I loved receiving this parcel! The front gate bell rang, in drove the courier and handed me a box, I opened it and oh my goodness, the joy!!! It was so beautifully wrapped and I just can’t help lifting the lid to look at it each time I walk into the study. The box is on the table, where I think it will stay for a few days and then, I will knit! Ahhh, this Manos del Uruguay yarn is JUST divine, I bought it from here.
Before
After
After
A task for tomorrow…
Today was a very productive day, I tackled my wool room, it’s really been in a bit of a state lately. I pulled everything out of the cupboards, threw away and re-purposed a lot of stuff. I found plenty of things I had forgotten I even owned!! So it was a really good exercise all round.
I am also going to take out my spinning wheel tomorrow and start spinning up this gorgeous roving I received in a swap from the lovely Sara who used to blog over at Farmmama. It’s beautiful fibre from her own sheep, they are Corriedale Crosses, some black and some white. She had the mill card the black and white together. I think it’s just gorgeous! I can’t wait to start spinning it up!
Today I would like to introduce you to a lovely new sponsor, Carle’ from Nurturing Fibres, I have known Carle’ for many years and truly admire her ability to dye the most gorgeous yarns imaginable.
Stormy Blues
Carle’s Story….
I learnt to spin and weave about 12 years ago and from there I began to dabble with yarn dyeing. After a few years, I became fascinated with socks and shawls and needed a good source of natural yarns. I struggled to find natural yarns in South Africa and it was almost near impossible to get hand dyed yarns. So, it look me ages to find undyed skeins and dyes, but once I did, I was inspired. My first skeins were exciting, so I quickly dyed more and my fun business was born. Initially, I dyed yarns in a sink, but this has now changed and I have a dye room and studio on the farm.
Namaqualand
My dye house is the fun room, this is where I clear my thoughts and allow the colours to guide me. I start with 3 colours, Yellow, Red and Blue. Then I apply the dyes and allow the colours to move into each other and the yarn. Sometimes, I have a very clear sense of what I want to achieve and other times all I know is that I want to dye yarn. It’s when I have no expectations that I create the wonderfully tonal colours like, ‘London’ available on Betwixt.
London
Fire
When I dye my club yarns, I look to nature for inspiration, select a photo and then interpret it onto the yarn. These colourways have between 40 to 50 yards before the colour repeats, so these are super fun to knit and you never quite know what colour or design the next knitted row will bring. The end result is you knit fast and finish your project quickly.
Pearl
Today is a very special day for me because I am launching a new club. It is called COLOURS from AFRICA. These 4 new colourways will be available in 2013. I also have a few other clubs that are starting in the next few weeks. I will be blogging about these soon.
Green Fields
Carle’s Social Media Links:
Twitter
Web Page
Ravelry
Ravelry Group
Facebook
Blog
Pinterest
Giveaway:
The winner will receive a wonderful custom dyed ball of yarn, that will be inspired by their selection (see below).
Or
If you are brave you can choose to get the first colourway from Carle’s Mystery Club.
To enter the giveaway:
1] Look at Carle’s yarns on Ravelry and choose your favourite 1 or more colourway/s. If you aren’t on ravelry then you can look on Betwixt or her web page.
2] Leave a comment in this post telling her the name of your favourite colourway.
To earn extra entires in this lovely giveaway, please share about it on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest and remember to leave a comment each time you share to earn more entries!
Congratulations to:
everything is so beautiful it’s hard to choose. i love the charcoal colors and forest glade, but the pinks and chocolates are gorgeous too…
i’ve never joined a club before, but now i’m very interested! nice to meet you carle! thank you and linda for offering this giveaway!
Carle’, thank you so much for sharing your journey here with us and for your generous giveaway!
xo
Linda
This is the wooden floor in our school room, it has been perfect up until now and then, last week, it collapsed along the one side. Sadly the reason for this catastrophe is damp. Our builder friends came round to have a look and we all just stood looking at the sagging floor, not knowing how to correct this unbudgeted expense. The options were to remove the entire floor, fill it with concrete and tile or break the floor closest to the wall and attempt to correct where it had given way.
Today was a new day and thankfully they were able to break through the wall underneath the floor from outside, remove the cross beams that were rotting and replace them with new, damp sealed beams. You have no idea how relieved we are. What we thought was going to be a massive undertaking at a huge expense is going to be a fairly simple procedure to remedy! Our builder friends will return tomorrow to replace the damaged pieces and close all the gaps. (Phew, now I can breathe….)
We have had to pack all our school books into spare cupboards to protect them from dust and our dining room has been converted into a learning room for the next 2 weeks while the floor is repaired.
On a more exciting note, I visited the post office today, when I opened my mail box it was choc a block full of post from all over. These are parcels from the amazing people who have knitted squares for the Recovery Blcnket that we will be giving to my mom. I just sat in the car and cried as I opened each envelope, thinking how kind people are in this blogging and Ravelry world. To make a knitted treasure for someone they have never even met and post it off with such love in their hearts. Oh my goodness, I am so humbled by these very generous acts of kindness, I thank you with all my heart:)
Thank you Donna for your beautiful felt piece, we are going to place it in the centre of the blanket and build around it with the knitted squares, it is so beautiful! Unfortunatley this lovely beige square didn’t have a name on the envelope so I don’t know who to thank, if it is yours, please let me know:) The two squares at the top of the photo are from Christine (Australia), such lovely soft wool indeed, the lovely bright green and turquoise squares are from Kate, thank you so much for your beautiful note:)
The gorgeous pearl square at the bottom left is from Ginny (London), the blue and grey squares in the middle at the bottom are from Carol (South Africa), such soft wool, the mauve square to the right of those is from Clare (South Africa). The wonderful heart and beige squares at the top right are from Nel (Netherlands) next to those on the left on the orange paper are lovely fueshia coloured squares from Camille (USA) (the tea is amazing, thank you) and the squares on the bottom right are from Jeanette (Tasmania) How can I say thank you enough to all of you, my heart is so grateful and happy so Thank You all so much!!!
What a wonderful day, the wooden floor is looking a lot more healthy and my heart is filled with gratitude for all the people who sent hand written letters, gifts and these beautiful squares. I know a few more are still on their way and I will post them here when they arrive.
