Fair Trade Yarn

It's Fairtrade Fortnight here in the UK! I thought I might feature a few of my favourite Fair Trade/co-operative-made yarns that help ensure safe and well-paid working conditions for the people that make our most beloved fibres.

Manos del Uruguay

Creator of lovely hand-dyed yarns such as thick-and-thin Wool Classica and Silk Blend, this co-operative employs over 800 women in rural areas of Uruguay, giving them job stability and a fair price for their well-skilled labour.

 

Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend

I've had four skeins of this lovely stuff sitting in my stash for a while now, and I'm still trying to figure out the perfect project for it. My skein of sunset-coloured Silk Blend with its contrasting partner, Black, is destined for a stranded hat, but I just need to find the time to write up a pattern for it!

Be Sweet 

From co-operatives in South Africa comes Be Sweet, a clothing and yarn producer that specialises in fun, textured, natural-fibre yarn and interesting pieces. They're branching out into more non-textured yarn as they grow their business, and how have a large and varied selection, from organic cotton/bamboo rayon mix yarn Bambino, to supremely more interesting yarn such as T-Shirt, a yarn made from...you guessed it, recycled t-shirts.

T-shirt (image from Bee Sweet Website)

Fyberspates 

One of my favourite indie dyers is Jeni of Fyberspates. A dyer who's recently moved shop to Oxfordshire (a county I'm, admittedly, a little biased toward), she's committed to sourcing her yarn from "only good karmic places."

 

Fyberspates Faery Wings 4ply, from my stash

My Leiden Lace Scarf is made from Fyberspates 100% Mongolian Cashmere Lace-weight

From her website:

We carefully source all of our yarns, we have personally visited nearly all the places that Fyberspates yarn have been manufactured. We buy yarn from the UK, Peru, Italy, Spain and the USA. These manufacturers have very high standards of production, and have good working standards for their employees, which is something we value highly.

She goes on to assure her customers that if the hasn't visited the place where the yarn has come from, she'll let us know. I don't know about you, but I really appreciate that kind of transparency in business practices. Well done, Jeni!


What are some of your favourite ethical yarns?

Beetroot Knits

A few weeks ago, we got a bundle of small organic beetroots in our veg box delivery. They sat in the back of the fridge for a while, as I wasn't quite sure what to do with them...beet crisps? Nah. Pickled? Heck no.

And, as many veg box customers tend to find themselves at least a few times a year, I was completely confused, until I told EllaJ about it and she said, "What about borscht?"

Duh. As I have a very lovely Russian side of my family in my darling sister-in-law, and have enjoyed her and her mother's borscht on many a find occasion, I don't know how that delicate point escaped me.

So last night I made borscht. And while making borscht and seeing how brilliantly fuchsia everything within five feet of me was, I thought, "Oh yeah, people use beetroot to dye things."

In severe danger of being dyed.

After reading a few forum posts and learning that no, it wasn't a good idea, it wouldn't last, I tossed the beetroot peels into a pot with some apple cider vinegar, took out that beautiful skein of Organic Merino Aran that I bought from Bluefaced last weekend, and shoved it in.

At least I didn't give in to my first impulse and just whack it in with the borscht.

I let it simmer for about 30 minutes, half-expecting it to just soak it all in like it would with kool-aid, but second guessed it and threw it in the sink in cold water. As expected, it bled a lot, but didn't, as I was fearing, go completely white again (which wouldn't have been so bad, really). I hung it up in the bathroom to dry, and in the end of it all, got this:

It's a lot more orangey/rusty than I expected, which is good, because I was fearing it would turn out to be a bit more like candy-floss (which I hate the color of). And because it's kettle-dyed, and because I never fished the beetroot peels out of the boiling water, they ended up clinging to the yarn like leeches and leaving little darker splotches all over it, which I quite like.

I fully expect it to fade and bleach in the sun, but even if it's anywhere between this color and its natural shade, I'll still be happy with it.