Our booth at Knitter Frolic 2010

Brought Back for 2012 – Our popular “Wool Share” program.

You will receive one skein of Silvia’s handpainted yarns every other month from January to July (4 skeins – January, March, May and July).   Silvia will be creating a unique colourway for each of the months.  She’ll also be mixing up the yarn weights – you’ll get a different weight each time.  The wool will be from a combination of our flock of Romney sheep (listed as “endangered” on Rare Breeds Canada) and a neighbour’s flock of Corriedales (listed as “critical” on Rare Breeds Canada).  Some of the yarns may include angora mohair from a friend’s herd of angora goats (listed as “vulnerable” on Rare Breeds Canada).  The dyes used for the handpainted yarns are “Greener Shades”, a line of dyes that don’t contain or use any heavy metals.

Once you’ve turned Silvia’s yarn into your own masterpiece, show-off your pictures on our Facebook Fanpage – just search for “Stoddart Family Farm” on Facebook. 

Price:  $99.95 (includes HST and shipping anywhere in Canada).

The primary source of our wool is our flock of Romney sheep, a breed listed on the Rare Breeds Canada list as endangered.  The particular genetics in our flock have been selected for spinning quality for over 20 years (they were owned by a hand-spinner prior to Silvia acquiring them in 2007) yielding a long staple, nicely crimped and fine fibre.  Our flock is managed organically and are given free run of our pastures from early spring to late fall.

We sell fleeces “in the grease”, washed fleece, dyed fleece (perfect for needle felters), roving, dyed roving, and various weights of yarn.  All our processing is done at Wellington Fibres near Elora.  They are the most environmentally and fleece friendly mill we can find in Ontario.  Their primary source of heat for their wash water is a solar collector and all the soaps they use are citrus based.  This yields a soft, luxurious garment whether you’re hand spinning or knitting from our yarns. However, because they don’t put the wool in a sulphuric acid treatment, you will find the odd bit of VM. We do our best to keep the fleeces clean and the picker gets most of the VM out but there is always some that sneaks through. We think a little VM here and there is a small price to pay for not having the wool treated with sulphuric acid.

Silvia does all the dyeing herself, mostly in small batch hand painted lots.  Making the best environmental choice for dyeing is challenging.  “Natural” dyestuffs often require a chemical mordant to fix the bright colour.  Our choice is a line of weak acid dyes called Greener ShadesTM (http://greenershades NULL.stillrivermill NULL.com/) that contain no heavy metals and use no heavy metals in their manufacture. They can be set with vinegar and reliably completely exhaust in the dyeing process.

Check out our online store for pictures of Silvia’s latest creations (http://stoddart NULL.myshopify NULL.com/collections/all/wool)