Vote for folktale! & a preview

One of my handspun yarns, "Meadowsweet", is in the etsy "Which handspun yarn makes you feel crafty?" poll. You can vote for your favorite yarn here. If you vote for my yarn, please let me know either by leaving a comment here or sending me an email or convo! I like Meadowsweet - if I could pick any one vegan yarn in my inventory right now to knit, I think this is the one I'd pick. It's the first skein I spun from organic cotton batting - which is super fluffy, lightly textured, and perfect for thread-plying - with soft loose hemp fiber, shiny recycled bamboo, and recycled banana fiber threads. Banana fiber is wonderful, it's like a shiny vegan version of recycled sari silk threads but more versatile because I dye it myself. I love recycled sari silk, but it comes jumbled up in random color grab bags and inevitably about half of each bag I buy is a garish neon orange that I can never seem to bring myself to work into my yarns, even in moderation. Someday I will spin a giant neon-orange sari silk boa yarn with all the horrible orange threads I have collected over the years.

My poor neglected blog. I haven't been online too much lately, because I am hard at work getting ready for the Crafty Bastards craft show next month! I will be there selling my yarn and sharing a booth with Molly, who makes the most gorgeous and luxurious knitted accessories with handspun art yarns. I'm planning on updating my blog at least once a week until the show with a sneak preview of some of the yarns I'm working on for the show.

Here is one of my favorite yarns so far, Garden Gate. I've spun this one before (if you were at MDSW you may have seen it in the Cloverhill booth), but it's never managed to make it into my etsy shop. This yarn was inspired by the imagery of the brick wall covered in climbing ivy in The Secret Garden. I've loved that book ever since I can remember, and I just recently re-read it this spring.

I make the leaves for the yarn from a sheet of my own handfelted wool felt. The felt is undyed white, and I dye the leaves to match each individual skein after I cut them out.



Once the leaves are cut and dyed, I embroider them by hand or by machine (these are done by machine, as you can see).



The finished ivy leaves:



Nothing makes me so happy as a stack of felty leaves! For this yarn, I strung the leaves onto handdyed (by me!) olive green recycled laceweight wool yarn and plied them into the yarn (which is chemical-free merino x wool + lovely dark green recycled sari silk threads). These pictures were taken before the twist was set.