Juaquetta

Juaquetta

Juaquetta

Fibers have always been a part of my life. Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa I loved to look at the colors in my grandma’s quilts. Sewing became my favorite hobby. In 1977, I graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Home Economics Education. For several years my husband and I lived in the Chicago suburbs where I was a home economist for Minnesota Fabrics. After settling in Waseca, Minnesota I began doing custom sewing and knitting while teaching sewing classes at the University of Minnesota at Waseca, coaching gymnastics and teaching community education classes in all areas of sewing and needle arts. About 10 years ago I met some gals who raised sheep and angora goats. Their handspun yarns were so beautiful and buttery soft I had to learn to spin. Soon, my customers wanted handspun, hand knit items and then knitters wanted my rustic yarns. I love the entire process: shearing days to buy wool, washing the fleeces and seeing them become clean and fluffy, picking and carding the incredible natural colors, dyeing the fibers into the colors of my imagination, or something I had never dreamed of, spinning these luscious fibers into rustic yarns and of course, knitting.
February 1, 2005 my husband’s job relocated us to beautiful Spokane, Washington. We built a home near the Washington, Idaho border, where I now have a fiber studio, with a mountain view.

Juaquetta's yarn

creation process

1.) To wash the fibers, I soak up to 4 pounds in the washer. Using Tide or Orvus and hot water. They soak for one hour, spin, soak again and rinse twice. Mesh laundry bags hold the wool together yet allow water to circulate for the soaking.

3.) Freshly washed mohair drying in plastic baskets. Newly dyed roving, mohair and skeins of yarn drying.

5.) The carder further blends the fibers and results in a smother yarn. Misty Lake a gray blue yarn is being carded here.

2.) Adding the final lavender to this pan of rainbow dyeing wool. This will be the colorway "Rain".

4.) Most fibers are only picked before spinning. This allows for more distinct colors while spinning. It also lets the natural formation of the locks to remain for spinning. The mohair for Fireside yarn is being picked.

Dyeing to see more?

You can find Juaqetta at our show, in her booth, Garden Party Fibers and anytime on her website: gardenpartyfibers.com.

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