Shenandoe Farm.

Perhaps if you've been in the shop sometime in the past two weeks, you've noticed a new little nook I created for locally produced and dyed yarns.

The local yarns live in the Noro corner, above the Noro. Here, you'll find a lone skein of local llama yarn, a bit of handspun, and a sock- and dk-weight yarn dyed locally by The Unique Sheep. Those local yarns we've had for some time now. It was the introduction of a brand new local yarn that inspired this grouping.

Shenandoe Farm, right here in Orange County, is home to the angora goats that helped produce the beautiful undyed yarn pictured above. Their wool was shipped off to Michigan to be mixed with a bit of cotton and mill-spun. To me, this is some of the most exciting new yarn we've received in a long time. It's rustic looking, pleasant to work with, and fuzzy without shedding. The skeins vary some in color, thickness, yardage, and weight: something to keep in mind when you're planning a project. That very uncertainty, though, requires you to try out different needle sizes and work a swatch before casting on--a blessing in disguise. This is wonderful stuff to experiment with.

To me, the yarn said, honeycomb cables, and so that's what I did. What you see above is about half a hat. I only get to work at it during the slow moments at the shop, but it's growing quickly anyway. Come by the shop to give those cables a nice squeeze, and to admire the fiber that our corner of the world produces.