Saturday

We have quite a stash of rovings in our wool room and Jen has been enjoying spinning up yarns over the last few weeks and she has asked to list them in our family Etsy shop, I think they really turned out beautiful. The first is a Wensleydale single ply, the second a Merino and Tencel and the third a BFL Tussah Silk.

This is the beautiful pincushion that I received from my swap partner in Shannon's Pincushion swap, I love it!

The other day, a parcel arrived just for me at the post office. I had no idea what it was, I opened it and oh my goodness! I was so delighted with what I discovered inside the beautiful packaging. I found a gorgeous crochet bag, so soft and wonderful and did I mention I love the colour red! It was sent to me by a lovely woman in Texas also called Linda. I really adore this gift Linda, I am very grateful, you are so kind to make me this item and to have sent it all the way to South Africa and thank you so much for the lovely note too:)

xo
Linda

Mamma4earth Ravelry Group..

Today I humbly started a Mamma4earth Ravelry group (blush)...
I have been giving this decision a lot of thought and I finally decided it was time. I think it will be a lovely space for all those who knit my patterns from off this blog and my Etsy shop to pop in and visit a while, post photos of their finished knitted items, discuss yarn, patterns, exciting news, share your blog links and thoughts for new patterns that you would like to see in the shop or on my blog, etc...

Well, Happy Sunday to you all and do stop by Ravelry if you have a chance:)

xo
Linda

Mamma4earth Rainbow Yarn...

I have been dyeing up a storm, it's one of my favourite things to do:) What I am really enjoying about it, is that I can use my sun stove and not have to use any power at all, so I guess this is called 'green dyeing' :) When the yarn comes out of the solar stove, it is steaming hot and the dyes have fixed beautifully. The dyes I use are also Earth friendly... I am enjoying this journey to the full, treading lightly on the Earth...

Below are my new shop yarns, they are a handspun, superwash and are all one of a kind rainbows, each skein is 3.5 ounces, approx 164 yards.



Happy weekending to you all.

xo

Linda

Weaving

Today Erin and I decided to do some branch weaving and we have put together a little tutorial for you:)

Materials:

Beautiful, colourful yarn

A branch shaped in a V shape

Wool sewing needle

Scissors

Tie on some yarn at the bottom of the V and wind your warp onto your branch.

Twist your yarn firmly around each branch twice and make sure it is quite tight.

Erin putting the warp onto her branch, Charlie sleeping nearby...

The warp is on, now to start weaving...

Tie on your first colour, thread your needle and start weaving in and out of your warp thread.

Weaving...

Erie's progress...

This was such fun to do:)
Enjoy!

Yarns...

I have been spinning up luxury yarns and also hand painting Merino yarn and having so much fun:) I don't really post much about my shop, but it is a large part of my life and I really enjoy recording my progress here on my blog. I have been hand painting skeins and skeins of rainbow yarn and I just love it! All of these new yarns have been listed on my Mamma4earth shop, some have sold and others are still there:) Thanks so much to all who visit:)

Merino Bamboo Single Handspun

Camel Silk Single Handspun

Wendsleydale Single Handspun

Merino Rainbow Double Knit (Sold)

Vibrant Rainbow, Double Knit

Rainbow Dream, Double Knit

Wishing you all a wonderful, colourful weekend:)

Re-use, Recycle a Tree

I have been working on my blog yesterday and today and I am so excited to have discovered how to add a 3rd column! Now all my tutorials are on the right hand side for everyone to enjoy:) Early last week we discovered our beautiful Cypress tree was leaning quite dramatically towards our house. We had so much rain  at the end of our Summer and early Autumn and this poor tree just couldn't withstand the moisture in the ground. It started to lean more and more and eventually its roots were lifing out of the ground. We new we had to have it taken out, as it would definately fall on our home(I hate cutting down trees) but in this case we had no choice, we couldn't support it in any way, so it had to be taken down... We did however find a way to reuse and recycle our tree:)

There was great excitement on the day when the tree felling company came. All our children stood at a safe distance and watched for any little birds that might be nesting in the tree, luckily there were none:)

This lovely tree will not go to waste though, we had a few ideas for it:) All the small branches were put into piles and will be dried out and reused for woodwork and firewood. Parts of the bark are a rich red colour and I am sure will give us a beautiful colour in the dye pot. We are going to make planters with some of the pieces, Caiden and Jenna are looking forward to hollowing them out with a wood chisel, there were so many wood shavings and we used these for a mulch for our plants and lastly, everyone got together and designed an obstacle course to enjoy! So even though our lovely tree is not standing in the corner of our property anymore, we have found many wonderful uses for it!

Happy Saturday everyone:)
Linda