From wool and wool blends to soysilk yarns, Midnightsky offers hand spun and hand dyed yarns and fibers. Special emphasis is placed on wool and wool blends with all natural and environmentally-friendly fibers used in the blends.

All of their yarns and fibers are available in their natural state, dyed, or hand painted, in addition to a number of fiber clubs and sock yarn clubs. They source their yarns and fibers from other small companies committed to supporting small artists and environmental issues.

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The Treliske merino wool range includes organic babywear, baby blankets, knitwear and knitting wool yarns which free from harmful chemicals. It is natural, undyed and unbleached and is grown and manufactured without the 8,000 chemicals found in the textile industry.

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In my knitting, I go back and forth between simple, smooth knits that I’ll work into intricate cables and patterns, then back to bumpy knits that get worked into simple, smooth stockinette stitch. That’s why I love this great raw yarn from Hubu.

We’ve talked about the awesome properties of hemp in both yarn and fabric form before but never as a raw material that can be knit with. The hemp bark yarn is just that, the bark of the hemp plant.

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While on the island of Chiloé, the second largest island of Chile, the majority of the artisans sold hand knitted items and hand spun wool. I couldn’t have been more delighted!

Chiloé was a magical place for me, the views of the ocean and rolling farmland with happy and healthy looking cows and sheep and chickens, were such a pleasure to behold. The island holds much lore and is seeped in tradition, with hand spun wool being one of these traditions.

In exploring the markets filled with handmade goods, many of the women would sit and knit, creating their wares as people browsed. Or they would spin. Several had spinning wheels and would spin their wool into yarn, right then and there.

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To do these things, however, requires a set of practical skills that we as parents may not have learned when we, ourselves, were young. It was a painful process to teach myself how to sew on a hand-me-down sewing machine, for instance, I feel there’s a lot I don’t know about gardening even though I’ve read a LOT of books, and learning to knit from a youtube video? For me–impossible.

In previous generations I wouldn’t have had to teach myself how to cook, or make my own soap, or even breastfeed–I’d have had an entire community to teach me from childhood as part of the local culture. And that’s why, even though I try not to support most big-box stores with my money when I can instead shop at an independent store, there is one aspect of both big-box and local stores that I wholeheartedly support:

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This year I decided to continue the tradition by asking the writers at Eco Child’s Play to share their green resolutions for 2009.

Here’s what a few of our writers shared:

• Jessica  Gottlieb

I’m only walking the grocery store in 2009. Driving meant that I could pile more in my car that we’d needed to consume, and, of course, I was in the car.  Less stuff will come in or I’ll get stronger. Whole Foods is a half a mile away, and I run marathons so it’s inexcusable that I’d drive there.

• Jamie Ervin and The Polka Dot Family

Our green New Years Resolution is to grow and preserve enough food to carry our family through next winter. Our family also hopes to continue spreading the “green love” through outreach, education and implementation of change, especially in our local schools and among our neighbors.  We hope to continue growing little green people who have a strong social conscious. Most of all, our family resolves to keep living green one step at a time!
Jamie has also written about her New Year’s resolution to make soap!

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[Creative Commons photo by Gideon Tsang]

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They offer a 70/30 blend of organic wool and alpaca that comes in a natural range of colors. No dye is used and the fleece is what dictates the color outcome. While there is no color modification, that doesn’t mean the colors suffer. Natural, Oatmeal, Camel, Slate and Mink are quite lovely and rich.

They also offer a line perfect for knitting up baby wear. It is 85% organic wool and 15% baby alpaca. It only comes in cream, but the baby alpaca helps make it all the more hugable.

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Nashua Handknits has a Natural Focus Ecologie Cotton yarn perfect for your vegan knitting needs. It is a soft, worsted-weight pima cotton that is dyed using natural materials found all across the Americas, northern Asia, Europe, India and the East Indies.

The soft, natural hues are created with tree bark and various flowers. The color names suggest which ingredient was used to create the color, but you can never be sure. The light Indigo and Curcuma are especially lovely. The yarn has a quiet sheen and luster that helps your stitches pop.

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Pack it to go - Grab one of your tote bags and start adding all your crafting accessories needed for your current project. For my knitting projects, I keep a small zippered pouch stocked with small scissors, a tape measure, darning needle and stitch marker. I throw that in along with my yarn, needles and my pattern.

In the air - Knitting needles, small scissors under 4 inches, and sewing needles are permitted in carry on luggage. TSA recommends that your knitting needles be made of plastic or wood/bamboo, but metal needles are permitted. They urge caution if for some reason your supplies could be constituted as weapons, and suggest you bring a self addressed stamped envelope in case your items need to be shipped, but I’ve never had an issue.

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For the curious amongst you, Churro sheep were introduced to the New World because of their hardiness and adaptability to the new climate. They are an old breed dating back to the 1500’s. They were adopted by the Navajo and Pueblo Indian Tribes, soon after their journey.

Their fiber is similar to that of merino, but was eventually found to be secondary to other breeds and their stock was rapidly diminished. Today, it is rare to find pure bred Churros because they had been pushed to the brink of extinction, for many reasons. Largely found in the Southwestern part of the U.S. their fiber carries a luster not found in other wools. It has less lanolin then other wools as well and popular among spinners because of this.

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As previously mentioned here on Yearn Worthy Yarns, Fox Fiber offers naturally colored organic cotton yarns. Well there is also another option for naturally colored cotton yarn and that is Pakucho.

Using techniques and know how passed down from generation to generation, in Peru, Pakucho grows six different and natural colored cotton. No chemicals, dyes or other synthetic processes are used in the growth, production or spinning of these fibers.

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This yarn starts with a simple grooming. Just brush your dog and save up the softer hair. The hairs best for spinning are those found along your dog’s flank, sides and shoulders. Depending on the project you might have in mind for your dog yarn, you’ll need to collect between 4 to 48 ounces of fiber.

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That’s why we like Ceallach Dyes. Committed to reducing their carbon footprint they dye all of their yarns and fibers using solar energy. They use no consumable fuel sources to set the dyes and only dye their yarns at the most sunniest times of the year.

They offer a wide variety of yarn weights from lace to worsted and a range of fiber from wool, cotton and superwash merino. They also solar dye fiber for you spinners out there, from wool to superwash merino, too.

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As said from their website, the Mirasol Project has a simple philosophy with a lofty goal. Named after a girl that tends alpacas high in the Andes in Peru, the Mirasol Project was created to help and sustain the highland community.

With a percentage of every sale of Mirasol yarn, the project is investing back into the community and helping to build a boarding house that will focus on the health and well being of children. The house will provide the community’s children a place to attend school and eat nutritional meals.

The yarns found in the Mirasol Yarn Collection are a wonderful blend of alpaca, merino and cotton. The collection also holds a wonderful organic cotton called Samp’a.

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Has reality set in yet? Kids, job, partner, just doesn’t equal farm bliss. Well listen up and take heed. You can now, partially, live out your dream of running away to tend sheep with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share from Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm.

With a share in the Farm you buy into the Farm and have a stake in its success. The goal is to have yarn or bats for spinning at the end of the process, but you get so much more. You have access to Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm’s blog, where there are updates on the farm’s goings on. A weekly email update, invites to shearing parties and a chance to visit the farm and help out. This is after all, part your farm!

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This yarn is also a very elegant and soft fiber. The silk lends its smooth texture to the sometimes rough cotton to create a peaceful yarn. Cotton-Silk Natural comes in relaxing colors created with plant dyes. It is available in five different subtle monotone verigates. These restful colors are created with such things as sandalwood and herbs and flowers.

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Over the years she has developed these plants and now produces green, brown, buffalo brown and white organic cotton. While it takes about 10 years to develop a color, Fox continues to experiment and tries to find new hues for her organic cotton. She says that by working at it year after year, eventually you come up with a plant that has a good color that is also suitable for spinning.

All of Fox Fiber yarns are certified organic and the cotton is available in cones or skeins and available in a variety of textures including boucle, chenille, bulky and crepe. As previously noted here on Yearn Worthy Yarn, I am a sucker for bulky yarns and Fox Fiber’s bulky comes in wonderful blends of the green, brown, and white cotton.

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For those hip to the online craft world, this might not be news to you, but to us here at CAGW, it is the uber example of reuse, and therefore we are in love. So, read all about it: newspaper yarn!

Via Green Upgrader, artist Greetje van Tiem has created yarn from old newspapers by hand-spinning the paper. Not a spinner myself, I can not speak to how one would go about doing this themselves so I leave it to Green Upgrader again who have this great step by step tutorial on how to spin newspaper into yarn!

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