About

Alba Ranch is Melisa and Charlie Morrison.

I am inspired and intrigued by texture, color and nature, particularly the unusual. I have raised most fiber animals and now concentrate more on the fiber and arts with some critter care.

Originally I entered the fiber world as a child making pot holders on a square loom and learning simple crochet. I didn’t  pick fiber arts back up again until about 20 years later. I was living in Scotland at the time and met a lady in the woods. Murphy’s mom and I walked our dogs in the woods together for many times until one day she invited me to Common Threads. It was a once a month meeting of local folks that worked with some kind of fiber art. It was a work in progress gathering and I had the privilege of seeing many types of fiber art I did not even know existed.

Debbie, Murphy’s mom, introduced me to her spinning teacher Dora.  Dora taught me how to sort, wash, card and spin fiber. She took me to my first fiber festival where I bought my first 2 spinning wheels, set of hand carders, niddy noddy, peg loom and drum carder.  All of which I still have and use 14 years later. 

Dora introduced me to another fiber artist that had her own angora goat herd, spun yarn from their fiber, and wove stunning mohair rugs on a peg loom.  I saw her 6 ft peg loom, mentioned it to my father in law and a few weeks later had a handcrafted 3 ft and a 6 ft peg loom from him.

Years later, I returned to the states and moved to an undeveloped ranch track in CO.  I got my first angora goats and my first rigid heddle loom.  Weaving showed me what I was supposed to do.  Spinning my own yarn, dyeing wild colors, and weaving are my passion.

I has been dubbed a “fiber freak” and “a mad scientist dyer cackling over her vat of dye in the corner” and I just love to create! I spin, dye, felt, weave and crochet. I am a multi media fiber artist.

Charlie travels all over the world and has his camera and paint brush at the ready.  His background is painting and art later switched to electronical engineering.  He assembles and finishes my looms and weaving tools and makes various tools for my fiber work.   Being an artist and engineer as well…..he helps me with warping and pattern ideas as I just sometimes struggle with wrapping my mind around those.

 We have llamas, goats, dogs, cats, and chickens on the ranch still. These days there are only a few instead of the larger herd we maintained in CO.  We are now in Michigan in the woods just off the shore of Lake Michigan.