Tag Archives: mindful fiber

12 Months of Mindful Fiber: July with Linen from Quince & Co.

It’s July. It’s hot. It’s time for linen.

Linen is one of the greenest fabrics in the world. Flax, the plant that linen comes from, grows well with just naturally occurring precipitation and requires minimal pesticides and chemical fertilizers even when not categorized as ‘organic’. Flax has been cultivated for fiber since at least 3,000 B.C. Egyptian mummies were wrapped in it, folks in the Middle East have worn it for centuries, it’s mentioned several times in the Bible and was valued as a commodity by the Greeks and Romans. All that before being introduced to Europe and then to the Americas.

Linen takes a while to process. The seeds have to be removed (rippling). The entire plant must be soaked in water, acid or chemicals to decompose the bark and pectin so the fiber can be removed as long strands (retting). Strands are dried, combed and spun into a thread or yarn. All of this makes for a product that is more expensive, but it is also a higher quality product. Linen yarn is absorbent, moisture-wicking and softens beautifully with washing, age and use.

not flax

Where the spare DPNs live.

Knitting with linen is like knitting with anything else: you have to Know Your Fiber. Linen is slippery, so choose wooden or bamboo needles – they have a little grip to them that you will appreciate! If you’ve chosen a yarn with a loose twist, choose needles with a rounded point to prevent split stitches. Linen is not at all elastic, which means that it will not snap back into shape like wool does. It will relax, it will drape, it will soften with age. Great qualities for shawls, but your gauge should be TIGHT for other garments so that your finished product keeps it’s shape. If you opt to substitute linen for another fiber: swatch swatch SWATCH. And WASH your swatch! Linen changes dramatically with washing – it blooms and softens so be sure to check your gauge after washing, not before.

**This giveaway is closed! Join us in August for more Mindful Fiber!**

Want to give it a try? The pattern this month is exactly right for a linen “taste test.”

le petit sac by Pam Allen

To make this little bag with its long shoulder strap, you’ll need two skeins of Sparrow, an organic linen grown in Belgium, from Quince & Co..

Blue Spruce and NannyBerry (picked for the name AND the color)

Quince & Co. was founded by two knitware designers and the owner of an historic spinning mill. Together, they have created “a line of thoughtfully conceived yarns spun from American wool or sourced from overseas suppliers who grow plants, raise animals, or manufacture a yarn in as earth- and labor-friendly a way as possible. We think we can have our yarn and knit it, too.”

Quince & Co. sells their yarns directly from their website, and I encourage you to run over and take a look at the other yarn lines, you’ll find something special. Rest assured that the something special is available in an absolutely splendid color.

**This giveaway is closed! Join us in August for more Mindful Fiber!**

I’ve got enough linen for two July winners, PDF patterns will be delivered by email (thank you for your versatility, Ravelry). To win this month’s Mindful Fiber, just leave a comment before July 24, 2012!

Carrie Hoge holds the copyright on the le petit sac photograph. it is used with permission.

Mindful Fiber: June Winners

Now that’s it’s July, how’s bout I share the Qoperfino winners?

Random.org picked me some numbers since I was the only one awake at 5:10 this morning.

9 Kirsten
34 Amanda
1 Deb (the Random Number Generator DOES pick 1 sometimes!)

Winners have been contacted and the yarn should be on the way this week! I gotta figure out the best way to pack it. Many MANY thanks to Green Sheep Shop for helping us all knit a little greener!

Stay turned for July! Our featured yarn will NOT be wool. It’s just too hot for that.

12 Months of Mindful Fiber: June at Green Sheep Shop

We’re halfway through the year and halfway through our Mindful Fiber series. A perfect time to answer the question: Where can I find all these eco-friendly and animal-friendly yarns? I find a lot of mine at Green Sheep Shop where Annette specializes in yarn that “treads lightly on the planet.”

**This Giveaway is Closed! Please join us in a few weeks for
12 Month of Mindful Fiber: July.**

sitcker

That sheep and I are good buddies.

It’s completely refreshing to shop in an environment where someone else has done the homework and selected a variety of yarns that I would buy with confidence in the knowledge that they are easy on the environment as well as easy on the hands and eyes. I also love the flat rate shipping, great pictures, thoughtful descriptions and paying with PayPal. I asked Annette what inspired her to open up shop in such an eco-friendly way, her story follows.

“It all started with girlfriends and a baby boom. About 5 years ago was the start a baby boom among my girlfriends, which is continuing on until this day. I really enjoy making knitted and crocheted gifts for all the new babies coming into the world. Also, at the same time I was personally changing to incorporate organic foods and more sustainable practices into my life. With my new attitude, I wanted to incorporate using organic yarn into my knitting and crochet projects. As I went to my local yarn stores I was limited to one or two lines of organic cotton, which was a start but not quite enough variety to satisfy me. After a while, I thought there has to be more options than this, so I started searching on-line for organic yarn, where, to my surprise, I found a large variety.”

yummers

Ecobutterfly Organics’ Pakucho Qoperfina – Color Grown (seriously) Organic Cotton

“Then I started to do research about the differences between traditionally produced yarn and organic yarn, which influenced me even more so to use organic yarns. Then my search widened to other eco-friedly yarns and whole world of choices opened up. But in doing my research I noticed there was not one store that carried a large selection of eco-friendly yarns. A store would carry a few lines and another different lines and so forth, that’s when the wheels started tuning and the concept of Green Sheep Shop came into existence, a yarn store that focus on earth-friendly yarns. I have to say I had quite a few nay-sayers when I was stating my business but I pursued my plan and two years later, my shop is growing and I have a wonderful loyal customer base. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know that others appreciate earth-friendly yarns and support my business.”

patterns

Love a yarn but at a loss for a project? Green Sheep Shop has patterns too.

“My hopes for the future are to continue to find wonderful eco-friendly yarns for my customers and eventually introduce my own line of eco-friendly yarns which will focus on local, organic and sustainable yarns produced within North America”.

Three cheers for green yarn! Three winners in June! This month’s featured yarn can be found in Green Sheep Shop, Pakucho Qoperfina. A 97% certified color grown organic cotton infused with 3% soft virgin copper fiber. That’s right: copper. Many people believe that copper has healing properties and other mysterious benefits but it is also naturally anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. Perfect for a hand towel or wash cloth! Conveniently, Annette has already created kits that pair Qoperfina with several sweet cloth patterns.

all together now

Also the cutest tissue paper ever.

I picked the Butterfly, Dragonfly and Lotus Blossom motifs for the winners and three less common color grown cotton shades (Sage, Deep Green and Deep Golden Brown). Kits will be assembled randomly (one pattern, one color yarn), I’ll even label the boxes with the winners’ addresses after I’ve packed them. For a closer look at all the available colors and motifs, just visit the product listing (the poppy is marvelous). While you’re there, you may as well look around at the cotton and the yarns made form recycled fibers, the vegan yarns and the fair trade certified selection…

WAIT!

Don’t go before you leave a comment to enter the drawing for June’s Mindful Fiber Giveaway! May the Random Number Generator favor you on Saturday, June 30 when this giveaway is closed and winners are chosen! Many thanks to Annette and Green Sheep Shop for making sustainability and consciousness in knitting that much easier.

**This Giveaway is Closed! Please join us in a few weeks for
12 Month of Mindful Fiber: July.**

Doll Clothes (and Winners)

I contacted the winners. I’ve even mailed the yarn and sent the patterns! I just forgot to tell everyone that I did all that. It’s because of this doll dress. This dratted doll dress.

blocking

The wretched little things have to block just like people clothes.

That’s the first draft and I’m not crazy about it. It’s fine. I’ll probably go with it – I’ve already made pattern notes about how to fancy it up and make it unique. For the sake of argument, I’ve started another dress with a picot hem. Which means that a garter bodice won’t work but I’ve got three more inches of skirt before I have to figure that out. I’m also questioning the ‘in the round’ thing for the dress. I think it might need side seams since the gauge is so loose to give it a more realistic drape.

It’s possible that I am over thinking this.

Congratulations to our Mindful Fiber winners for May: #7 Becky, #19 Christy and #22 Cathy! May your needles be swift and your pattern easy to follow.

Edited to Add: I totally started over on dress #2. I’m working it flat with a picot edge. Working it flat also solves my problem of what to do differently about the bodice. So that’s a nice bonus.

12 Months of Mindful Fiber: May with O-Wool

To date, the wool aspect of Mindful Fiber has been focused on small farms and unique handspun yarns. But what if you are in the mood for a more ‘predictable’ yarn? A yarn that will define each stitch and highlight every cable. Something with the smooth texture that only a commercially mill spun yarn can provide. All that and sheep-friendly too? It’s not impossible. I’d like to share one of my all-time favorite organic yarn producers:

it just feels right

O-Wool

Begun by the Vermont Organic Fiber Company in 2000, O-Wool is now distributed by the Tunney Wool Company in Philadelphia where the yarn is also skeined and dyed. Fleece is spun by mills in Wisconsin and Massachusetts and grown by free-range sheep in South America and Australia. Sheep that are not mulesed.

That needs a little bit of an explanation.

Mulesing is when strips of skin are cut off of a Merino sheep’s bottom (typically without anesthesia) in an effort to control blowfly infestations called ‘flystrike’. Mulesing is common practice in Australia where blowflies like to lay their eggs in moist, stinky, woolly places like the wrinkly bottoms of merino sheep. When those eggs hatch, the maggots eat the live animal’s flesh. So why not just hack the wrinkles off every single sheep? Shiny scar tissue is blowfly resistant. The Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals advises that mulesling (with anesthesia) is a method of last resort to save an animal and shouldn’t be used in all-purpose animal husbandry. PETA organized a boycott of Australian wool over the practice in 2004. In spite of retracting a promise to “phase out” mulesing by 2010, Australian wool growers are slowly turning to other more humane methods of preventing flystrike. Possibly because alternatives are better publicized or possibly because the public is becoming better educated about how domestic animals are systematically abused by growers and farmers. And now you know more than you ever wanted to know about sheep bottoms.

toy stash

Representatives of the colors in my O-Wool toy stash. To take the edge off.

I really didn’t mean to tell you all about mulesing and how O-Wool is very very conscious and very very careful to pick wool from animals that haven’t been tortured this way. I meant to talk about the advantages of scouring fleece with biodegradable soaps to clean it rather than “carbonizing” it with an acid bath that burns the vegetable matter away. I meant to talk about how super soft merino is super soft because of chemical softeners, not because of the quality of the wool. With minimally processed merino, the act of knitting and that first bath in a mild soap before blocking are the final steps in ‘finishing’ the yarn. I meant to talk about low-impact dyes and testing waste water to reduce the environmental impact of the dye process. But by now you know that I tend to default to the animals so you get what you get.

Speaking of what you get…

O-Wool produces three yarn lines (although I just saw a sneak peek of a new yarn on their blog): Classic, Legacy and my personal favorite, Balance. Made with a 50/50 blend of organic cotton and organic merino, Balance is the perfect all-season yarn. I’ve used the bulky weight for toys and the worsted for Ellie’s pink cardigan (Did I show you that finished?). It wears fabulously – since it’s combed during processing, the short fibers are removed to minimize pilling. Plus it comes in some really fabulous colors. I picked three in May flower shades for this giveaway.

pretties!

Rhodonite, Uvarovite and Zircon.

**This giveaway is closed! Come back in June for more Mindful Fiber!**

Three winners will each receive one skein of Balance Bulky in one of the colors above. It’ll be a surprise as to who gets what – I’ll seal the packages before I add the mailing labels. But what can you do with a single skein of Balance Bulky? Two things:

shoeies

One! Two! Ysolda Teague’s Not-So-Tiny Slippers!

A quick knit to keep those toes covered when the air conditioner is just a tiny bit chilly. With Balance, you’ll have just the right about of warmth. So three winners, one slipper ‘kit’ to each – just add needles.

To win May’s Mindful Fiber Giveaway, just leave a comment on this post. The random number generator will take it from there. For more chances to win, refer your friends and have them mention your name in their comment (this is to raise awareness after all). May’s Mindful Fiber Giveaway will be open for almost two weeks (until Thursday, May 31).

**This giveaway is closed! Come back in June for more Mindful Fiber!**

All the yarn pictures are mine, the Not-So-Tiny Slippers pictures are copyright Ysolda Teague.

April’s Mindful Fiber Winner is…

My very special Random Number Generator has picked Kathy B of Irisheyesknitters: My Yarn Garden as April’s Mindful Fiber recipient! Three cheers for you! Your yarn will be on the way directly.

I’d also like to thank Kathy for the valuable tip about using distilled water instead of tap water on my little bamboo plant. She has saved it from unintentional annihilation.

Many thanks to all who participated in the giveaway! Stick around for May!

…everybody knows what April Showers bring…

Chameleon

I was taking some pictures of another one of Roger’s cousins for a customer, and noticed that the Mindful Fiber yarn on the shelf wasn’t silvery (bamboo has lots of luster)!

no sheen, but it's not really that green

But it’s really not that green.

I tried it one more time – since I had the camera anyway. This one is closer.

a little sheen (and still green)

But still not quite right.

You’ll just have to see it for yourself. For a truly unique and surprising bamboo yarn, enter to win April’s Mindful Fiber Drawing.

12 Months of Mindful Fiber: April with Quo Vadis Handspun and Bamboo

**This Giveaway is closed! Please check back in May for more Mindful Fiber!**

As the positive trend of sustainability spreads, I suspect we’ll see more and more plant-based fibers in knitting yarn. Modal, rayon, and soy silk are already well known as ‘alternative’ yarns, but it’s bamboo that makes me believe that people can make yarn out of anything.

Bamboo might be the most sustainable plant on the planet. It is fast-growing (it’s considered an ‘invasive species’ down here), doesn’t require pesticides or fertilizers, replants itself, you don’t have to kill it to harvest it and it’s ready to be harvested again in months. This grass is deceptively strong for its weight and has been used to make flooring, furniture, kitchenware and bicycles (I am not kidding). Bamboo products are unique in that they are both durable and biodegradable.

bamboozled haha

This is Lucky Bamboo (not the fiber kind or the kind Pandas eat),
but you get the idea.

Most bamboo clothing is produced as “regenerated cellulose fiber” (like rayon). This basically means that the bamboo is shredded, separated, filtered and put back together in fiber form. Like making paper from trees, this requires lots and lots of water and chemicals, so most bamboo fabrics are not considered organic and the process is not sustainable. Several companies are exploring ways to make refining process as environmentally friendly as the growing process. Various oxides and alcohols can be used (and, for extra greenness points, re-used) to dissolve the bamboo and then the resulting liquid is hardened into cellulose fiber threads that can be spun into yarn.

And what yarn. Bamboo yarn is strong, incredibly soft (unbelievably soft when you consider the source), shimmery, biodegradable and has a fabulous drape. It’s no wonder that bamboo fiber is so appealing to knitters.

A great place to find bamboo yarns (and more!) in unique and engaging colors is Quo Vadis Handspun.

tag

Quo Vadis Handspun

Heidi opened shop shortly after she began producing artisan yarns to satisfy her own fiber cravings. As a vegan (someone who doesn’t use animal products of any kind), Heidi’s focus is on providing exciting and unique plant-based, environmentally friendly and creature-free yarns to her customers. To that end, she has amassed an enormous collection of fiber types!

yarn yarn yarn

Heidi and her stock at Fibers West.

Tencel, microfiber, organic cotton, color grown cotton, corn silk, viscose are all listed for sale as spinning fiber, hand spun yarn or hand dyed yarn. All the yarns and dyes are vegan and 100% cruelty-free, but Heidi says: “Not vegan? Thats ok! My yarns are a fun way to get some veggies in your knitting diet.”

vibrant

Pandemonium – 295 yards of fun!

My personal favorites are the yarns that are dyed with natural materials: indigo straight from the plant, madder, marigold, logwood, wood resins, saffron (pink not yellow!). Each yarn’s description contains the dye notes. It’s a little like reading a life story and a little like reading a recipe. Some yarns stay in their dye baths for days to achieve a marvelous intensity of color.

indigo

Organic cotton dyed with indigo.

Heidi uses two commercially spun bamboo yarns as a base for her hand dyed sock yarns: Crystal Palace’s Panda Cotton, a bamboo and cotton blend with elastic, and Kertzer’s On Your Toes Bamboo, bamboo with nylon for structure. Since many people have Strong Feelings about elastic in knitting yarn, I chose the Kertzer for April’s Mindful Fiber giveaway.

mmmm shimmery

Because of the shimmer, I had a terrible time getting a picture of this yarn! It’s actually darker than shown – like a storm cloud.

Heidi calls this colorway Anuvittasana, or “standing backbend” (it’s yoga). But to me, it looks like a summer storm where everything suddenly goes dark blue-green and the rain shimmers down. Maybe it’s a Gulf Coast thing, but I’ve picked a sock pattern that matches my April Showers inclinations:

paw prints all over!

It’s Raining Cats & Dogs Socks

I’ve got a crush on these socks by KellyK! Is there anything better than paw prints all over your socks? I think not! Except maybe cables all over your socks, but this pattern has those too. Yay!

**This Giveaway is closed! Please check back in May for more Mindful Fiber!**

To win April’s Mindful Fiber Giveaway, just leave a comment on this post. The random number generator knows what to do. For more chances to win, refer your friends and have them mention your name in their comment (this is to raise awareness after all). April’s Mindful Fiber Giveaway will be open for almost two weeks (until Monday, April 30).

You can find Quo Vadis Handspun and Heidi on her blog, on Facebook, and, of course, on Etsy.

The bamboo picture and the pictures of the featured yarn are mine, Heidi Hizsa holds the copyright on all of the other yarn pictures. The illustration for the “It’s Raining Cats & Dogs Socks” belongs to KellyK (that’s what it says on the pattern page, so that’s what I’m going with). The pictures that aren’t mine are used with permission.

March’s Mindful Fiber Winners

So I said to my Random Number Generator, “Pick a number between 1 and 82.”

And she said, “Ninety!”

So I used technology for this one.

Random.org has selected Carla and Michelle as the winners for March! Their Angora Bunny Kits will soon be on the way.

Many thanks to the Bloomingdale Farm angora bunnies and Jeanette for creating such a luscious yarn!

Mindful Fiber will be back in mid-April. Think spring. Think socks.

12 Months of Mindful Fiber: March with Bloomindale Farm

**THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED. CHECK BACK FOR APRIL’S MINDFUL FIBER!**

The angora goats, sheep and angora rabbits of Bloomingdale Farm in Ohio (with the help of Jeanette and her family) produce a variety of natural yarns, rovings, batts, and fibers.

follow the leader

If they aren’t stirring dye pots, turning carders, warping looms or spinning at wheels, you’ll find the family in the barns with the animals. Jeanette says “In our spare time, we take care of horses, kids and stray cats. We believe in a natural style of living, and have great respect for God’s creation.”

She also reassures people about the kindness and care given to her
animals. “People sometimes ask us if we have to hurt our animals to remove
their fur. The answer is NO! Angora rabbits and goats need to have their hair removed regularly, just as sheep do. Leaving the coat of fur or wool on a fiber animal is detrimental to its health. In addition to the fact that an overgrown coat becomes dirty and matted, it can also hide underlying skin problems. Angora rabbits groom themselves daily and in doing so ingest a large quantity of hair. If the hair is not periodically removed, the animals will develop hairballs in their intestines—a condition that can be fatal.” For these reasons, fiber animals are shorn either with scissors or with electric shears.

The fiber harvested from the animals at Bloomingdale Farm is processed into yarn, batts, doll hair and roving. All of the handspun yarn is produced at the farm studio with fiber from their own animals. Occasionally, a bundle will be sent to the mill to be professionally spun or processed into roving, though Jeanette explains “sometimes I have to buy wools and fibers
from others, mostly here in Ohio, to make up enough to do a mill run.”

fuzzy wuzzy

Janette’s Etsy shop is known simply as angorayarn. Most of the fiber Boomingdale’s herd of German and French angora rabbits produce is sold in bulk to some of the best natural fiber vendors in the U.S. But she saves enough to offer exquisitely soft, fuzzy, fluffy and delightful skeins to her direct customers.

angora!

Hand Dyed, hand painted and natural shades (including grey from Commodore, Edward and Stu) are available. Spinners can asks about locks or rovings. Don’t let the softness fool you into thinking that this is a delicate flower of a fiber: angora yarn is seven times warmer than wool, strong as anything, and only gets better with age (halo halo halo).

This simply splendid angora yarn is our featured yarn for March! I’ve put together some Itty Bitty Bunny kits to give folks a chance to try something new and make something fun all at the same time.

everything you need

Handspun angora yarn, organic cotton stuffing, blue and brown eyes, pink nose and a printed pattern.

**THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED. CHECK BACK FOR APRIL’S MINDFUL FIBER!**

I’ve got a kit each for TWO lucky winners this month! To win these Mindful Fiber treats, just leave a comment on this post. The random number generator knows what to do. For more chances to win, refer your friends and have them mention your name in their comment (this is to raise awareness after all). March’s Mindful Fiber Giveaway will be open for two weeks (until Tuesday, March 20). We’re early this month so the winners have plenty of time to knit angora bunnies for Easter!

You can find more luxury yarns from Bloomingdale Farm on Etsy, Ebay or on the blog, Bloomingdale Farm Natural Fiber and Yarn.

Everything but the kit picture is copyright of Jeanette Roberts. Images are used with permission.