October was a very big month!
The beginning of October was all about getting ready for our last vendor market of the year.
Lots of spinning and weaving heading into this last hurrah, including the Orange plaid scarf we had such fun photographing which sold that day, and the purple plaid scarf that is currently on etsy – although last I checked it was already in someone’s cart! So if you wanted that one, better hurry!
We also got to play with light in our booth, as this was our first night time event. It was a lot of fun!
Our online store had a great month in sales, and the payment for the workshop classes I did in September came in. With those combined we were able to both invest more into our business and! Get a year membership to Genessee Country Village and Museum! It was peak fall colors while we were there, and there was a vendor event happening and I picked up a few beeswax candles. Isn’t this photo of how one melted so great!? I also got bit by this tom turkeys girlfriend. A day to remember!
With Black Friday looming in the distance I set out to spin lots and lots of wool waiting to be used. I love finishing up projects all nice and tidy, and I have some wool dyed or purchased for projects from earlier this year, and it would be so nice to have them used up and done!
So I spun a lot and made a few videos for social media while I was spinning.
On this day a storm was rolling in and the clouds were moving in fast and dark. Right as I got the last part of this wheel in the house it started raining!
Autumn storms are so breath taking.
Our next adventure was getting a lathe! We found one just perfect for our purposes used about an hour away from us. It came hardly used with all the tools. And so I began playing with it! We have a growing number of fiber tool experiments for sale on etsy. And we updated our Spin Like a Viking kit with slightly thicker and more hardy spindles, and the distaffs are in much better shape being lathe turned instead of quickly hand carved. This middle photo is a phang or Fong spindle, in a shape known as Goddess due to the hour glass shape in the middle. They’re just as much fun to use as they are to make!
Our next big investment, well big on a very small scale, was a huge garbage bag of wool! All hand dyed and luxury fibers like shetland, cashgora, llama, and alpaca in beautiful colors. We were able to buy at a wholesale price as the people we bought it from are getting out of the business.
We are starting to make color blended rolags with these beautiful fibers and offering them in 1 ounce, 2 ounce, and 7 day spinning retreat or advent kits.
We’re so excited to be able to add fiber to our shop offerings!
One unexpected thing that’s turning out to be really cool is joining TikTok! I saw something about it online for marketing, and after 3 weeks on there now it’s been really amazing for generating interest in these things! I have even been able to introduce people to historical styles of spinning they hadn’t heard of before!
For some reason my instagram content is just ignored. So having a place to post some things and actually have some interactions with people about our shared love of fiber or interest in spinning is amazing! It kinda feels like time travelling back to when instagram was more equal in who saw what. It’s made me a lot more excited to actually continue in all of this, including the store. Some days we get more views coming over from tiktok than we do from etsy search engines! And people are enjoying seeing rolags and then seeing how they look all spun and plied into usable yarn.
It was a month of getting a whole lot of stuff set up! And in a lot of ways we are still working out all the new procedures and how to find a good schedule so this business can continue to flourish in a way that serves our family and it’s needs (aka, it can’t take up all of our time!)
And creatively I still have a whole lot of things I would like to try in the realm of fiber arts! As well as now a building list of things to try in wood working.
This was woven to be the outside layer of a messenger bag – I’d still like to get to! As time allows…
October was a beautiful month! And we were busy in a lot more ways than just fiber arts.
But I did get into a little routine with spinning. Mostly what I have been doing is spindle-and-whorl spinning and then chain plying with the great wheel. Which is helping me not end up with tons of full spindles waiting to be plied like I did in the summer.
I’m hoping to do one of these every month, and also one or two other posts about specific things I’m researching or working on.
Again, as time allows!
See ya next time! Thanks for hanging out with me for a spell.
Let’s Make Distaffs Great Again!
Ann
The Apple Creek Farm 
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