Thursday, May 04, 2006
Elizabeth Lovick's North Ronaldsay Wool
I have mentioned before that I am very interested in traditional knitting and increasing my skills in that direction. I have a number of projects on my needles, but I am looking at a number of traditional projects for the future:- The Lopi sweater in production
- The Nordic Mitten Kit in my Stash
- The Faroe Island steeked sweater
- a true Aran sweater
- and a sweater from one of Alice Starmore's books.
In my search for more expertise in traditional items I joined the Knitting from the Hebrides listserv. This has turned out to be a wonderful website and listserv for learning about knitting. And, one of the listserv members is Elizabeth Lovick, who lives in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. I looked at her website, Northern Lace, and was immediately fascinated with the North Ronaldsay Island sheep. These are primitive Bronze Age era sheep and survive for most of the year on seaweed. Make sure that you look at the photo gallery in the site--the sheep are really cute! There is a small mill on the island that processes the yarn--you couldn't find a better way to support a local, traditional economy.
I wrote to ELizabeth to inquire about her yarn and patterns and ended up buying her A NORTH RONALDSAY YARN - The Sheep, Their Yarn and Their Island and Patterns for North Ronaldsay Yarn. The pattern book contains some lovely patterns, and I am particularly interested in one of the traditional gansey patterns. Here's the package I received from Liz:
And the yarn is beautiful! Liz hand dyes yarn, but I am particularly interested in the natural colors. Choices, choices.
Mixed yarns
Originally uploaded by amyeetx.
