Handspun & naturally dyed

Yet another pile of sample dyeing, this was BFL uncarded and the fleece was cleaned, then dyed. The lovely corkscrew curls in the fleece gave me a lovely texture and as the fleece took the dye in different intensities the range of hues is great.

I have not knitted these up into test squares but I think it will knit to approximately aran weight.

I have a pile of welsh mountain so with luck I might get time for more experiments this week end.

Handspun Yarn

Well after dyeing my Suffolk fleece with natural vegetable dyes, using a herbal mordant. I decided to spin without carding the fleece to give texture to the yarn, I also found that the dyed fleece had interesting areas of different hues of colour and I thought that the yarn would be slightly variegated, instead of a flat colour. I hope the sample photo's reflect the effect I was trying to achieve.

Highland Guild of spinners weavers & dyers

Well what a busy weekend, after a great morning experimenting with freeform knitting & crochet and learning to throw the rule book out the window and play with yarns and shapes. I then had to get my head round planning our Guilds exhibition for 2009, never done this before so I feel like a fish out of water. Like the freeform workshop I would like to throw a rule book out the window, that is if I could find one!!!
Has anyone out there got any advise for a novice Exhibition co-ordinator.

Flickr: Your Photostream

Flickr: Your Photostream

Yarn forward Magazine

What a wonderful surprise our next issue of yarn forward arrived in the post this morning. to my Coffee in hand I settle down for a lovely read and to my surprise there we are on the article about the 'Woolfest 2008' It made all our hard work preparing fibres and dyeing yarn all worth while. I have to say that out of all the knitting mags available this has to be the most interesting and innovating of them all. There is an ability to collate stylish knits and interesting articles. If I could only have one magazine, THIS IS THE ONE.

Woolfest 2008

1st time blogger

Well here we go, they say that there is a first time for everything. So why should a blog be any different.

We have put our toes in the water and started our small business with natural fibres, yarns and silks for spinners, felters, knitters, embroiders and anyone else interested in natural fibres for textile art. We also only use natural vegetable dyes and herbal mordants. Our aim is to encourage ideas and to stimulate a journey of discovery that all things are possible by just planting a seed of an idea.