Yarn-topia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Friday my friend Lenore and I finally made our long-anticipated trek to Brown Sheep in Nebraska. Woo-who!!!!! Before I get into the particulars I would like to give a shout out to Lenore for driving, keeping me company, enabling my yarn addiction, and generally making the trip super-awesome. Thanks Lenore: you are the best!

This being my first ever trip to the state of Nebraska, I absolutely had to take a picture of the sign. “Home of Arbor Day”? Is Nebraska the only state to celebrate Arbor Day? Or maybe just the first? I really should Google that, but I’m not going to because I have more important things to talk about.

Well, I’ll tell you about it after a couple of obligatory scenic pictures of Scottsbluff, Nebraska

  

 

TADA! The legendary Brown Sheep Yarn Company Headquarters. Yes, it does exist and yes it is as awesome as you have heard.

It took us a little over 3 hours to make the trip form North Denver. Of course, the closer we got, the longer the trip seem to take. When we finally arrived, we were a little worried. As you can tell the outside of the building holds no clue to the gems contained within. Not to mention I almost fell on the ice like 3 times!

The actual store is larger then I had imagined and they had a pretty large selection. It really is like a LYS (a LYS that only sells Brown Sheep of course). After all the anticipation Lenore and I could hardly contain ourselves. She just started grabbing armloads of yarn. I did my normal walk around the store fondling everything at least twice before deciding. At one point I looked over at Lenore and I could barely see her through the yarn! That’s when the euphoria kicked in; we started laughing hysterically, prompting the very kind lady who was running the store (whom I will call Bev, because I forgot her name and she kinda looked like a Bev to me) to question our sanity. Although I think “Bev” quickly realized that we where ALL ABOUT THE YARN and offered to give us a tour of the factory.

The sign outside said no photos, but she was kind enough to allow me to take a few pixs because the factory workers were all gone home. I told you “Bev” was awesome!

This roving has been dyed and is waiting to be spun like in the picture below:

 

Sorry it’s so blurry! The roving is spun by this machine, turning it into single ply yarn. According to our guide, the machine holds 11,000 lbs and a “good” sheep will produce 8 ½ lbs per year! That’s a lot of sheep! Of course at the mention of “good” sheep my mind pictured this: a group of fluffy white sheep brushing their fleece while standing obediently in line to be sheared. And what of the “bad” sheep you may ask? Oh, they are lurking outside of spinning shops of course. They are half-bald from offering patches of their fleece to spinners at “bargain prices” or maybe in return for a pack of smokes and some tequila.

  

Above is already died yarn blended with shiny white mohair waiting to be spun. The picture does it no justice: it was the most beautiful thing! Below is Lenore wishing she could just jump in and sleep with the yarn candy:

Here is a shot of all the “test batches”. I assure you, it took all the self control we had not to keep some for ourselves!

And finally…………………… the combined yarn acquisition of two crazed knitters:

Oh yeah, that’s right, a trunk full of yarn. We were singing “Praise the Sheep” all the way through Nebraska! Not to mention, praise the aforementioned “Bev” who because she is awesome and because we bought so much, gave us all the yarn for $12 A POUND!!! Yep, even the hand-dyed yarn that was marked at $25/lb! Oh yeah, told you she was awesome!

Here is my newly acquired stash:

In all truthfulness the pound of sock yarn in front was $25, but come on, a pound of “experimental” hand-dyed yarn for $25 combined with 6 skeins of handyed yarn that total about $18? Pinch me! (Oh, I already owned the cat)

 All in all an awesome trip! Although, for some reason, I didn’t get very much worsted weight……. guess we’ll just have to make another trip