Monday, 21 June 2010

And the winner is............

So the last few days have flown by and today is the 21st June - the REAL first day of Summer (well that was what I was taught in my youth!).

It was also a very important day for the business - the first seasonal draw was today! At 5pm this afternoon I wrote out all the names of the people following us on Facebook (plus 2 people who read the blog post, but don't do facebook)

The names were folded up and put into a hat, John's Victorian hat for this draw, then Alien Life Form Random Extracted Draw - Alfred - actually the young son of friends we are staying with, obliged by getting the paper from the hat.................




And the name is......................................

Sarah who reads the blog but isn't on Facebook!!

I shall be in touch shortly to arrange which colourway you would like - or your commission colour!

Friday, 11 June 2010

Organic Cotton Boucle Yarn

Although I am probably one of the longest established commercial natural dyers, certainly in the UK (I started producing handspun, naturally dyed embroidery silks for reenactors back in the early '90's) I am really conscious that my yarns aren't well known or on my website properly. This stems from the fact that I don't know how to photo them and show them to their best advantage, also the colours will show up differently on everyone's screens and I don't want people to be disappointed when they get a colour that wasn't what they thought it would be. (well it's the computer manipulation I have a problem with, not the taking the picture!)

Unless you've seen our stall you won't know what our yarns are like!

So to try and introduce the different yarns to a wider audience we have decided to do a seasonal giveaway! On the 21st of June, September, December and March (the old start to the next season) we will be doing a draw for someone to win a quantity of one of our yarns.

If you follow us on Facebook then your name will be put into a hat (I have many from different periods!) to win whichever is the choice of yarn for that season. (Should you prefer NOT to be entered into the draw then please send me an email and I will take you out!)

So - for the Summer Giveaway we are choosing a cool yarn - 500g of

Organic Cotton Boucle from our Morus Organic range.

The yarn itself is organic cotton from Peru, the processing is organically certified, the dyes used are either organically certified or approved by GOTS, it's just the dyer who won't go through the hoops required (well actually I have higher standards and environmental issues with organic status!) The price per 100g hank is £15 so that's £75 worth of yarn I'm giving away for the first season!



The recommended needle sizes for this yarn are 4.5mm - 5.5mm with a tension square of 14 stitches and 24 rows to 10cm over stocking stitch. For suggested reading try the Wandering Spirits pattern book by Jean Moss.



The winner will be notified through the facebook page and can either choose to have the yarn commsission dyed (a colour within reason please!) or select a colour that is currently available from stock. As we are attending Woolfest at the end of June then should the winner choose to select from stock they can make a personal choice from there if appropriate.

We hope you will approve of this method of introducing our yarns and over the next month or so we hope to have an Etsy shop up and running, specifically for the yarns!