artisane yarn producers?

Almost gone... Off to the Pyrenees!  Ahh mountains - space, big skies, brooding, bare, misty, cold - a place where the ancestors live.  This peak is less than 2000m so should be able to manage this - slowly...

pic du Cagere
Pyrenees

Wonder if I might find an artisanal yarn producer, or 'wool fleece processor' or even better a felt maker. If you know of anyone in the Haute Garonne or Ariege districts please drop me a line.

Hoping to visit caves too.


And found a link to a textile museum.




Last year we stayed in Snowdonia and hiked up a couple of mountains, found a woolen mill still powered by water, as well as a slow magician - Helen Melvin who introduced me to the idea of slow dying, and talked about this Australian artist India Flint - well I've raved about her work here.

a la India

Inspired by India Flint, 'a whorld wanderer', I decided to have a go at making a dress in her zero wastage method!  Here's some pix of the work in progress.

I used India's pattern from her blog 'the prophet of bloom'

Here's pocket detail which is the bit cut out for the neck.

sustenance!

and here's the dress - only tacked together so far.  Has potential, nice and comfy for working in.  The idea is to use this for a tester as it was an old sheet. Then work out how to make it out of a very lovely piece of silk from my fabric chest, which could then be dyed in 'India's' method of not using chemical/synthetic adjuncts.  might be a while before the finished item appears here..