The Lineup

I searched high and low for any bast; through my personal stash of yarn, and then checked the work boxes just in case I missed any scraps! I’m so excited to be teaching at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival and this opportunity to show like-minded linen lovers how much variety is actually out there. I have been collecting bast fibres for more than a decade. Variety is surprisingly hard to find, and many of my fibres are now pretty rare.

The sample yarns…

On the far left is my favorite linen yarn, Euroflax from Louet. The colours are extraordinary, and the feel, the hand of the yarn is in a class of its own. A great linen yarn should only get better with washing and drying (yes IN the dryer), and Euroflax never disappoints.

The next pile of colour (immediate right of the Euroflax) are the samples of all the yarns I have dyed over the years. And a natural skein for comparison. These original colours will be examined against the heavily washed samples that I have worked over (washed often and much abused to wear the samples in).

The final piles (on the right hand side) are samples of more linen & hemp yarns and samples of linen blended yarns.

The yarns for use in the class looks a lot more like this…

I also went through my stash and picked out all the ends I have left over from various projects over time. Lately I have been making shawls from scraps of yarn, and it is hard not to start something new with all the interesting blobs of yarn when they are packed together like this. I can see colour combinations I want to explore!

The fibres end up being the most impressive pile…

Top row from left to right:

Linen strick, Louet hemp from Germany, Louet Linen from Great Britain, Louet Linen from Begium, hemp from China

Bottom row from left to right:

Linen from Ireland, unknown sample from a friend, Canadian Linen fibres from local farmers, degummed hemp from China, and hemp from Romania.

The long line fibres to practice with in-class are all coming from (my generous sponsor!) Louet. But I so want everyone to have a chance to feel the variety of bast fibres that are available, and will bring at least one gran of each of the samples shown above.

And last but not least….

Hand dyed (by me) Louet long line linen fibres! I dyed in three sunset colours, and I promise not to spin it all up myself before the show!

Now I really must stop drooling and handling these samples for a month (I think I can make it)!