Dara and Nicole have started overdying our own grey alpaca/merino blend wool with natural dyes producing lovely heathered jewel-tone colors. Next week we will have photos of their work in progress. We are hoping to have our natural dye class ready for this fall. Keep watching our website for more details.
This month our intermediate weaving students of all ages are learning how to weave chenille scarves.
An underground cave for aging cheese is the dream of most cheese makers. And so it was for us at Brazos Valley Cheese. We have talked over the years about building a cheese cave with an old-world flavor that we could age our artisan cheeses in. Finally, last year, we began work on a new shop and cave, but the cave part was the first to be built, 
since more aging space was our immediate need. Up to this time we have aged our twenty or so different varieties of hard and soft cheeses in walk-in coolers. Aging cheese in Texas can be a real challenge especially in the summer when daytime high temperatures typically peak over 100 degrees, sometimes for weeks on end. Unlike building a cave at a more northern latitude, our ground temperature never gets low enough through the year to allow for a cave without supplementary refrigeration. But still, the advantages of a cave, versus a walk-in cooler, led us to break ground in November 2010 on the new cave. Though we researched other cave designs, we were somewhat on uncharted territory in a climate this warm, and knew that we would have to pay careful attention to insulation.
This week three of our staff members, including Rebeccah Durkin, from Brazos Valley Cheese are attending the 27th annual American Cheese Society Conference, Judging & Competition in Montreal, Canada. Last year the conference took place in Seattle and we won our first two awards for our specialty Brie cheeses, Eden and Brazos Select.
This year we entered 10 of our cheeses and await the results which will be announced at an awards ceremony on Friday night. Saturday night includes a festival of cheese in which the 1,676 entries from all over North America will be displayed for sampling.
We look forward to the educational aspect of the event and networking with artisan cheesemakers from around the world.
Get the most out of your Rigid Heddle loom (or purchase one from us at the time of the class and get a 10% discount)! Try our Rigid Heddle Mini series, weave a different scarf each class. Call Fiber Crafts @ (245)754-9680 or email sue@sustainlife.org for more information.