Chrissie Day on Working with Wool…

Another post submitted as part of our WOVEMBER competition, this one comes from Chrissie Day, and – like Kate, whom we heard from this morning – draws inspiration for her knitting projects directly from the sheep living in her immediate environment…

Here are the sheep who give me their fleeces.

Deciding to mix Bluefaced Leicester with Shetland results in a beautiful yarn which is a sheer delight to work and design with.

Using natural dyes from plants, I dyed some skeins at home.

Here they are, blowing dry in the winds of the North Pennines where I live.

Using even more colours, this top was created.

After all the many years I have been knitting all I can say is there is something added to the whole experience when you know exactly where your yarn came from.

I started this experience with the Zwartbles fleeces from local farmer and now have 3 beautiful yarns to work with, my final one being a lovely Texel/Cheviot mix which I like to knit alongside the BFL/Shetland mix. This gives me a lovely bulky fibre for knitting on a size 7mm needle, opening up yet more design possibilities…

All content © Chrissie Day and originally published on her own website here. Republished here on the Wovember site with her kind permission