Wooli Online

My new bespoke yarn; Wooli is now available on my Online Shop.  And a reminder that if you're not motivated to knit yourself, I do have made-to-order Construction garment service also.  Garment colours are in the new Wooli 2 shades.

Wooli Back in Stock

Finally..... a new batch of Bespoke Yarn,  Wooli is in stock; it will be in the Gather shop this weekend, and available on our Online Shop by the week.  Thank you for your patience customers, but I think this batch is well worth the wait; made with recycled wool, alpaca and mohair, this yarn is gorgeous and I have some exiting new colours; MAGENTA, NATURAL, INDIGO and TEAL; and the old favorite CHARCOAL.  I have to say I've come a long way since my very first Bespoke Wool, which was soon after succeeded by my recycled Wooli yarn, of which the first batch of 2000 balls didn't last that long.  So don't delay your Construction Knitting Project  any longer, or try knitting up a new colour from your existing Construction Pattern.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

This is Izzy with a basket of Handspun Bespoke Wool. This range is sold out, but there will be more next year.
Have a beautiful christmas everyone. Looking forward to a nice long break and the start of a new project. Will keep you posted!

WOOLI

My new bespoke yarn arriving into stores very soon - next week in fact. Ahhh boy, its taken months to develop this yarn, nothing's ever easy! It is a very clever yarn if I must say so myself; it's made from recycled fibres from factory remnants - but this is no rubbish; it's CASHMERE, SILK, ALPACA, WOOL, & being New Zealand, a bit of POSSUM. I was beside myself when I spied a rainbow of waste yarn sitting there at the spinning mill, I have no idea where it would have ended up otherwise, but I'd like to think that I've rescued it from being landfill or becoming a removalist blanket (although I think these are pretty cool).






These beautiful fibres have been mixed together and spun into a bulky roving style yarn. It's a bit tweedy where its got these little specs of multicolour dotted through a heathered GREIGE colour, which is all the colours mixed together. This WOOLI yarn has all the beautiful characteristics of each natural fibre; the luxurious softness of CASHMERE, the lustre of SILK, the warmth of ALPACA, the spring of WOOL, and the lightness of POSSUM. I have dyed colours too; black, grey, & burgundy; the multicolour specs are still prominent in these colours. Now here I know I'm revealing myself to be a yarn nerd, but I am so &*^#@$#% excited about this yarn, I hope you are too.







This is a bulky yarn for chunky knitting and you can knit CONSTRUCTION NO1 & CONSTRUCTION NO2 with it, but I have designed also a Construction No 3 for WOOLI, so I will unveil this shortly too. The yarn will come in Jumbo balls for CONSTRUCTION NO3.

Tools & Materials

Bespoke Wool and Ebony Knitting Needles for Construction No 1.

Sustainable Living in New Zealand

A mention in NZ's GOOD Magazine.

CHARCOAL ALPACA

Made my way out to the Alpca Farm and Mill today to pick up the long awaited CHARCOAL YARN. So, its now in stock on the webshop only; for all those who have patiently waited. All backorders will be sent out tomorrow.

This yarn is an even finer quality than what was produced before; have managed to source some black fibre from the South Island and some beautiful white fibre locally in Hawke's Bay. This is an amazing deep & lustrous charcoal.


Some new babies I just couldn't resist capturing, they were cautious but keen to come over; there they are in the background


this dude wasn't shy:-

In the Farmers Shed...

An antique carding machine that was once used for Millinery. If this was mine, it would be polished and living in my loungeroom.

Construction No 2

Alpaca fleece is a lustrous and silky fiber. Spun, it is warm, soft, luxurious and glossy. The preparing, carding, spinning,and finishing process of alpaca is very similar to the process used for wool. The black Alpaca fibre used for my production, although the loveliest of the colours, is also the rarest of breeds in Australia. They are full of character, mostly gentle and peaceful, sweet and curious.

Construction No 2 is a pattern written for the Bespoke Alpaca yarn. The shapes have a nice pliable sculptural quality when knitted up, and there’s some clever joining to construct the pieces in this pattern.

The Wool Story

So what does it mean to suggest providing an All-Australian harvested & hand-produced spun wool; in natural colours, without any chemical processing and harmful substances. Well, exactly this: A supply chain that benefits the grower, the designer, the customer, and therefore - the community. In the same fashion as the slow food movement, herein lies an opportunity to bring back a focus to yet another quality product, and a quality lifestyle, by creating a direct relationship between that which comes from the land - our farmers; and the raw material they supply to our producers and designers - our innovators; and the products we make for our customers - our community. As consumers WE make the choice, the choice based on sustaining our lifestyle and our consumption based on our needs: our need for clothes, our need for self-expression & creativity and our need to be part of the community.

So herein lies a balance. This balance has taken me years to establish, in a trade dominated by big industry and monopolised supply chains. Producing a small bespoke wool production seemed impossible; how so, in a country that boasts to be the largest wool producing nation in the world. Growers were mistrustful, mill spinners sceptical and costs for small manufacturing blown out of the market. I did reach a turning point eventually and was met with some enthusiasm and fair prices from few. A small window of opportunity presented itself, and I grasped it. I found growers looking to share a fair go, a spinning mill yearning to be creative, and customers wanting to be part of that story.

So here is the story: This wool is designed to not look mass produced; it is a bespoke product. It comes directly from small farming communities after the sheep are sheared in Spring. The wool is then washed, scoured, carded (so all the fibres run in one direction), drawn (stretched to go through the spinner), and hand controlled spun so the thread is nice and chunky, slubby and bumpy, leaving it natural, light, fluffy and handmade. All this takes many months.

My first Bespoke Wool is available to buy on my new WEB SHOP. It knits up quickly, with big needles and is the inspiration to my first knitting pattern; Construction No 1. A manual on how-to-knit basic shapes, and make many garments creatively by joining the shapes. It is a playful yarn to work with, as the pattern is designed to engage you in the creative process by building, forming, inventing and interpreting. This knitting construction pattern is the first in a series of many more patterns to come; I will keep you posted.