Dyeing

Wool in its natural colour may be beautiful, but a bit boring in the long run. We like spinning in colour! So we use industrial dyed wool, but we also like to dye for ourselves - with everything available!

We use professional acid based dye, with which we create new and interesting combinations. We also take food and Easter egg colouring or KoolAid. We pay attention that the colour is lightfast and not getting washed out soon.

Dyeing with natural plants may be more work but is even more fascinating! Walnut, onion or St. John's wort - nothing is save! The results often are surprisingly manifold, since the colour is influenced by many factors. We preserve the environment by picking plants or traders carefully. We neglect the use of dangerous chemicals and just use safe substances which are really necessary.
 
Spinning

In the beginning, there was a very evil woman, who infected Teetante knowingly with a dangerous disease - the spinning addiction. Teetante became a willing object of spreading this illness further... she was very successful in her mission. On that day, when she gave Tini one of her hand spindles ("so you can practice until you get your own" - why was she so sure about that?!), Tini had crossed the point of no return.

Since then we went over from hand spindles to spinning wheels. These faithful companions are always ready to help us realize a creation or practise on a new spinning technique. Tini owns an Austrian wheel, called "The Ösi", in the meantime also an Ashford Country Spinner moved in with her.

Teetante's destiny led her to faraway Geneva on a flea market where she discovered an old Moswolt wheel and saved it from being scrapped. After it got some attention is thankfully spins every art yarn she has in mind.

We process lots of fibers from animal, plant or also synthetic origin, such as sheep wool, merino, alpaca, angora, llama, mohair, silk, ramie, cotton and artificial fiber. We spin also "normal" yarn, but we have lots of fun in creating unique, one-of-a-kind "Art Yarns" - yarns which are little pieces of art by special ingredients or unconventional spinning techniques.

Our fibers come from online shops, some we can obtain directly from the shepherd. We also mix them with our carders to get interesting mixtures. All the little stuff we include into our yarns come from different sources, meanwhile we developed an eye to what is usable, but we also like to try uncommon things. Some of the little parts we also create ourselves, like felted balls for strawberries, litte crochet flowers or pieces from polymer clay.

 

We use versatile spinning techniques, and we spin single thread yarns as well as 2- or 3ply yarns. There are lots of effects one can create like coils, waves, bouclé and

bobbles, and one can include thin commercial threads like sewing threads, lace yarn, glittering threads and fringed yarns to do some special effects or use it as a helping thread do hold for example beads and sequins. Also fabric stripes, lace and ribbons can be worked in.

By the way: we don't smoke and we don't have any pets. Tini sometimes gets a visit by the tomcat "Jingle", but he is not allowed to the wool storage.

After we finished a yarn, we wash it and wind it to a skein. This is best for storange and shipping. To wind a ball from it, it's best to use a woolwinder or a willing victim who holds it for a while. If none is available, it is also possible to hang it over a chair or one's knees and wind a ball carefully to not entangle it.

To wash our yarns, best wash it carefully by hand in lukewarm water with a little bit of Shampoo. You should not put it into the washing machine, unless you want to felt and shrink it on purpose.
 
Knitting and crocheting

We begann spinning because we wanted to get cheap wool for our knitting and crocheting projects. But now spinning has become such a pleasure, we spend most of our time with.

But when were itching to knit or crochet, we use needles of every size, sometimes self-made. Our repertoire goes from cuffs to scarfs, beanies or headbands. Even a stuffed animal was born that way! A sibling is on its way. Thereby we put our emphasis on maintaining the yarn's characteristics!

Knitting and crocheting with handspun yarn is real fun, because it's always a surprise how the colors and in-spun things turn out and how the idea, we had when we were spun  the yarn, looks in reality. Since then commercial yarn became pretty boring.

By the way we never had any problems with the included items. Just go on knitting, as if they weren't there and sometimes you can still shift beads and similar stuff which is included on a helping thread a little bit afterwards, if they end up at the wrong side of your garment.

Our yarns are also suitable for beginners, since it is always a little bit irregular, it doesn't  really matter if you can't knit or crochet that even yet or make some little mistakes. For the beginning we just recommend to choose a yarn which doesn't contain too many and too big ingredients.