This is Oktobre. They are the face of the company. as well as the wind beneath our sails. Additionally, they help morale.

This is Oktobre. They are the face of the company. as well as the wind beneath our sails. Additionally, they help morale.

T'was a dark and mildy drizzly midday, when from the heavens Oktobre came to us. They spawned a dream. A dream that took to loom. A dream that brought textiles, unlike any others, to the good people of the midwest.

Oktobre, sheep of dreams, blessed the earth and from it grew the House of Spools. Oktobre then called for mighty champions of the fleece.

Barbara was the first. The first to heed Oktobre's call, and follow their threads to the House of Spools. Knighted as the Lead Fleece Finder, she paves the way with her intricate designs and fleece findery. 

Yet, the fleece still called, mighty and strong. Stronger than one alone could corrale. So, Barbara enlisted Andrean and her Child of Many Names to join her in the House of Spools.

Thus, Andrean became the Yarn Wrangler and the Child of Many Names became the Warp Whisper and, together, the three became the Sheep Shifters.

They answered the call.

They heed Oktobre.

They shift spools to woven story, fleece to freedom.

Sometimes it doesn't work

Sometimes it doesn't work

Barbara Daiker

I have had a couple of projects not work out the way I visualized them in my pre-loom design period. In both cases, I overlooked something after the fact was quite apparent. For the first project, I saw the yarn colors as complementary, just what I wanted. They were both dusky versions of their base colors, yellow and green. I wanted to work with a tabby structure with variations. This structure calls for the colors to alternate one-by-one in the warp. The weft had these repeats in slightly differing order. What happened was the juxtaposition of complementary colors side by side created an optical blending. Unless you look very closely, the overall tone is a muted orange. The colors neutralized each other. Of course, they did! I still made the towels. Very functional, but not visually outstanding. More neutral than anything else.

The second project was going to be a handspun Lincoln warp with a hand-dyed weft. Lincoln is a long wool and known for luster and strength. I had spun this yarn into a 2-ply, and it was everything you want a Lincoln to be, silky, shiny, and a light halo. I measured the warp, put it on the loom, and knew right away the halo was going to catch and require me to watch for warp threads grabbing each other and messing up the structure. I can handle that. I put the hand-dyed yarn on the weft and knew instantly it wasn’t going to work. The weft was obscuring the warp. I pulled it out and found a silk yarn that was thinner and in the same color family. This yarn was better, but now I was seeing the warp coming apart. With only 2 inches woven, I had already replaced 10% of the warp threads. Clearly, this was not going to work. I cut it off and set up a totally new project.

I get excited about my projects while they are in the planning stage. Sometimes what I need to know is right in front of me, but I am so caught up in the excitement I ignore what would save me from heartache. It’s part of the process, and I just keep on learning.

How to do better

How to do better
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