FiberWire and a Fiber Studio Tour

About 6 months ago my daughter Nellie, a talented fiber artist and owner of Spin Culture and Yarn Sweet Yarn, started playing around with spinning her own fiber creations onto some of my jewelry copper wire.  The result was what is now called "FiberWire". It consists of copper wire as the core with hand-dyed fiber spun onto it. After spinning, Nellie felts it to secure the fiber snuggly onto the wire. When she showed it to me, I knew it would be fabulous for jewelry making. It can be wrapped, sculpted, used like cord, woven into chain, and who knows what else!

We put our heads together and decided to introduce it as a small initial offering in my shop (Starry Road Studio). I also took some with me to Bead Fest in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago to see if any of my designer friends would like to try it. Lorelei Eurto was among the first to express interest and Nellie and I were thrilled with her recent designs using it! She tried some ideas I hadn't even thought of - so exciting! I can't wait to see what comes forth from other designers out there!

Jewelry made with FiberWire by Lorelei Eurto

I thought you might like a little peak into a fiber studio - to see where FiberWire is made.

First here's Nellie. The door behind her leads into her studio...

Coffee station - very important - and that large contraption in 

front of  the window is the drum carder - this is used to 

create batts. Batts are where wool is straightened and combed. 

This is also the stage where Nellie mixes colors of her own 

hand-dyed fiber together. These batts get 

spun into yarn and other goodies like FiberWire.

Here are batches of wool - some carded 

into batts, others (below) ready to be dyed and carded.

That little gizmo to the lower right is a spin dryer. 

After fiber is dyed, while still wet, it is put in there to 

have all the water spun out of it - kinda like 

a washer spin cycle only much gentler.

Pots of fiber getting dyed - don't worry we do 

not eat out of these pots - they are only for dying!

More dying going on - a different process using crockpots. 

Don't ask me I have no idea why.

Here are several lots of newly dyed and dried fiber. 

As you can see its all kinda jumbled, not yet carded. 

These batches will go onto the carder machine.

Here's a few batts created using variations in color, fiber type, etc. 

The color play is amazing to me - its as though Nellie is painting with fiber!

These and tons more are sold in her shop Spin Culture.

Finally, here's where the last step happens. 

This is the wheel. 

Nellie sometimes sits out on the deck to spin, 

with Casey (our dog) at her side.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of a fiber studio!