American Wool Series: Insouciant Fibers

Insouciant Fibers is a small, local fiber company based out of Bainbridge Island that uses breed-specific animal fibers to create artisan yarns. All of the fibers are sourced in the Pacific Northwest and come from micro-farms and the breeds range from Jacob to Costswold to Border Leicester, just to name a few. 

 As you can see, the Jacob wool I picked up at Churchmouse hails from Port Townsend, WA and each Insouciant Fibers yarn label will tell you where the fibery friend your yarn comes from is located.

Insouciant Fibers' yarn line is locally-sourced wool at its best; breed specific, locally raised, and a beautiful, natural color palette. If you love sheepy wools and supporting small farms and farmers then this is the yarn for you. Read all about the fiber animals that comprise Insouciant Fibers on their website or pick some yarn up in person at Churchmouse Yarns & Tea or Tolt Yarn & Wool.

Money & Mouth

You know that saying, "put your money where your mouth is"? Well, that's kind of what the American Wool Series is all about; thinking hard about where the tools we use as knitters come from and how what we purchase impacts the knitting and fiber industry. I was contacted by Brittney, who has a kickstarter project currently in need of funding that would support small farmers and mills back East. How cool is that?

You can find Brittney's kickstarter page here. Maybe I'll be reviewing Spun Fiber Co's products sometime soon, huh?

American Wool Series: Quince & Co.

This installment of the American Wool Series isn't a new-to-me yarn company. Ever since Quince & Co started up in 2010 I've been following the blog and looking forward to each new addition to their yarn line. Quince & Co is the brainchild of Pam Allen, former editor of Interweave Knits, and Carrie Hoge and their taste in classic color palettes and clean, modern aesthetic is apparent in every aspect of the business . Before I wax too romantic over Quince & Co's yarn, this is what is posted on the website about their yarn:
 

 Our wool and wool-blend yarns are spun in historic American mills from territory wool. By sourcing our wool in the US and manufacturing our yarn locally, we minimize our carbon footprint and we help keep American ranches from turning into parking lots.

But, hey, as much as we want to work with American fiber, we also want to enjoy the pleasures of fibers that aren't readily available in the US. When we use fibers that aren’t from the US, we find out as much as possible about where they are from and how they came to be. If we're sourcing a yarn from a plant fiber, we want to know if it was grown in conditions that are healthy for the soil and for those who tend and harvest it. If we're looking for an animal fiber, we want to know if the animal was raised in a way that sustains the earth and preserves the culture of the people who care for it.

 Be still, my knitter's heart.  The current yarn line includes 11 different yarns ranging from lace weight to chunky weight and includes 100% wools alongside alpaca blends, organic Belgian linen, Texas super kid mohair, and a wool-silk blend. I have knit with 5 out of the 11 yarns and found them to be not only a delight to knit but a good value. For example, Finch is a 100% fingering weight wool that has 221 yards in a 50 gram skein and sells online for $7.85. You can't really beat that price. Did I mention that it comes in 55 colors? 

One of my current WIPs (show in the top picture) is in Finch and the yarn is lovely to knit with. Finch has great stitch definition due to the roundness of the yarn and feels nice in the hands as well. If you haven't had the opportunity to try Quince & Co yarns I urge you to do so, I think you'll like it. 

PS - The WIP in the top picture is the Knitted Waistcoat from A Stitch In Time, Vol 1 by Susan Crawford.

American Wool Series: The Master List

It has been a long time coming but I finally have a somewhat finished master list for my American Wool Series. The thing is, I keep thinking of new fiber folk to add to my list; that's a good thing, right? 

In no particular order:

Beaverslide Dry Goods
Quince & Co (minus the linen, which is grown in Belgium)
Brooklyn Tweed
Sincere Sheep (Terroir series)
Alpenglow
Imperial Stock Ranch
Bartlett Yarns
Made in America Yarns
Green Mountain Spinnery
Brown Sheep Company, Inc.
Spincycle Yarns
Insouciant Yarns
Local Color Fiber Studio
Fancy Tiger Heirloom Romney
Stone Hedge Fiber Mill
Elemental Affects
Jill Draper Makes Stuff 
Toots LeBlanc
Cestari Sheep & Wool Co
Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Company

I'm pretty sure this isn't every North American grown/milled/dyed yarn purveyor but it's quite a list from off the top of my head. There's a secondary list that's in the works for yarn companies that have offerings of North American yarns but their product focus is yarn in general and not NA yarn. I tried to do my due diligence with the folks on this list and research all of the fiber that they use in their yarn lines, but there may be a few who have fiber blends that aren't 100% North American. My list was quite a bit longer than this but I realized that people who might have their yarn milled and dyed in the US didn't necessarily use wool raised in the US. It took a fair amount of poking around on websites and Ravelry to get the information I wanted and what I found was that people who wore their badge of 100% North American product proudly advertised it as such and they were the easiest to find.

Share your information with me! Any glaring mistakes on my list? Know any other businesses that create mostly North American yarns? Do tell!

FO: Mary Mead

A short while back I wrote my first post in my American Wool Series about Toots LeBlanc and a cardigan that I was knitting that hadn't been released yet. I finished the sweater about a week and a half ago, the cardigan pattern has been released, and I sewed my buttons on today and finally took pictures!

I'm pretty jazzed by the finished sweater. 

It looks cute over a dress (top picture) or with separates (above). I'll admit that I had some reservations about knitting a cropped sweater but since the construction is top down and seamless I can totally add length if I decide I want this to be a bit longer at some point. Right now, I'm really happy with the length and how it looks over dresses and longer tops. 

 If you remember, the yarn is a sport weight alpaca/wool blend in a lovely natural charcoal; the perfect substitution for Andi's pattern which uses Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light. The sleeve construction is top-down set-in and this is the first time I knit this sleeve construction in a stitch pattern - I like it!

Pattern: Mary Mead by Andi Satterlund (Untangling Knots) $6.50 pdf download

Yarn: Toots Le Blanc 50/50 Jacob/Alpaca Sport

Needle: US #3 (3.25mm) and US #1.5 (2.5 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp needles

Mods: Since this was a test knit I followed the pattern exactly for the size large. I have a 43 inch bust and knitting the large gave me 2 inches of negative ease which gives me a perfect fit through the upper bust, shoulders and sleeves and the appropriate sweater fit for a vintage style cardigan. The absolutely only thing I changed was to add an extra buttonhole in the buttonband since I have a weird thing about having odd numbers of buttons on my sweaters (that's my own personal finicky thing and has nothing to do with Andi's pattern). The jacob/alpaca yarn I used was a two-ply and less round than Ultra Alpaca Light so I ended up going down to a US size three to get gauge but that is the needle size recommended on my yarn's label so I wasn't really surprised by that. All in all, I'm very pleased with this sweater and might even add more cropped sweaters into my sweater wardrobe to wear over my growing collection of dresses.

American Wool: Toots LeBlanc & Co

I've been thinking a lot about how to go about my American Wool resolution for this year and decided that it will be more educational for me (and maybe you) if I choose one company or yarn brand at a time and actually knit with their products. I'm still working on curating a master list to share with y'all since new purveyors of North American wool keep popping into my head. Just a heads up, it's getting to be a long list!

First up is Toots LeBlanc & Co. Toots is the first company I came into contact with in my knitting life that used North American wools and fibers in all of their yarns. The Toots yarn line is naturally colored and the array of shades is just breathtaking. This is a family-run operation and I was lucky enough to be at the Seattle Knitter's Guild many years ago when the owner came to talk about her company. This is what her website says:

"I have created unique woolen blend yarns with fiber from animals raised on small family farms in Washington, Oregon & Northern California. I have hand selected only the finest fleeces in order to create a luxurious fiber experience.  The yarns are listed below.  I hope that you enjoy working with these yarns be it for knitting, crochet, weaving or some other fiber passion.

Yarn Blends

• Merino/Angora
• Jacob/Alpaca
• Jacob/Alpaca/Mohair
• Blue-Faced Leicester/Pygora

No harsh soaps, chemicals or dyes were used in the processing of these yarns, and the colors are brought to you by the animals themselves. I hope that you enjoy the pleasure of working with these lush natural color blends."

I purchased a sweater quantity of Jacob/Alpaca sport weight yarn intending to knit Audrey in Unst, but subsequently decided I wanted that sweater in red. I pulled this yarn out of stash yesterday to swatch for a test knit (which I can't share until it's released, sorry!) and love knitting with it.

This yarn is a 2-ply consisting of 50% Jacob wool and 50% Alpaca. I can feel the lanolin in the yarn so my hands are super soft after knitting my swatch and it's also an indicator that the yarn is minimally processed, which I enjoy. According to The Knitter's Book of Wool by Clara Parkes, Jacob is a demiluster wool, meaning not very lustrous, with a soft hand that is suitable  for outerwear. In my opinion, the alpaca adds extra softness to this particular yarn and will make for a great cardigan. I'll post more about this yarn after I complete my project and can share pictures.