New Sock Yarns in the Butternut Woolens Store

I've just added 6 blue faced leicester sock yarns to the store. Click on the individual colors from the sidebar to the right to bring up the Buy Now and View Cart buttons. From left: Alpenglow, Wild Turkey, Fox Ears and Robin's Egg.

100% Blue Faced Leicester wool, 4 ply, sport weight. Skeins are at least 4 oz/330 yards. The solid colors are available in 8 oz/700 yard skeins for larger projects. Email me for availability at: shelly@butternutwoolens.com.

Glacier Lily

Iceberg Lake

You can also sign up for email notification when new yarns come online. Just click on the Join Email Notification list on the sidebar.

As always, your satisfaction is guaranteed.

Happy Shopping!

Recycle, Reuse-An Artisan Sawmill in Action

I've been helping out at Whitman Boys Manufacturing this week. All of the moldings, trim and doors for a house are created by one or two people operating small saws or sanders. Each piece is finished by hand in a multi-step process depending on the type of wood and its intended purpose.

Almost every part of the waste stream from the mill is recycled. Sawdust is hauled to a nearby farm and turned into compost. Scrap lumber is used to heat several homes and the farmer's greenhouses. Used lacquer is collected in a small covered bucket and taken to a waste disposal facility. At a time when global manufacturing has moved overseas, here at home, artisan lumber mills, like wool mills, are making a comeback and offering a high quality product at an affordable price using recycled materials in an environmentally responsible manner. I'm proud to be a part of this movement.

Here we are taking some old cedar fence posts, running them through the saw and making boards which will be used for the living room ceiling. First each fence post is screened with a metal detector in order to remove nails which will damage the saw and potentially be thrown out of the machine into the workspace. Then the boards are fed one at a time through the saw and stacked on a cart.

Changing the blade on the saw.

The old blade will be sent out for sharpening and reused.

Here's some old barnwood getting a light resurfacing, refinishing, and then being re-purposed for flooring and cabinet faces. Wouldn't this be beautiful under a comfy rocking chair and knitting basket?

My part? To hand-dye alder moldings and cabinet trim for the new house.

After applying the stain by hand to each board, two coats of sealant are applied, then I hand buff each piece, then it receives it's final coat of sealant, another buffing and is then ready for the carpenters to install.

Today these boards are having the sealant applied, so I'm home working on the yarn store. Tomorrow I'll go back and hand rub each board until it shines with a beautiful depth of color and silky finish. I was going to say it's just like dyeing yarn, but in fact, it's nothing like dyeing yarn. Yarn is squishy, boards are not. Yarn can be dyed many, many colors, boards, for some reason, are almost always some variation of brown. Hmmmm. Wouldn't it be lovely to have moldings done in the Many Glacier colorway? What is similar for me is the rhythm of the work, the attention to detail that is required and the pleasure at the end of the day of looking at the finished stack of work and feeling proud of it.

If anyone wants some new flooring, moldings, ceiling boards, or doors send me an email at shelly at butternutwoolens dot com. Every new mill order will come with a free basket of knitting yarn to set beside your favorite chair. Even if you want brown instead of multicolor molding, although I can't imagine why you would.

Sock yarns will be posted into the online store tomorrow.

A New Color: Beargrass

This color is a very light yellow-green and makes surrounding colors in colorwork really pop. It can be used in place of yellow or white as another neutral and coordinates with most of the other Homegrown colors, especially Robin's Egg, Dove, Barn Owl and Wood Thrush. Beargrass and other wildflowers, Glacier National Park, Montana.

A New Homegrown Colorway

Robin's Egg is the latest color added to the yarn store. I created this color after seeing some pillows in a window display at Bridgeport Village Mall. It took awhile to get the exact shade of aqua/blue/green that I wanted, but the result was worth it. I feel calm and happy when I see this color, it's so fresh.

I especially like this color paired with a tweedy charcoal gray, like a lock of Gotland wool, which is a charcoal gray resulting from black fibers and white fibers that grow side-by-side on the Gotland sheep. It's an especially intriguing gray. I'd like to make a cabled skirt out of the Gotland and a lace long-sleeved top out of the Robin's Egg. So there you go Project Woolway judges, have at it!

Butternut Woolens Yarn Store is Open

From left: Pheasant, Many Glacier, Wood Thrush and Tamarack

Today a dream has come true for me. It's been a year and a half since I closed the dye studio for what I thought was forever, or at least several years, but fate seems to have decided otherwise.

I have created about a dozen colorways in the Homegrown line, a yarn I'm very proud of. It's made from all North American wool from small growers in the US and Canada, milled in Canada and dyed by me in the most beautiful colorways I can create. The current price is $11.95, I intend to keep the price of this 100% wool yarn as affordable as I can because I think everyone should have the opportunity to knit with a beautiful, high-quality yarn created with the very best integrity that the woolens industry can provide. This price doesn't include anything for my labor or profit, essentially I'm charging you what it costs me to create it, but I don't mind. I love this yarn and I hope you'll give it a try.

Homegrown is a sturdy yarn best suited to outerware. I have made socks, a felted purse, and the Heather Hoodie Vest. These first 4 colorways all coordinate and can be mixed beautifully together: Many Glacier is a handpainted variegate that incorporates the Pheasant, Tamarack and Wood Thrush colorways which are all kettled dyed in 1-2 lb batches.

I have free color cards, just send me an email at: shelly at butternutwoolens dot com and request one. Eventually I'll have a link in the store where you can order them, but for now, this way will have to do.

You can expect to see more Homegrown colorways this week. In the coming weeks I'll be posting the sock yarns, silk yarn and spinning fiber. Today though, I'm going to move the outdoor studio indoors, the overnight temperature is going to be below freezing tonight. There's already snow in the mountains. Brrrr.

Happy knitting everyone.