrown pottery yarn bowls and needle holders from Earth ñ Fire in Carolina,  Ab.

We now have hand woven tea towels, dish cloths, and beautiful purses in 2 sizes from the very talented West of the 4th Weaving, in Central Alberta. 

If you have a chance please take the time to come out to our booth in NW Calgary.  We would love to see you all. 

January 2015

The new year is well under way now.
We have a very busy schedule happening
and as usual ot never seems to go quite as planned.
We purchased a new to us twister. On Saturday we picked it up.  Sunday was unloading day.  By the time we had it all off the truck and into the mill I had no room left to move around and work at the machinery.  To use any machine I have to move a lot of stuff.  I can spin what isvon the spinner but can't even get to the pin drafter to prepare the next runs.  The card, picker and tumbler are totally surrounded by parts. 
I can only hope and pray that the guys coming to do the build on this twister will be able to do so quickly. 

Strathmore Christmas Sale

Saturday November 29, 2014

10 - 4

A & B Fiberworks will be in Strathmore for the Christmas Farmers Market Special Sale.

We will have our alpaca yarns, along with
alpaca socks, hats, gloves, mitts, scarves  and those fabulous alpaca throws. 

We will be bringing alpaca teddy bears and stuffies. 

2014

2014 was another fantastoc year.

January we set up the new card in the addition to the mill.  We are now doubled in size. 

The work is flowing in and we are definitely further behind that where we want to be. 

In September we tore the old barn down.
Here it is almost the end of November and we only have 8 ribs of the new barn up.  I can only pray that tge winter is not too severe.  The pacas have a good winter protection fence around the barn yard but there will be no barm this winter it seems. 

My goodness I had no idea I had let this blog get so far out of date.

2011 was a very busy year around the mill.  We upgraded from raw to roving to being able to do completed  yarns for our customers as well.   

We have the pin drafter up and running and were able to purchase a spinner which arrived in August.
The next few months have been spent on a very big learning curve on using this piece of equipment.

We have completed a few orders for spun yarn, but our main focus in that part of the mill have been to learn the tricks of using the spinner well.  We are now taking orders for completed yarns.

I will try and get some pictures loaded of the equipment.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years in 2011 and may we all have a happy and prosperous 2012.  www.goodwinsales.com

Looking forward!!

I am looking forward to the New Year. 

I have been very sick these last couple weeks and just have not gotten the work done in the mill that I had promised myself that I would.   Oh well I guess that is just part of the life cycle.

I still have a couple of fairly good sized orders to complete and then I am going to get busy on my own rovings.  I have been promising myself (and others) that I will get some alpaca/silk rovings done and also some alpaca/bamboo and alpaca/seacell.   I am very determined to do this in January. 

LOL  Does it sound like a pep talk to myself??  Well it may be.

I have actually had some time to sit at the loom in the house because of being under the weather and the other day made a nice simple scarf from a darker camel coloured 100% alpaca that I had spun.
I am looking forward to getting it washed and blocked. 

I have many big plans for the new year.  This is the time of year where we do not go out and do any shows.

Our first show for the 2011 season will be the Didsbury trade show in the early spring.  Then we have a couple weeks off and then we are off to the Strathmore Mother's Day Market. 

I am also going to try and get myself to keep the blog and the website more up to date this next year then I have in the past.  I am terrible for not keeping things current.  LOL  Oh well, for those that know me, they would expect nothing else.

Well everyone,  have a HAPPY NEW YEAR and may you all have a blessed and prosperous 2011

Busy Busy Busy LOL So what else is new

I am afraid I will just never be very good at keeping this blog current. I seem to be busy all the time doing something. Today I am making candles for the sale this weekend at Red Deer. It is the Christmas sale at the Westerner. This year they have decided to make it a 2 day sale.

We did the Strathmore sale this past Saturday and it was sooooooo busy. That is why I am busy making candles. We sold so many that I need to make more for this weekend. LOL Not a bad thing for sure.

I also have to get out to the mill and weigh out some 1 lb and some 4 oz bags of roving. We totally sold out of it this past weekend.

Next on the todo list today is to finish wrapping the bars of soap that is ready for the sale.

All in all the mill work is going well. We have just about completed the order for BC and then it is on to one for Mayerthorpe.

I am still aiming to get some more of my own fiber processed before the new year hits as well.

I really would like to have some alpaca/silk blend to spin over the holidays.

Oh I took some pictures of the trees outside with all the beautiful snow on them today at noon when I was heading out to do the deliveries in the truck.