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Local Dyer to Die For – Schafenfreude Fibers.

March 26th, 2012

Sudha, Melissa and I have been on the lookout for local dyer ever since the wonderful Baywood Yarns got busier with her day job and stopped dyeing those beautiful yarns for us. Meanwhile, we found many dyers: Baah! yarns, Anzula, Dream in Color, Madelinetosh but none of them was local to us. We kept looking…

About a month ago we started looking seriously at Schafenfreude Fibers and met up with Diane Palme. We petted the yarn and looked at colors and drove up to her dyeing studio. And finally settled on her Luster Sock base as our first line from her. This is a 100% Superwash Blue Faced Leicester(BFL) wool in a 438 yards (100 g) skein. If you’re just discovering that there are other wool fibers beside merino and cashmere, Blue Faced Leicester is a longer stapled wool (the individual fibers are longer) which is fine enough for next-to-skin wear. It is extremely popular for fine to medium yarns for anything from lace to socks to light sweaters, and insulates and wears well enough for outerwear too.

We placed our order and she gave us a sample skein which I knit up quickly. I couldn’t bear for anyone else to knit up the beautiful orange color. I had seen a sample of Swallowtail at Diane’s studio and wanted to do something lacy. Since the store already had a sample of Swallowtail, I decided to go for something that had been in my queue for a while – Holden by Mindy Wilkes. The pattern is super-simple and addictive. It took me less than a week to make this. Diane’s gorgeous yarn was wonderful to knit with and when I blocked this shawl the results were incredible. The yarn holds form extremely well and the color is simply stunning on anyone who wears it.

Come see Schafenfreude’s colors at the store or online and watch this collection as we grow with this wonderful local dyer!

- Saloni

 

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