DIANA'S DYES.

Prick Your Finger is proud to present a new range of beige wool, hand dyed in the English Lake District by Diana. 

For those of you who haven't met Diana, she is actually my mother. 

Diana has dedicated her long summer evenings to picking leaves and flowers, to create this full beige range.

Working clockwise from top left we have, the yarn in it's original state, yarn dyed with huckleberries grown by a Russian,  foxgloves with a copper mordent, mediaeval blue comfrey with copper mordant,  mediaeval yellow comfrey with a copper mordant, rose petals from a mediaeval courtyard, and finally in the middle, ivy from an 18th century kitchen garden wall.

Once looking at the rainy landscape, Diana said there are many shades of grey and now she has proved there are many shades of beige to be found in plants, and plants to be found in many places.

 We know it is only a matter of time before she hits on the bright colours! 

Hand Dyed Beige Range is very reasonable at 50p/10g.

SHEEP AUCTION.

Congratulations to Woolclip, organisers of Woolfest, and especially Cecilia Hewitt, for hosting the most spectacular knitted sheep auction that has ever been held anywhere, ever. I am still waiting for pictures of the auction, but here are the 120 sheep in 47 lots, waiting for the auction to start.

Knitters from far and wide knitted flocks of lost sheep, who all found homes and gathered £1,176 for  'Farm Aid.'  

As he slammed his hammer, Adam the auctionier said many of the knitted sheep ended up dearer than real sheep.

More pictures to follow. 

Well done everyone!

KNIT WITH A NEWSPAPER IN THE PARK.

Any day now, the Guardian are to publish a knitting supplement. What a sensible newspaper!

We have made an I Pod cover out of spun 2ply cassette tape and a Polystyrene Cup Cover out of spun  aran 'weight' plastic bags, the patterns for which you can find in the supplement.

The cassette tape yarn sparkles and has coloured stickers spun in with it. It has an amazing shock absorbing quality to it, so hopefully your i-pod will last longer.

The plastic yarn for the cup cover is durable, crunchy, soft and of course, washable.

We took these photos in our local park in Bethnal Green, which we find more beautiful now we have used the plastic bags and cassette tapes which were growing in the trees and bushes.  The patterns are very easy, and we hope you like them.

YEAH MAN WE ARE ON TREND!

When I first met Louise at college, she looked like a beautiful rainbow, and I looked like an old grey douvet cover, because that's what I wore. I had a multi coloured jumper that I wore on the weekends though. 

Well we are once more, feeling it for the acid rainbow and have just ordered this gorgeous "Parrot" roving, which as our Rosemary pointed out, it's bang on up there with Alexander McQueen' s Parrot dress. 

Parrot roving will be 80p for 10g and should be here in a couple of weeks.

SHEEP OF THE WEEK!

We have a very special sheep this week, the North Ronaldsay. 

Imagine it's 1832, and the North Ronaldsay flock have been happily grazing on their most northerly Scottish Isle for nearly 5000 years. They are quite small sheep, with fine bone structure, little faces, and big horns.

The owner of the Isle, which was only 5km wide, thought his garden was beginning to look a bit barren, and pointed a finger at the sheep, who were happily eating everything. 

There was a danger of the greenery dying out, so he built a wall around the whole island and the the sheep were banished to the beach. 

They didn't mind eating seaweed, but their digestive systems had to adapt to extract the sugars more efficiently. They also had to change their dinner time. Most sheep graze during the day and sleep at night, but the North Ronaldsay's had to eat with the tides, getting up in the night when the tide was low, and sleeping when the tide was up. When they get thirsty they drink from a few fresh water pools along the shore. 

North Ronaldsays are now happy living on the beach, but would probably get sick if they went back to a copper based diet, and ate grass. This makes them very unique, and rarely seen outside their 'natural' habitat.

They come in many colours and their wool is lovely for knitting.

I'm off to Orkney in a couple of weeks, when I shall try and find some fleece.

HOW TO KNIT A MOUSTACHE.

Louise has always wished she could grow a moustache, so she made some instead, the patterns for which can now be found in the new addition of Amelia's Magazine.

 www.ameliasmagazine.com  

Whether you fancy yourself as  Lemmy, a ZZ Top, Freddie, or  Nietzche, the patterns have quick and easy steps for fantastic results.

Amelia has made this another viberant issue complete with a USB stick full of tunes, and a whole pot pourri of ideas. Order your copy now!

DAN'S KITE.

Dan popped in this morning to buy some of our 50p cotton thread, and then came back 10 minutes later with this beautiful kite, made from green and white tissue paper, with a long flowing black plastic tail. 

Dan is Brazilian, and his kite is a friendly one but he explained that in Br

azil, kites actually kill people.  Fighting kites are made by gluing broken glass onto the string and unfortunately every now and then a kite slits someone's throat. 

Anyway that didn't happen to us, but the kite did get stuck in the next door neighbours window box, and she very kindly freed it for us. 

A gust of wind came and Dan and his girlfriend skipped off to the park in the gay June windy sunshine.