I’m more than a little obsessed with yarn at the moment. While I was on holiday in Wales a few weeks ago, I came across a local products market with lots of nice things (including some very tasty cider). Maybe I could smell the yarn from outside the building, but I knew, just KNEW, there was something special hiding in there. Oh yes. I love independent yarn producers. I have such a love affair with natural wools. Much as I love brightly-coloured stuff, I also love natural.

It was really hard to choose what to buy from the wonderful selection of alpaca and different sheepy wools. Two balls of cream alpaca was the first in the bag, then some alpaca roving to spin, plus some plain grey wool.

Then some softer-than-soft blue-faced Leicester (that’s a sheep breed) in grey-brown. Yum yum.

So I’ve been spinning the plain grey wool, making a good start at it while I was doing a medieval demo. While I was there I was delighted to come across The Mulberry Dyer. Oops. Lots and lots of nice things, all naturally-dyed with historic dyestuffs. Heaven.

I’ve started a second lot of spinning, using wonderfully scratchy-woolly natural space-dyed Shetland. When that’s done I think I might ply it with the grey, which is soft, but possibly not next-to-the-skin soft. Then make a handbag.

I also bought lots of other stuff from the Mulberry Dyer. Crewel wools and silks for embroidery, space-dyed linen and some gorgeous Wensleydale wool in lilacy shade for socks and bright purple and pink for gloves. Maybe. Photos to come, yarn fans.

I’ll be back on fabric again soon for the fabric-focussed, I promise.