My van was filled to the roof, and the friend riding in the front seat was pretty well visible, but the friend in the second seat was lost to the wool. We knew she was there because she answered if we asked a question. Upon arrival home, my Husband Carl said……..“What is all this???”…..I told him I had decided I would see if I could sell this Mill End Waste and maybe make a little money for fun things we wanted to do. To my delight, he was already squishing and squashing in the bags of fiber. He loves fiber about as much as I do. Now we had to set up a business.

I was using my Computer, but was not really knowledgeable about the darn thing and Carl wouldn‘t touch one. If I could push a button and things worked,

great, if not, I yelled for our youngest daughter, Cindy. We could see almost

immediately that we needed a website to sell this, Encampment, Wyoming, not being the crossroads of the world.  We had to have a way to reach the world. I loaded up my van and took a matching computer and printer system out to Washington to Cindy. I had a special telephone line put in as I knew I had to be able to have contact with Cindy on this new venture. Cindy set to work building our Website, setting up a Paypal account, getting a company to do the shipping figures, and then sent me a disc with it all on there to put on my computer. There it was…We were on the Internet. The Sheep Shed Studio Website was up

and running.

Meanwhile, Carl and I took the truck and our large stock trailer and returned to the mill…….more bags packed, the truck was stuffed, trailer was bulging and we could see we needed more hauling capacity. We bought a cargo trailer……….and our sun room in the house became our packing and shipping room……..and it overflowed into the garage, and a couple of downstairs bedrooms…….and still we hauled. But thanks to the wonderful fiber folks out there, word was getting out about this great fiber that we were selling at great prices, and the orders came in.

It took many months to get the warehouse free of all this mill end waste, and while we were selling steadily, we were stockpiling fiber as well. As we freed up the warehouse of these boxes of fibers, Harlan Brown asked if we would like to take a couple of the big bales of fiber…….sure, why not? A bale was close to 600 lb. of fiber, but home it came. By this time Carl’s truck was out in the driveway, with that side of the garage being full of bags of fiber. We made room for the first bale and popped the steel bands holding it………Holy  Cow! …oops! …. Sheep!!!! This stuff began expanding across the floor…….ever growing. We hunting for things to stop the advancement of the fiber or my van was going to have to move out in the driveway as well. The first bale sold out pretty fast and a second and third one came in and sold even faster.

Meanwhile we continued to go to the mill once a month…….sometimes we get there even more often………purchased and hauled in additional truck and trailer loads of fiber. By this time we had been paying attention to the boxes of seconds and discontinued yarns, and when asked if we wanted to

purchase some of them………Carl was on this fiber run with our granddaughter……….and he said, “sure, we’ll give it a try”. He kept buying and putting in the trailer, and Granddaughter kept telling him “Grandma’s gonna kill you” as the purchase totals kept climbing up and up. Well Grandma didn’t kill him, although she did slightly swoon when he told her how much he had spent that day. So we added these beautiful yarns to the Website………and folks bought.

Our first year passed so fast……..January 23rd………and we shipped boxes five days a week. I sent out ads, orders came in, and we sorted, bagged and packed. In a year and a few days we had shipped to every state in the Union and to 9 foreign countries. People loved this fiber…….. and we could spin these fibers………and plunk them into the dye pots…..and weave rugs …..and love every minute of it.

It is Christmas every day…….you are never sure just what you will find in the bags when you open them. Wonderful soft wools, wool mohair blends, mohair roving or sometimes a big batt, super wash roving, silk, browns, blacks, reds, blues, greens, all waiting for us to pull them out and ship them out. We spend hours a day playing ………oops!….. working with these fibers. It is one of the most delightful, satisfying things we have ever done.

Now we are in our second year, we have caught up to the mill and can purchase whatever “waste” they have on hand during a months time. We also buy some bumps of Superwash,  #1 Wool Top, etc. It is always fun to go over there as the staff of the mill all welcome us in each month with big smiles and sometimes a hug. The Brown Family could not be nicer to work with, or more welcoming as we arrive to pick up the months gatherings.

The fun continues, and we are enjoying this “job” more every day. We never tire of packing or opening bags……..or receiving letters from folks who are delighted with the fiber they have received. Our little “job” has turned into a full time “job” and we hate to leave the house for a day or a few days, because it is more fun to go out to our “shipping shed”….yes, part of my dye kitchen had to go……and its porch had to be closed in to make a place to go with the fiber, the scales, the yarns, and the boxes. Most of the house is back to belonging to us…….but on occasion, a bedroom disappears in bags, the garage develops only pathways, and the fiber moves on.