My yarn stash has grown considerably in the last few months and yarn is sort of taking over the flat. When my sister came to visit this month she brought with her quite a few balls including some lovely handspun, alpaca and wool blends and even milk fibre yarn (first time I had ever seen anything like it before!).

First let me show you this lovely handspun Corriedale yarn. This was the product of an inspiring initiative to train 215 women from rural communities in Chile in the art of handspinning and dyeing. They spun and dyed 15,500 of these balls which were then put on sale in a large department store in Chile. The packs also included a small booklet with patterns and a pair of wooden needles handcrafted by a local artisan. You can see a video (in Spanish) of the project here, even if you don’t understand the language it is worth watching these talented and hard-working people, and see how proud they are of preserving the heritage of our ancestors. I am so happy to be able to work with this yarn and continue this chain of love for tradition and fibre, their faces will be on my mind as my own hands work on what was created with their skilled hands.