I got my Phat Fiber box yesterday. The original plan was to get together with Ceri and open it together, but she is currently swanning about LA overseeing voice recording for the A-list video game script she wrote, so I had to open it all by my lonesome.

The Phat Fiber project is very exciting. You get a box full of samples and coupons from a variety of independent artists and fibre suppliers. And there’s the added excitement of there being a limited number of boxes each month, which sell out in about 46 seconds after they’re posted for sale, so if you get one you’re really lucky. Every month there’s a theme for the suppliers to follow, and the January theme was For the Love of Books: the suppliers were to use inspiration from the realm of literature to guide their designs and colours. There are three different kinds of boxes: Stitches (yarn), Fluff (fibre), and a mix of the two.

I managed to score a Fluff box last month, on my first try for one ever, and I’ve been waiting anxiously since January 17 for it to arrive. Yesterday, it did.

I opened it last night after the boy was in bed. On the top was an envelope designed like a library card envelope (the ones that used to be in the back of a library book to hold the card stamped to show you when it was due back, remember those?):

Inside were all the business cards and coupons of the suppliers involved this month. Some of them are great, offering 20% off; others are just business cards. Although the designs on some of them are really impressive. Three had stitch markers attached to them; one was an entire bookmark:

Then I got to the fibre itself:

For reference, the contents are:

“The Giving Tree” mini batt: Twiggy Knits!!
“Yum Yum” (The Cat Who series, Braun) combed Polworth top: Rule Out Fiber Addiction
“Corfu” (My Family and Other Animals, by Durrell) Merino top: Ambrosia and Bliss
English Herdwick wool top cupcake – From Ewes To You
“Tales of the South Pacific” – Cozy Cove
“The Very Quiet Cricket” mini batt – Xtreme Spinning
“Here Comes Peter Cottontail” angora cloud – Plum Crazy Ranch
“Purple Haze” (cotswold/Romney/mohair) – Fleecemaker’s Fibers
“Emerald City” batt – Counting Sheep Farm
“The Royal Scandal” (Holmes oueuvre) Corriedale/Lincoln/bamboo/silk thrums/sparkle combed top – Blue Mountain Handcrafts
“Wuthering Heights” Merino lamb/silk batt – Natchwoolie
Red dyed mohair locks – Wonders Mohair
“Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window” superwash wool roving – Dawning Dreams
“Good Earth” domestic wool top – Lapoli’s Fibers
“Brisinger: Glaedr” alpaca/merino/superwash merino/silk/bamboo mini batt – It’s a Colorful Life
“Queen of Hearts” wool/angelina mini batt – Kathleen’s Spin

Eyelet Twist Pullover pattern – K Designs
Dual sized stitch marker – In Stitches
Harry Potter bookmark and stitch marker – Winemaker’s Sister
Infinity stitch marker – The Twice Sheared Sheep

The majority of the samples are about 0.25 oz. The quality is generally impressive: the batts are airy, soft, and well-blended, the hand-dyed roving is even and soft, and the presentation is very nice on most of them. There is lots of sparkle, some really wonderful deep and rich colour, and I am really impressed with the blending on the batts. I’ve never spun from a colour-blended batt or roving (other than bits of top I’ve dyed myself as experiments), and I want to work on my understanding of how colour blends in the spinning process.

While I was impressed individually, overall I was a bit disappointed. The beauty of the presentation on a few really overshadowed some of the others. I was mainly disappointed because I didn’t get the three particular samples I had previewed on the Ravelry Phat Fibre forum and really hoped to get, the Outlander merino locks cloud from WoolieBullie, any of the Animal Farm silks from Fiber Fancy, and the Peter Rabbit or Flopsy Bunnies Merino blend colourways from Beesybee. And finally, I’m a wee bit disappointed that there weren’t more children’s books involved in my box; there were so many picture books mentioned as inspiration on the January sneak peek thread, and I was hoping to share the box a bit more fully with the boy. (He loved the Very Quiet Cricket batt, though, and I did show him my copy of The Wide Window to point out how close the colour was to the cover of the book and he asked me to read it, but I think it’s just a bit beyond him at the moment. Maybe in a few months. And he did like the colours and the softness of a lot of the batts.)

A few other Canadians and I have been discussing the cross-border thing on the Ravelry forum, and we’re wondering if it’s worth it. On one hand, it’s a great way to be exposed to a variety of sellers and suppliers, and to actually touch samples of their work before you invest a lot of money in it. However, from a financial point of view, with the taxes applied at the border (which totalled $4.25, but there’s a $5 handling/processing charge attached to it, bumping it up to $9.50) on top of the box price plus exchange rate… financially it’s not something you’d want to do on a regular basis, because the border crossing bumps the price up from just over $38 CDN (that’s box plus shipping plus the current exchange rate) to $48. The only reason I allowed myself to do it this time is because the dollars were almost at par.

This was a lot of fun, and I certainly have an idea of the quality offered by each supplier, but I probably won’t be doing it again. I have very firmly learned that presentation counts. I’m looking forward to experimenting with some of these lovely batts, especially after my first batt experience at Sunday’s class was so positive. These are sample-sized, though, so they’re not going to be big enough to do anything specific with, really, unless I use them as decoration or trim on another project. A lot of the suppliers whose samples are really impressing me with their feel are sellers I’ve already bookmarked on Etsy. The coupons and discounts and the password-protected list for Phat Fibre participants is valuable, in that once there’s room on my credit card again I’ll be ordering one thing from one seller as my Fibre Thing for February (my Fibre Thing rules are: support one new independent fibre artist a month in 2010, and the order, including s&h and exchange, has to be under $20; this is part of my exploration as a spinner). And chances are good it will be a seller whose batts or top I’ve had the chance to handle and spin from the box this month.

So there you are: My summary of the Phat Fibre experience. Fun, pretty, but overall too pricey for me and my budget.