Wool – Betty Virago

Wool vs Acrylic

An important post on the benefits of wool over acrylic with a must see video.

Updating the doll – EPY week 4

This week has been very productive. I’ve been contacting yarn suppliers and mills, spent a whole weekend dyeing wool, applied for a grant to do some market research and finally am near the point of having a finished product. Well, I say a finished product, but… I want to re-create the idea of the knitted/crochet doll.Continue reading “Updating the doll – EPY week 4”

Knitting and the Planet

A question given at Uni the week was this: How can textile ecology impact on your specialism? My specialism being knit, although I like to believe it’s spinning, How can how I knit or make yarn impact on the planet? All the way home and much of today I’ve been thinking. Is it possible toContinue reading “Knitting and the Planet”

Buy British – British Wool Marketing Board

The wool is sent in by farmers across the country, there are drop off points across the country, and they take all fleeces and no minimum. So even if you only have one sheep it’s worth taking the fleece here to get a good price.

Huddersfield University Textile Students Final Year Show 2015

Today I was back at Uni for a preview of the fourth year students final work.

Which Felting Needle do I use?

Here’s a little problem. There are so many felting needles out there, and some come in fine, medium and hard sizes rather than gauge sizes. What does it all mean and which one should I buy? Well, here’s some help. I have sourced as many felting needles as I could find, each different and someContinue reading “Which Felting Needle do I use?”

Magic Fairies

One brilliant subject we’ve been getting into at the Saturday class is needle felting. We started off with pictures but soon worked our way to brilliant needle felted fairies. Normally in our classes we pick something to make and we all make it, but we’ve decided to give another way of working a go. SoContinue reading “Magic Fairies”

Salvation Army Yarn and Beanie pattern

I’ve been thinking for ages that I should raise some money for the Salvation Army by creating a yarn for them. So using the colours on the Army’s flag (yellow, red and blue) I came up with a yarn using blends of the three colours in 100% merino wool from New Zealand. Here’s the result.Continue reading “Salvation Army Yarn and Beanie pattern”