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.

Silk dyed with onion 'a la India'

I had a eureka moment - it works (o yee of little faith i hear you whisper).  Almost three months ago I set up a bowl of onion skins steeping in water in my greenhouse.  Then I added a small piece of silk wrapped around a stone.

The onions turned the water black/brown and kind of slimy but not mouldy.

onion skins in water with silk wrapped around a stone.

silk wrapped around a stone

I had wrapped the silk around a stone because that's what was to hand.

Silk unwrapped

here is the silk unwrapped, quite creased and showing lots of variations in colour.  Think if had tyed it tighter I might have got a more tie-dyed effect.

dry silk

Very pleased with my first solar dying experiment 'a la India'.  Need to start collection bigger vessels to make bigger bits.  And need to see how light fast it is as did not use any mordant.

Very much looking forward to the end of August as going on one of India Flint's workshops.