Category: sponsors

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New Sponsor! Brown Sheep!

Olof

Hello everybody. Sorry for the delay. I know I promised this Tuesday but life happened and here we are. To make up for this I am going to keep this giveaway open til Monday the 4th of October.
Brown Sheep were great enough to donate the yarn I needed to make the Princess and the Pea from the book Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B Anderson. There are a lot of colors in this toy and I got to knit with a lot of Brown Sheep’s Worsted weight Lambs Pride . It is a 85% wool and 15% Mohair blend. I really enjoyed working with this yarn. It was perfect for this toy, making it very classic looking with a woolly feel.  I would not use this yarn as a close to skin choice, but with its nice shine, I would love to make a jacket out of this yarn or a purse or a blanket. It keeps it’s shape pretty well and I’m sure it is very sturdy, so great as an outer fabric for both toys and clothes. They have so many colors to pick from that it was hard to pick only 8 colors to make this toy. I would love to try some of there other yarns like their cotton wool blends.
For this toy I used:
M-171 Fresh Moss
M-183 Rosado Rose
M-57 Brite Blue
M-22 Autom Harvest (orange)
M-140 Aran (Natural color)
M-11 White Frost
M-175 Bronze Patine
M-07 Sable (Darker brown)
If you have been following my blog you may remember me talking about it taking me a while to get the mattresses finished. I love making toys because of their shaping and how it keeps me on my toes. Well the mattresses were not quite like that. There was no shaping. Just knitting back and forth. The doll on the other hand I finished in one day with her dress and everything. She is lovely. But the mattresses were something that I had to force myself to finish. I didn’t make all 11. My boys just use them as tossing objects and I really didn’t need any more stuff around that they can toss. I made 8 and I may make the extra 3 later once I’ve gotten over the 8 that I have already made. I did make an extra pea because the mattresses couldn’t really balance on top of the pea pod.

Brown sheep were nice enough to answer some of my questions about their business and product.

What is Brown Sheep and how did the business get started? Brown Sheep Co. was started by Harlan Brown in 1980. Harlan and his wife, Janet purchased their first spinning equipment from a mill in South Carolina. With a spinning frame, set of pin drafters, other miscellaneous equipment, and a bunch of determination they set out to make quality, USA made yarn. The business is still completely family owned and managed in Western Nebraska.

Who is in charge of the fiber combinations and the color choices and where dose that person or persons get their inspiration? Once the mill was up and running, Harlan set out to create different lines of yarns with different blends. Today the mill produces a variety of fiber blends with the most famous being Lamb’s Pride which is a blend of wool (85%) and mohair (15%). Brown Sheep Co. also produces several cotton/wool blends, sock yarn, and of course 100% wool lines, to name a few. Color choices are made on a yearly basis. Some colors remain the same every year and others come and go based on demand. Peggy Jo Wells, part-owner of the company is the mastermind behind the color choices.

Who are some of your favorite designers? Our designers include but are not limited to creative minds such as Lorna Misner, Vicki Square, Melissa Leapman, Joanna Benson and Ann Young.

Anything that you can clue us in on what to expect to see from you in the near future? Any new and amazing fiber combinations, colors or designs that you are busting at the seams to share with us? We’re bursting at the seams with new and exciting developments but as with all good secrets, we cannot disclose them yet! Be sure to return to our website (www.brownsheep.com), Facebook and Twitter often for updates! We will be launching our new website very soon and we are very excited about it! 

They also just started their blog where you can follow them for more info.

 Brown Sheep were nice enough to offer 4 skeins of what ever yarn you like. You read that right. 4 SKEINS! Just go to their site and looke for your favorite yarn or yarns and color or colors and post it here and you could be the lucky one that gets their choice of yarn.

Here are the rules:
1. Go to the website and find 4 skeins of yarn you would like and what color. Come back and leave a comment with contact info.
2. Become a follower or sign up for my feed via e-mail at the bottom of the page then come back and leave a comment with contact info
3. Tweet about this giveaway with a link to this site and then come back and leave your twitter id.
4. Put up a blog post about this giveaway and come back with the link to it and contact info.

Yes there are 4 chances to win if you follow the rules. Remember that you have to come back and comment for each entry but if you forgot to put contact info then your entry is invalid. If you forgot to add something please delete your first entry before you enter your correction. 
I’m sorry, but you have to live in North America or know someone in North America that is willing to receive this and send it to you, to be eligible to win this prize.
Giveaway will be open til Sunday the 3rd of October 2010 at midnight.  Winner will be announced on the following Monday.

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New Sponsor! O-Wool!

Olof

I had the pleasure of knitting with some true organic yarn and I am so happy that the yarn, that was sponsored by Jocelyn of  O–Wool/Tunney Wool Company for this project, will be enough for, at least, one more. This week I knit the Egg to Blue Bird and a Little Nest, Too. It was my first reversible toy from Susan B Anderson’s  Itty-Bitty Toys and was a joy to knit. Especially knowing that I was knitting with O-Wool which is an organic yarn. The yarn that I got was Balance O-Wool which is a 50% certified organic merino wool, 50% certified organic cotton blend DK yarn and feeling it, you feel both equally. There is no scratchy feel to it it just feels natural and sturdy. I now understand why Susan B. Anderson used this for all of her reversible toys. I also feel secure and safe handing these toys to my sons knowing that they are not full of pesticides and other chemicals that you do not wont your growing child to be exposed to. This toy reverses from being an egg to becoming a little blue bird and was amazingly quick to knit.

I finished in 12 hours with taking care of my children and home. I would love to get a few bags of this yarn to make some blankets and light sweaters for the boys and even a stole for me.

This is outside of her warehouse. Jocelyn is on the left and is pictured with Kate Gagnon Osborn (Middle) and Courtney Kelley of The Fibre Company (http://www.kelbournewoolens.com). They are all involved in animal rescue and are pictured here with all of their rescued or foster dogs.

Jocelyn was nice enough to answer some questions that I sent her to help us get to know her and her business a little better.

What is O–Wool/Tunney Wool Company’s story? Who is the mastermind behind this amazing yarn and company?
O–Wool was started by Vermont Organic Fiber Co. in Middlebury VT in 2001. Their founder has a fantastic knowledge of agriculture and textiles and combined the two to create one of the first organic merino hand knitting yarns on the market. Vermont Organic closed their doors this past May and I took over O–Wool under the label Tunney Wool Company. I’ve always been dedicated to environmental and animal welfare issues so I am extremely proud to produce a wonderfully responsible yarn line like O–Wool. I’ve been knitting for ten years, have a formal education in fiber arts and textile design/engineering, and have been working in the hand knitting yarn industry since 2004.

What inspires your colors and fiber combinations? 
 Nature! I’m developing new colors for a new yarn line and looked at all different kinds of minerals. The fiber combinations obviously have to be organic, and as of right now Merino and Cotton is what we work with, but we’re exploring other options from sustainable farmers – hemp, linen, camel, alpaca and a few others.

What did you think when Susan B Anderson decided to use your yarn to make all of her reversible toys in her book?
I think it’s a fantastic choice for children’s toys. The organic fiber ensures that kids are not putting chemicals next to their skin or in their mouth. So many toys today are made from materials with questionable origins. It’s fantastic, and I’m delighted at her choice.

What are we to expect to see in the future from O–Wool/Tunney Wool Company? Do you have any new lines or colors coming out?
All sorts of fantastic new things! Balance Bulky is a new yarn that should be ready sometime in the next 6 months, and I’ve developed 5-10 new colors in each of the existing 5 lines – AND something that doesn’t exist on the hand knitting market yet – an organic superwash! Stay tuned.

As I was doing my research for this post I was looking around on the O-Wool website and I just want it all. The fact that is is all organic is a plus plus in my mind when choosing for my children. The colors are so beautiful and natural. I’m hoping that in the future Jocelyn will be wanting me to do some more reviews for her so that I can play some more with her amazing yarns.

OK to the part that you have all been so patiantly waiting for……………….

We have a giveaway this week. Yes, yes. Jocelyn was nice enough to offer one of you the opportunity to win 2 skeins of this amazing yarn. Yes, you read me right. 2 SKEINS of the Balance yarn!

All you have to do is follow the rules

1. Go to the website and pick what color or colors you would like your 2 skeins to be. Come back and leave a comment with contact info.
2. Become a follower or sign up for my feed via e-mail at the bottom of the page then come back and leave a comment with contact info
3. Tweet about this giveaway with a link to this site and then come back and leave your twitter id.
4. Put up a blog post about this giveaway and come back with the link to it and contact info.

Yes there are 4 chances to win if you follow the rules. Remember that you have to come back and comment for each entry but if you forgot to put contact info then your entry is invalid. If you forgot to add something please delete your first entry before you enter your correction. 
I’m sorry, but you have to live in North America or know someone in North America that is willing to receive this and send it to you, to be eligible to win this prize.
Giveaway will be open til Saturday at midnight.  Winner will be announced on Monday.

Well I better get back to my x-mas knitting. That’s right I’m X-mas knitting. This is stuff you won’t get to see until after X-mas since the recipients read my blog.

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Itty-Bitty Update.

Olof

I have jumped on the french press slipper band wagon. There were over 3220 project on Ravelry.com and I had been drooling over them for a while but not wanting to pay 7 dollars for the pattern. Well I finally caved and bought the pattern. I really love it and it’s very easy. Great last min present idea. I used Icelandic Lopi for these and I’m going to have to shave them and they need buttons.

Then I was gifted this pattern.

I got buttons for the Baby Sophisticate so now I can send it to my friend in Iceland. 

I knitted a bit on my Tea Leaf Cardi this week.

It lives in the project bag that I got in the Classic Elite contest but it started coming apart the first time I closed it. Not very impressed.

Here is my toy of the week. It’s the new sock monkey from itty-bitty toys. I still have his legs and feet to make but that will be done by tomorrow for the giveaway.

Then I will start on this sponsor yarn. Anybody guess what I am making with it?

Then I got this yarn from a sponsor in the mail today. Anybody guess what I will be making with it?

Then I got this in the mail the other day. It will not become a toy but I will be doing a review of it and a huge giveaway of it. Anybody guess what yarn it is?