More Of Suzy’s Shawls Coming Soon….

Suzy’s had spun wool

It’s almost that time of year again when I sell Suzy Fatzinger’s shawls right here on my blog.

She has two just about done and two more in the works.  As many of you know Suzy started selling her Shawls at our Bedlam Farm Open Houses.  When we stopped having the Open Houses, I continued selling them on my blog every fall.

Suzy (who one of my oldest sheep is named after) hand spins all the wool she uses in her hand-knit shawls.  Some of it comes from her own Mohair goats.  And some of the wool she gets from her favorite fiber artists.

That ball of yellow wool (with the ears popping up behind it.  I have to ask Suzy which of her animals they belong to) comes from my sheep.

We did a trade back in 2020.  She knit a scarf for Jon’s daughter Emma and I gave her some of Liam’s raw wool and a bump of yellow roving made from Liam and Rosemary’s wool.

Suzy hand spun the yellow roving and used it in a couple of her shawls. Now she has a little bit left and plans to use it along with the wool (in all those rich fall colors) it’s on top of in the picture above.

Every year when I sell Suzy’s shawls I post pictures and videos of her goats.

Some of you may remember seeing pictures of Larry her angora goat.  I was sorry to hear that Larry died this fall.  He was old and Suzy was worried about him having to deal with the coming winter.  He died naturally one night in the barn before the cold weather came.   Suzy said the other goats were sitting outside the barn when she found him as if they were holding vigil.

I wish such a death for my older sheep when it’s their time.

So far Suzy has one shawl in fall colors and two others in blues and neutral colors.  It will probably be another week or so before they are ready to be put up for sale.  As soon as they are, you’ll see them here.

Suzy’s Goat Larry

My Friend Suzy

Sam and Isaac hanging out with Rose and Fanny and Lulu at Old Bedlam Farm in 2009

I can see it so clearly in my mind that I was sure there was a photo of me and Suzy sitting on the front step at Old Bedlam Farm the first time we met. It was 2009 and Jon had invited Suzy Fatzinger, her husband Joe, and their two sons, Isaac and Sam to the farm.

I don’t remember the story of how exactly that came to be, but I know it had something to do with Issac and the Yankees.

Jon and were together for about a year at the time and he told me about Suzy and thought we’d get along.  I was recently divorced and had lost a lot of my friends in the process as often happens. So I was eager to find new ones.  A lot of people went through our lives in those days, but few of them stuck.

Suzy is one who did.

I don’t remember what we talked about that first day.  I didn’t have sheep at the time, but I do remember being very comfortable with Suzy. Since Suzy and her family live in Pennsylvania, I imagine we kept in touch through email.  But again, I have little memory of those early conversations.

I remember that Suzy made the effort to keep in touch. Even showing up at one of the few craft fairs I attended early on when she and her family were vacationing nearby.

Eventually, texting made communication easier and I came to realize, over a conversation about crayons, that Suzy and I viewed feelings about things like colors and textures in a similar way.  When I got sheep I named one after Suzy and we began talking animals and wool as well as creativity.

Suzy brought her spinning wheel to one of the first Bedlam Farm Open Houses and spun her wool through the weekend.  She began by selling hats and cowls. Over the years she moved on to fingerless gloves, scarves, and shawls.

I sometimes forget that there are always new people coming to my blog and they don’t the whole story.   So when a couple of people contacted me, curious about Suzy and her shawls, I thought I’d write a little about her and our friendship.

I didn’t realize that Suzy and I had been friends for so long till I looked on Jon’s blog for a photo. I thought there might be one of Suzy and me together.  I didn’t find one, but I did find Jon’s blog post about the Fatzinger’s first visit to the farm with the picture of Sam and Isaac. (Rose uncharacteristically let Isaac pet her).

I know I was, in many ways, a different person in 2009 when I first met Suzy.  But I think our friendship grew as I did.  So in a way, she got to know me as I got to know my true self. And apparently, she likes the person I’ve become. Or maybe she always saw me for who I really am.

I do love working with Suzy.  It’s always a creative joy when she sends me photos of her shawls and I get to delve into their essence and write about what I see in each one.

Suzy has a few more shawls for sale that I’ll be posting for sale in the next couple of weeks.  I know one of them has some gorgeous purple wool in it because she sent me a video of it drying on her porch.  And she also has some blue and purple locks called Tanzanite (like the gemstone) that she got at the Rhinebeck Fiber Festival which will end up in a shawl too.

But that’s all I know for now.  I’ll just have to wait, like everyone else, till she sends me a photo to see what beauty she creates next.

You can click here to see some of the shawls Suzy has made in the past.

Suzy’s Shawl In The Making With Some Bedlam Farm Wool

Suzy’s wool and my roving.  The makings of a new Shawl.

I’ve been selling Suzy Fatzinger’s shawls for a couple of years now.  She spins all the wool herself and much of it comes from her angora goats, Lucy, April, Alice, Ruth, and Larry.

For Christmas, she made a scarf for Jon’s daughter Emma.   We did a trade, she gave us the scarf and I gave her some of Liam’s raw wool and now a ball of my yellow roving. (I still have one more 8oz ball of roving available in my Etsy Shop)

Suzy got her wool back from the mill around the same time I did.  It’s the black wool with silver swirls in the photo above and she started spinning and knitting it right away.

Then I sent her my yellow roving which came from my sheep, Liam and Rosemary, and she added the red wool to the color combination.

So here’s Suzy’s next shawl in three different stages of progress.  Some still roving, needing to be spun, some wool already spun and some already knit.

I’ll be selling Suzy’s shawl on my blog when it’s done.  And I’ll keep you updated along the way.

You can see some of Suzy’s shawls that I sold last year here. 

Picking Up My Wool On Saturday

Kim with Rosemary across from her and Issachar behind her.

“Perfect” is what Deb, from The Vermont Fiber Mill,  wrote back to me when I asked if we could pick up my wool on Saturday morning.

My friend Suzy, who hand spins and knits all those beautiful shawls is getting some of her wool back at the same time.  I’m trading her some of my yellow roving for a scarf she made for Jon’s daughter Emma.

I think it will go beautifully with her natural wools.

I usually can’t wait to organize my wool and get it up on my blog once I get it so even though I usually don’t work on the weekends, I can’t promise I won’t put it up for sale on Saturday or Sunday.

Full Moon Fiber Art