Strickmich! Club 2020: Manos del Uruguay
In this series of blog posts we will introduce the dyers who are providing the yarns for Strickmich! Club 2020.
Strickmich! Club is a subscription for four new knitting patterns by Martina Behm plus matching, exclusively dyed yarn.
Sign-ups for the club year of 2020 will start on November 3rd.
Knitters love to do good – and by knitting with yarns by Manos del Uruguay doing good is even better! In 1968, five women founded this cooperative in Uruguay to help women in rural areas to find well-paying jobs by using their knowledge of artisanal traditions and local resources – like wool! Sheep and wool are everywhere in Uruguay, and the skills of knitting, spinning and crocheting are passed on from generation to generation. Nowadays, 250 women work in 19 different locations to make the colorful and soft yarns that are loved and appreciated by knitters all around the world.
Valeria Eliza Gonzales Martinez is one of them, living with her son in Fraile Muerto in Uruguay, close to the Brazilian border, where the dyeing workshops are located. “I have been with Manos del Uruguay for six years”, she says. “In the beginning, I helped to wind the skeins and with the packaging”, she recounts. But Valeria has grown into an experienced dyer, has expanded her knowledge on administration and has even become a member of her cooperative’s counsel.
Valeria und eine Kollegin aus der Färberei
“Manos was my first formal job and I have grown a lot here”, Valeria says. “My hope is that the work at Manos will continue to grow and develop”. She certainly has fallen in love with yarn and dyeing, although she does not know how to knit. “But I would like to learn how to crochet!” she says. Her favorite color? “Jacaranda, dyed on our yarn base ‘Alegria'”, Valeria says – thats a subtle purple on an almost-white yarn base, very light and feminine.
“Jacaranda”, Valeria’s favorite color
We are proud and happy to have a beautiful, exclusive new colorway by Valeria and her colleagues at Manos del Uruguay in Strickmich! Club 2020!
Strickmich! Club 2020: Fyberspates
In this series of blog posts we will introduce the dyers who are providing the yarns for Strickmich! Club 2020.
Strickmich! Club is a subscription for four new knitting patterns by Martina Behm plus matching, exclusively dyed yarn. Sign-ups for the club year of 2020 will start on November 3rd.
Luxurious, colorful, unusual – yarns by Fyberspates are everything a knitter could wish for! The creative mind behind all the beautiful colors is Jeni Hewlett from Chester, UK. When she started out dyeing yarns in 2004, the main obstacle was getting her hands on undyed yarn. “It was extremely difficult, as hand-dyeing was not nearly as popular as it is today”, she said.
At the time, Jeni was amidst a PhD programme in psychology, but she knew she would not find a career in that field fulfilling. “I was looking for something new and creative. And I remembered that I always loved to sew and to knit. My mom had a lot of books about crafting that I loved to browse as a kid,” she said. So it was decided that crafting and textiles was the way to go. “I went to a couple of workshops in London and decided to try yarn dyeing,” Jeni said.
Jeni also managed to find a source for undyed yarn: The man who would later become her husband had yarns made especially for her and her dyeing business. Jeni started selling yarns on ebay and on her own website as “Fyberspates” – “I love that name because it sounds like ‘cyberspace'”, she said. Soon she had enthusiastic customers from all over the world. Nowadays, Jeni and her husband sell undyed yarns to other dyers as well, and they are happy that the scene has become so colorful and diverse. “Every dyer, every designer has a different style, and the quality has become really high – that’s amazing! When I started out, there were only standard yarns available, and the yarn companies were owned by old men who did not really care and did not even know how to knit, it was insane. So I am happy now that I can help out people who really care about wool and yarn!”
A couple of years a go, Jeni started a cooperation with a dyeing workshop in Peru. “I was not able to satisfy demand, and unfortunately employing people did not really work well for me.” So when she develops a new colorway, she dyes it herself in her Chester workplace (close to Liverpool) and travels to Peru to show the dyers how to do it. “They are doing an amazing job, and I am happy about our cooperation as they are a Peruvian-owned company, providing job opportunities with fair pay and good working conditions especially for women,” Jeni says.
Jeni loves to knit sweaters, “but they have to be simple. If they are complicated, I won’t finish them,” she said. Of course she uses her own yarns, “or sometimes those coming from dyers who use our undyed yarns – but then I feel guilty!” Her favorite yarn is “Cumulus”, a luxurious blend of alpaca and silk fiber: “It knits up quickly and is just lovely and squishy.” When dyeing, she prefers other yarn bases: “I like it when a yarn has good texture and takes up the dye well.” Her personal favorites are caramel and spicy yellows, “they look amazing when combined with grey, and they look so happy!” When she dyes yarn, she has a very big palette: you will find deep and dark purple as well as bright teal and greens. “I love to dye in layers to get certain effects,” she said.
We are happy and proud that Jeni has decided to join Strickmich! Club with an exclusive, new colorway – great to have you, Jeni!
What to expect in Strickmich! Club
This video has all the answers (link to youtube): Prices, yarns, colors…!
Strickmich! Club 2020: Tieke Garne
In this series of blog posts we will introduce the dyers who are providing the yarns for Strickmich! Club 2020.
Strickmich! Club is a subscription for four new knitting patterns by Martina Behm plus matching, exclusively dyed yarn. Sign-ups for the club year of 2020 will start on November 3rd.
Susanne Walther has been dyeing saturated, intensely beautiful yarns since 2008 and is one of the pioneers of hand dyeing in German-speaking countries – and I have been a big fan of her yarns ever since I saw them in my favorite yarn store in Hamburg. In the 90s, Susanne started to make little things like purses out of felted Merino Wool and sold them at local crafting fairs. She then added yarns and used the brand name “Lollipop by Filzflash”, since the yarns were so colorful. “But after a while, I did not like that name anymore, it sounded a bit child-like”, Susanne remembered. After a break that the took to focus on her job at a museum in Hamburg and her task as a single mother, she started dyeing again in 2016. Her dyeing workshop goes by “Tieke Garne” now, since “Tieke was my grandparents’ last name, and I loved them very much”, Susanne said.
Family is a big topic in Susanne’s creative biography: “My mother is a photographer and she used to paint all the walls in our house in different colors. I grew up surrounded by intense, saturated colors”, she recounts. Her room was first painted yellow, then orange-and-purple, later bright green and purple again, “with red shelves”, Susanne said. That will sure make an impression! Her own apartment used to be very colorful, too, but now Susanne prefers white walls and tons of multicolored accessories. “I have knit and crocheted a lot of pillow covers and sewn a couple of quilts in bright colors. The joy of colors has wandered from the walls into the textiles!”
Susanne’s living room with pillows and quilts
Her passion for wool also stems from her childhood: “Friends of ours used to have a flock of sheep, and my mom got a fleece every year. We would wash and card it and spin it into yarn at a Louet spinning wheel.” So wool played a big role! Susanne also started knitting and crocheting before she started school, and her mom always had some knitting on the needles.
Her dyeing style is in constant transformation: “My true love are semisolids, but I also do speckled yarns.” Her favorite colors depend a lot on the seasons. In late summer, she loves berry tones that become more and more saturated as fall approaches, from maroon to bright pink. “I do love subtle colors, but I also like to play with more intense ones that resemble those from my childhood home – both styles are beautiful!”
Susanne’s favorite fibers are Merino and Bluefaced Leicester, and when the colors are supposed to pop, they must also be superwash: “They will take the colors amazingly well”, Susanne said. “But I also love yarns that are not treated as they have an amazing feel to them, especially if they come from the UK. Those yarns have a warmth to them, character”. She also loves fine Mohair yarns that she likes to hold double with a heavier yarn.
Tieke Garne are sometimes available at fiber festivals, in Tieke Garne Online Store and at a local yarn store in Hamburg. “I can’t produce big amounts as I still work at the museum half-time”, Susanne said. Her yarns are a rare treat – and we are looking forward to having them in Strickmich! Club 2020.
Strickmich! Club 2020: Alte Künste
In this series of blog posts we will introduce the dyers who are providing the yarns for Strickmich! Club 2020.
Strickmich! Club is a subscription for four new knitting patterns by Martina Behm plus matching, exclusively dyed yarn. Sign-ups for the club year of 2020 will start in November on
www.strickmich-club.de.
Margit and her yarns
Margit Hofmann used to be a wanderer between two very distinct worlds: During the week, she would work as a risk manager in an international bank in the city of Frankfurt, making sure that big chunks of money would be transferred correctly and on time. On the weekends, she would exchange her business attire with a medieval robe and perform at markets and festivals or open-air museums, showing visitors how spinning, weaving or naalbinding work. Being involved in this scene, Margit thought it might be a good idea to dye fine, modern yarns with plant-based dyes. “On the markets, I often saw chunky one-plies, but I knew that even in the medieval ages, people used finer yarns”, she said. When the bank she was working for wanted to transfer her to the investment banking branch, Margit drew a line: “It was the moment my PhD supervisor had warned me about – I had to make a decision between money and my conscience.”
Yarn in Berry Tones
And that’s how Dr. Margit Hofmann became a small-scale entrepreneur, dyeing yarns for hand-knitters with botanical and natural dyes, using old recipes she researches and tests herself. “I want my colors to be wash- and lightfast”, Margit said. Some natural dyes are prone to decomposing when exposed to sunlight. Margit places her samples in a sunny window for a couple of weeks and determines with standardized color cards whether they are affected by light or not. Only if a new color passes the test it will become part of the “Alte Künste” (“Ancient Arts”) palette.
Variations of Purple
“There are tons of possibilities with plant dyes, there’s a great harmony of colors and you can combine any two of them”, Margit said. She dyes a whole rainbow of saturated colors – not what one would expect when hearing “plant dyes”. “We always think that people in former times only wore brown and grey before chemical dyes were invented”, Margit said, “but that’s just not true. In medieval times, bright and fun colors were all the rage and so intense that it would be quite unusual for our eyes.”
Dyeing with plants is always more work and uses more energy than dyeing with acid colors, as you often have to boil them for hours to get the essence you need. “But making chemical dyes also uses engery”, Margit said. “And plants are a sustainable resource – chemical dyes based on oil are not”. She hopes to spark enthusiasm for plant dyes with her colorful yarns: “Plant dyes have been forgotten in Germany for a long time – probably because we are the country that invented chemical dyes”.
Colorful Silk
Margit loves to dye blue shades and her favorite yarn base is pure silk: “That’s a very hard base to dye, as colors tend to come out a little more pale than usual. But when I manage to dye a really vibrant, saturated color on silk, that’s a great feeling of accomplishment!”. She also knits a lot: “I am in a sweater and cardigan period right now, but I used to knit a lot of shawls out of exclusive fibers”.
Ein ganzer Regenbogen!
We at Strickmich! are delighted that Margit decided to provide one of the yarns for Strickmich! Club 2020 – its color will be exclusive to club members for all time. Looking forward to having you, Margit!
Planner Protection
A knitting planner needs a knitted cover, of course, so it is well protected during its adventures in your knitting bag. “Planner Protection” is a slipcover with an opening at the top of the book, to shield the pages and prevent the cover from accidentally slipping off. Looks great in a color-changing fingering weight yarn!
You will knit back and forth while strategically placed increases and decreases and a couple of short rows will create the three-dimensional shape of the cover. No seaming required!
Strickplaner 2020 – your knitting planner is a weekly paper planner for knitters that will help you organize your life, everyday tasks and craft projects.
The yarn used for this planner cover (“Lazy Lion”, colorway “Bunch of Roses”) is available in Strickmich! Shop.
Download the pattern here for free!
Strickmich! Club Cast-on Video No. 3
Happy casting on of the third project of Strickmich! Club 2019!
Here’s the link to the video (Vimeo link, opens in new window).
Strickmich! Knitting Inventions – coming soon!
Strickmich! Knitting Inventions – coming soon!
Exiting news: There will be a book! Hardbound, with a gorgeous layout and all new pictures. “Strickmich! Knitting Inventions” is a collection of all my designs that were departures from what had been there before in the knitting world. Take the Hitchhiker – one of the most popular knitting designs in the world – that has inspired a whole new family of knitted shawls.
The construction of “Match & Move” has become a staple in the knitting world – but when I first came up with it, it was brand new: A knitting invention. In my view, knitwear design means to re-think knitting, to do things differently and to make them original. I also think that instructions need to be short and elegant, that complicated techniques need to be avoided (that often includes purling) and that knitting is most fun when you can use a colorful, handdyed or color-changing yarn.
In this book you will find 20 knitting patterns, among them two new un-published ones, and their stories: about Chilean glaciers, 3-dimensional paper models and sunsets over the Damsdorf desert.
Strickmich! Knitting Inventions is published by Strickmich!, will be launched on 16. September and has 104 full-color pages.
The book launch party takes place at our next knitting event at 2pm on September 14th here in Damsdorf, Germany.
The patterns included in the book are:
Hitchhiker
Nuvem
Viajante
Matchmaker
Match & Move
Tensfield
Rose Candy
Easy
Hitchhiker Beyond
Tough & Toasty
Wolkig
Green Light Shawl
Ecken + Kanten
Loops
Puerto Montt
Lupino (NEU)
Spiral Escape
Strider
Berry Skies
Setting Sun (NEU)
“Strickmich! Knitting Inventions” will also be available for retailers – you can order it through your merchant’s account in Strickmich! Shop.
Knit & Crime
On September 14th, German crime novelist Till Raether will visit us again and read from is latest book – and it will be more funny than scary, I promise! If you don’t speak German and are planning to come to our event, don’t worry: The reading takes place in the ballroom, but the knitting will continue in the other rooms we have. 