A LITTLE ABOUT ME

HOW IT STARTED

I started in the fiber world back in 2005 with a herd of three alpacas, which quickly grew to 25.  I learned everything I could about them, how to care for them, their health, their fiber and even got certified in sorting.  For those of you that know Alapcas, we traveled to Mike Safely's farm and took a herd health course from him, which was a treat!  

I learned how to wash the alpaca fiber, dye it and spin yarn, which was quite exciting as I love to knit. To create my own yarn from my own animals was like  having a superpower.

I bought my first wheel, a Louet S10, which sat in a corner for almost a year because I was so afraid to try it. Back in the day, there were very few books on spinning, and although YouTube started in 2005, it took a while for spinning videos to hit the scene.

When I did jump in I started with art yarns, mostly because I did not know the fundementals of spinning and just sort of wung it. 

I spun about 100 skeins of yarn, and they were very unique and fun.  I decided to hit the festivals in my area to sell to handspun yarn lovers like me. I was always grateful for that one person that came into my booth and usually spent $200 walking away with a huge armload of yarn and an even bigger smile on her face.

Most of my yarn was spun hit-or-miss with no true plan in mind. Some that never hit the market fell apart or were just not right. That's when I dove deep and started to research the fundamentals and math of spinning.   I loved the technicality that could cross over to art yarn too, and guess what? My art yarn looked so much better!

I moved into wools, silks, prepping, dyeing, and the rest is history. 

My real passion became scouring and I wrote the best selling book on scouring, The Art of Washing Wool, Mohair, and Alpaca, that can be found on Amazon.

One of my most frequently asked questions is: How did we come up with the name Camaj.   I have three daughters, Carissa, Marla, and Jessica. I wanted to use the first two letters in their names, Camaje.   After doing a Google search, I found a restaurant in New York named Camaje. And get this! They got the name using the first two letters of the three owners wives names!  So I dropped the E, as not to infringe, and Camaj was born.  

My daughters and I are here to serve you with all your fiber, drum carding, picker, small mini mill equipment and fiber education needs.  

We strive to find you top quality products and provide excellent and reliable service.  I will never sell anything I don't love and won't use myself.

If you are looking for something we don't carry, please contact us and we will do our best to find it for you.

We are located in Sunny Florida, USA

Welcome to the Camaj Family,

Mary, Jess and Carissa