Nessa Wrap [Giveaway] :: Knitting ::

Happy Sunday everyone! And welcome Spring! I was finally able to take pictures of the Nessa wrap since finishing it! I really needed natural light for this shawl, to show off the texture and the amazing colourway of the yarn I used. I may have also needed a bit of time to work out how to take pictures of Nessa. It is really long and wide, and with a lot of detailing, so not necessarily the easiest to capture. But now that Libby has published the pattern, you will be able to find more pictures on Ravelry. 

I did this test knit for Libby - I have been knitting it for the past 2 months, and as those following me on IG know as I kept bombarding them with pictures of Nessa. The longest part was the middle part (the garter stitch bit), I could not get myself motivated to sit down and just knit it. Give me lace panels and I will be happy to finish these in days. In fact, the lace panel was the reason why I wanted to knit Nessa, and they are amazing. Nessa is a wrap that I will most probably wear as a scarf, I like my scarves really long and wide - so this one is perfect for me. 

 Pattern: Nessa by Truly Myrtle Designs

Yarn: Fyberspates Vivacious DK (Tweed Imps) - 
I reviewed Fyberspates in my yarn with attitude series here
Yardage: I used 564m/282g (2 skeins and a bit)

Needles: according to pattern

So for the giveaway... Libby is kindly offering the pattern to one of my readers!

You have 3 chances to enter this giveaway:

1. The giveaway is open only to my followers  - old and new. 

Let me know how you follow my blog in the comment box.

2.Follow me on Facebook (and let me know you did in the comment box)

3. Follow me on Instagram (natmadeinhome) and post the picture of the shawl (or regram my post) 
and come back to leave me a third comment

The giveaway ends Easter Monday at 5pm (UK time). Please, please, please leave me a way to contact you if you are a no-reply blogger. Good luck!

Yarn with Attitude :: Fyberspates ::

Happy Tuesday everyone! When I started searching for ethical yarns I had no idea I would find so many amazing yarns. Literally no idea. And I just do not have enough time to knit with all of them - but rest assure that I do try! And today I am bringing to you a brand I have a massive crush on - Fyberspates. I had seen the name a few times, on IG mostly, but never realised that it was a UK brand (I thought it was Australian, not sure why but here we are). I found it through this shop when I was looking for a DK yarn for knitting Nessa. And I was just amazed by it and the colourway I found (Tweed Imps). 

Fast forward a month, a bit of research about Fyberspates under my belt, I actually met Jeni at the Craft Hobby + Stitch International Show . I was slightly starstruck (sorry Jeni) but managed not to totally lose it, and showed her Nessa in progress. I got in touch with her - to discuss a bit more about her yarn. I knew she was really keen on offering an ethical yarn - I just had no idea to which extent this was. 

When I ask her about her yarn, and attention to worker and animal welfare, I had no idea the extent to which she had considered all aspects for her supply chain. Here was her reply (I could not explain better)...  

'All my commercial yarns are made in Peru, and dyed there as well. In terms of dyeing, I visited the dyeing place, and basically its an enlarged version of what I had at home, its a lovely set up, and the girls who dye the yarn work in a nice environment, with the hand paints they sit around a table and dye yarn and chat, its a really nice ethos. Peru have very strict regulations about dyeing and processing, which means the dyes have to be highly regulated, currently the dyes they use come from Germany, as they are very high quality and non toxic. 

In addition we use Peruvian merino, which is sourced from small scale producers whose lively hood is the sheep, and so they tend to look after them very well, the mill also provide a lot of education to the farmers and offer education programmes for the children, we are also working with them on a new handspun yarn which supports women in rural communities, this provides work and income for them (this yarn is available through Chester Wool co which Fyberspates trades through). We never source yarns from Australia because they use Museling on the sheep, we are guaranteed that this practice does not happen in Peru because of the small scale farming methods. 

And finally… we have switched over to Oxybiodegradeable packaging, and whilst it is an improvement on the previous plastic, its not the absolute perfect packaging, however, I always think of it as a process, it took me a good 3 years of asking for better packaging. If we say yes to what the mill is offering, when they are in talks with their packaging sources, they know that we will pay extra for something eco, its our vote as it were, they know then that if something better comes along, we will most likely switch to it, if we don’t show our vote, then if the mill get offered better and better products, they will just say to the packaging manufacture, 'no one was interested, we offered it to our customers, no one took it up', so for me its a process to improvement if that makes sense.

Amazing, right! Jeni has really taken a holistic view. And of course the yarn knits like a dream, and has a great lustrous sheen to it. I cannot wait to finish Nessa to try another yarn, I have my eye on some Vivacious DK in Pebble Beach or try the Cumulus yarn.

 

And, as she is super nice, Jeni has kindly agreed to give one of my readers a chance to try her yarn. Here is your chance to bag yourself a skein of your choice! So which one will it be? 

Here is how to enter the giveaway (1 entry per person)

1. The giveaway is open only to my followers - old and new (follow me on IG, FB, Bloglovin' ...). 

2.And you need to follow Fyberspates on FB or IG - (you may actually want to follow Jeni as she holds monthly giveaway - in case you don't win this time)

And let me know in the comment box when you have done so with the name of your skein of choice.

The giveaway ends Tuesday 15 March (5pm UK time). Please, please, please leave me a way to contact you if you are a no-reply blogger. Good luck!

You can find other Yarn with Attitude reviews here and here. 

Yarn with Attitude :: Manos del Uruguay :: [GIVEAWAY]

Hello Everyone! Happy Equinox and more importantly let the knitting season truly begin! And I have just the yarn brand for you and your ethical stash - Manos del Uruguay. I am sure you heard of the brand, but have you ever knitted with it? I had not. And although I was on a stash diet, I added some skeins to my current stash - oops but I am weak when it comes to test ethical yarns. I started knitted the variegated brown skein shown in my pictures - the perfect autumnal colourway, don't you think? And it knits beautifully, I hope it will look great on me too, brown is my colour apparently, but I don't wear it that often. Also I am never sure what to make with variegated yarn - Manos del Uruguay also has some block colours as well (which I may have 'accidentally' also added to my stash). 

There are different elements that makes yarn special from an ethical point of view, and supporting and empowering communities is a key aspect for me. Manos has, as a non-profit social organization, provided jobs for craftswomen living in Uruguay rural areas since 1968. And during 2009, and after a comprehensice evaluation process, Manos del Uruguay was accepted as a member of the World Fair Trade Organization. This acknowledges Manos del Uruguay mission of eradicating poverty through sustainable economic growth, enabling craftspeople to improve the quality of their craft products, so that, in this way, they can continue their personal development.

This video will probably make you understand why I see a lot of Manos del Uruguay yarn in my future only ethical stash. 

 What the website did not cover was the animal welfare aspect. So I contacted Manos and asked the question, and was very pleased with the response I got. Manos sources their yarns mainly locally and also from foreign sources. In Uruguay the sheep are bred in large cattle ranches, at open air, gazing from natural pastures. There is no mulessing in Uruguay. Manos buys their alpaca yarns in Peru from a well know and responsible Company based in Areuipa. A small part of their yarns is spun in China from South American wool. The silk they use is tussah (a more ethical way to collect cocoons) imported from India. So a lot of care has gone into getting the yarn as well.

What a great option to have, there are many yarn weights to choose from as well. I am knitting the silk blend, but have also some Maxima in my stash, and hopefully will be able to start knitting it soon (just need to finish this cardigan). 

But what would you be knitting should you win the above skein of Manos Silk Blend? Let me know in the comment box for a chance to enter this giveaway. 

Followers have another chance to enter the giveaway (let me know how you follow my blog in a separate comment). 

(There might be another skein given away on instagram as well...)

The giveaway ends Wednesday 7 October at 5pm (UK time). I hope to share what I am knitting with my skein then. 

And please, please, please leave me a way to contact you if you are a no-reply blogger. Good luck!

* This is not a sponsored post - I am just really careful at selecting yarn going into my stash, and sharing my findings here*

Yarn with Attitude :: De Rerum Natura ::

At the end of last year I came across this video (I have not been able to watch it to the end by the way) and it made me seriously consider the ethics of my yarn stash. And it did not look good, I never really questioned my stash before, and I seemed to have little information about it. It did not mean that all my yarn was unethical, but there was nothing telling me it was either. And it was nagging me a bit. 

I am lucky though, the yarn industry has jumped wholeheartedly into a kind of back-to-nature movement; an understandable leap, since knitting and crocheting are all about making your own products, after all. And there are yarn options out there that are kind to nature and knit beautifully - and are not too hard to find, whilst still being reasonably priced. And one option is to get my yarn from Solenn at De Rerum Natura. 

My current project knitted in Ulysse

My current project knitted in Gilliatt

The philosophy behind De Rerum Natura is simple - to offer a yarn of high quality that is respectful to the sheep welfare. The philosophy is based on the close relationship between De Rerum Natura and the sheep farmers. 

So how does it knit? I found that Gilliatt knitted a bit like BT Shelter - I reviewed Shelter here - without the stuff stuck to it. It is rustic but still soft (softer than Shelter in fact), and will show cable work beautifully. So that leaves you with a lot of pattern options! I have a real penchant for neutral colours, so poivre et sel is really up my street. But there are also vibrant colours on offer - and I love how Solenn's patterns usually use both. 

Le bonnet Korrigan

De Rerum Natura may be more easily accessible to European knitters - I am mostly thinking of customs tax here, but it may be worse in the UK than elsewhere (oh! those little red notices). 

From a practical point of view, I bought my yarn directly from the De Rerum Natura site. I had it sent directly to Britain (instead of asking my Mum to bring it back with her for once), without any problem.

De Rerum Natura colour kit

I would like to think that my whole stash will be totally be ethical ... and the more options I find, the more chances I have to make this happen at some point in the future. To a certain extent, it depends on the price tag attached to the yarn (especially for big projects). And it is possible that my neutral stash might be filled with De Rerum Natura soon.  

I am really keen to find other ethical yarn out there, so please share any that you might have come across in the comment box - and I will try to review others soon!