Support a Wool Mill in California

I try to keep an eye out for interesting fiber-related projects on the crowdfunding sites, and I just recently saw this one from Mendocino Wool & Fiber on Indiegogo. It’s a great one if you have the means to support it.

They’re trying to open a wool mill that will enable the production of 100 percent locally sourced and processed yarn in California. There are no local mills in Northern California, and shipping fiber across the country or overseas is cost prohibitive for small producers, time intensive and harmful to the planet.

The idea is to use contacts they — being sheep shearer Matt Gilbert and knitter wife Sarah — already have in the fiber animal community to get their raw material and to use this funding to get the equipment that will be needed to produce the yarn. They hope to be able to offer certified organic as well as non-organic yarn that is still produced to high standards of sustainability (for farmers who have high standards themselves but are not certified).

They’re looking to raise $20,000 and are already well on their way. You can pledge as little as one dollar and as much as $900, which gets you a tour of the mill and dinner with the family. This sounds like an amazing project and just what the country needs more of — local production that uses available fiber in a sustainable way that’s good for those who raise animals, for knitters and for the planet. I hope you’ll check it out!

[Photo via Indiegogo.]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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