Janelle Mc

Hi all! I’m a fiber farmer, fiber artist and ruminant shearer in the Pacific Northwest. Love this topic and one I feel strongly about.

Wool and mohair have tremendous longevity, as does alpaca and llama. Mohair will last the longest. In fact, royal tapestries were woven with mohair and last centuries longer than wool for this reason. Both wool and mohair are flame resistant.

My favorite fibers are often blends, such as alpaca and wool, llama and mohair, angora and wool, yak and wool, etc. and there is such great variety amongst the wools so that’s enjoyable in blending different breeds.

I only recommend natural fibers as they won’t end up clogging landfills. I’m in the process of recreating anything that I have in my closet that isn’t natural to natural. I still have a hand crocheted wool sweater from England I bought as a student abroad from many, many years ago.

I’m a fiber farmer and small flock shearer. I’ve been mulling this over the several months wondering if there would be a way to offer processing to my shearing clients wherein part of this could be done onsite. Here in the US it takes months to get your fiber back, sometimes over a year. I’ve learned to process my own fiber but I’d like to refine it with better equipment.

Water is a big issue, but I’ve also learned about tumbling equipment recently so that the cleaning process would take much less water. Again, having the client be a part  in the process would be ideal almost like a makers coop. Equipment for the more difficult tasks could be done by a specialist, but teaching parts of it to others could help it become a community project/service.

I love my sheep. I have Icelandics, Gotlands, Bluefaced Leicesters and Jacobs. I also raise alpaca, llama, and my sweet angora rabbits & angora goats (mohair). One of my favorite books is The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook: More Than 200 Fibers, from Animal to Spun Yarn https://a.co/d/i6t0Y20 which has an extensive list of fibers, origins, fiber pictures and more. My bible!

I also shear ruminants for others and love Shetlands

Hi there! I’m about an hour south of you towards Veneta. New to this site which I ran across doing some textile research. My day job is in the native plant world. My other hours are taken up through my fiber farm and contract grazing. Nice to meet you here!