More Batts!

And still more batches o' batts, shipping out to happy spinners and sinners...

Flight of the Batts

More and more orders for the Superexplosive Etc. batt deals are keepin' me busy here at the Appalachian Voodoo Fibers processing center (my dining room table). Here's some pics of the latest batch flying out the door...

Catclaw's Merlin Opens in NYC Tonight!

Appalachian Voodoo Fibers were used in the creation of the clothing worn by the papier-mache puppets in Catclaw Theatre Company's debut of The Birth of Merlin, which opens tonight in Brooklyn, NYC!

This is Jeffrey Scott Holland's adaptation of a play that was credited to William Shakespeare and William Rowley in a 1662 quarto, though modern scholars pooh-pooh any notion of the Bard's involvement. (Then again, they used to pooh-pooh Pericles but now it's finally become accepted into Shakespearean canon. The Two Noble Kinsmen and King Edward III are relatively recent newcomers to mainstream acceptance, and Sir Thomas More is making great inroads towards it.)

Expect the show to appear in other U.S. cities in 2010.

More Super Explosive Deals!

Catclaw Theatre Company has a brand-new eBay store which now features another chance to get the Jeffrey Scott Holland's Appalachian Voodoo Fibers Super Explosive Intergalactic Grab Bag!

Click here to git 'em!

Krampus

Meet Mr. Krampus, our quality control manager.

Hot Dyepot Action!

The old JSH dyepots are a-cookin' again. Here's a step by step pictorial of the process. Above we have an antique enamelware/graniteware oval roaster, filled with alpaca soaking in water.


White vinegar and pink dye are mixed together in a mason jar, then that mixture is poured directly on the alpaca. It's deliberately left haphazard, so that a desired mottled effect will occur on the finished fiber.


Then a vinegar-blue dye mixture is poured on the other half. Again, it's left uneven, knowing that some parts will end up bluer than others. Also, the blue and the pink are not separated, allowing the colors to run together slightly.


The fiber is soaked in water, drained and hung up to dry, awaiting the drum carder. The final colors of this batch were more vivid than it appears here; the colors were washed out somewhat by the camera's flash.

Set of four Mini-Batts

#1: Dark Green/Red/Orange: 1.3 ounces, merino, corriedale, firestar

#2: Purple/Gray: 1.1 ounces, merino, angelina

#3: Yellow/Green: 1.1 ounces, merino, punta, bamboo, angelina

#4: Brown/Tan: 0.7 ounces, llama, alpaca

Four is the happiest number that you'll ever do...