Bourgogne is a region in the central east part of France, most famous for its wines. But it’s also a region with a rich history, home to gorgeous archeological sites, châteaux, abbeys, cities and lovely villages to visit. It’s rural, perfect for knitters looking for a peaceful place and for some amazing local yarns to discover. Not far from Paris, it’s a great destination if you want to spend a few days discovering some of the most beautiful French countryside.
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Brittany is my home region, and I’m excited to share with you a few of the things I love the most about it to help you plan a perfect weekend there.
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I had the pleasure of collaborating with Dana, the founder of Pichinku Yarns to create beautiful kits for my latest Magnitude Shawl. We had a lovely chat together where she told us all about Pichinku, her social company that produces lovely artisan naturally dyed yarn made with local plants. You can find the recording of the podcast and a written summary in this blog post.
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Learn about the amazing properties of hemp yarn, its culture and the experience knitting it in this interview of Mathilde from the French hemp yarn brand Natissea. When I met Mathilde a few months ago, I was really inspired by her ecological approach and by the idea of discovering a new kind of fibre that I had never tried before, and that is how our collaboration was born.
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How to reconnect with nature during this troubled Spring? I had the pleasure of chatting with Doriane, the natural dyer behind the French yarn brand Maison Septembre. We’re talking about plants, the seasonal cycle, and she gives us a few tips to get started with natural dyeing using what we have at home so we can enjoy this early Spring even from our appartments!
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Have you ever thought of coming to a creative knitting retreat?
Here are 5 reasons why you should definitely attend one!
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I’m really happy to introduce you to a French yarn brand and beautiful local initiative called Laines Paysannes. I had the pleasure to knit their yarn via A Pleines Mains, who uses it for her Ariégeoise base with which I knitted the Pieris Shawl.
At Laines Paysannes they sell their yarn in their beautiful natural colors. And that’s not all they do! They also make hand-knit clothes, rugs and other accessories from their wool, creating a local and ecological way of promoting natural wool.
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While looking for french local natural yarns for the Terroir collection, I stumbled upon the beautiful initiative Laines à l’Ouest. This collective made of sheperdess and fiber passionates is creating a local yarn sector in Normandy, around the sheep breeds Avranchin, Cotentin, and the sheeps that grow on the salted fields.
I knitted their yarn Accroche-Cœur to create Aigrette Cowl and I was really happy with the result! The yarn is of excellent quality, very soft for a natural yarn, round to knit and warm to wear. And it keeps the lovely smell of the sheep.
Today, I’m happy to introduce your to Stéphanie and Marion, the two founders of Laines à l’Ouest, who agreed to answer a few questions to tell us about their beautiful initiative.
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When I met Alice and discovered her yarn brand A Pleines Mains at the Grande Mercerie festival in Paris last year, I really loved her creative universe, full of warm colors, beautiful natural palettes and yarns of special character.
I knitted her base Ariégeoise Fingering in a beautiful color dyed with catechu and lac, to create the Pieris Shawl for the Terroir collection. It was really important for me, in this idea of exploring local natural yarn, to also highlight the role of hand-dyers who, like Alice, try to look for these special yarns, to work with local producers to create beautiful hand-dyed local natural yarns!
For the release of Pieris Shawl, I interviewed Alice during a special podcast episode. We chat about local natural yarns, the different fibres and breeds, the initiatives that promote local yarn in France. She also tells us all about her natural dyeing process.
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For as long as I’ve been knitting in my adult life, I’ve always loved discovering local rustic yarns from different regions of the world, enjoying their touch, learning about the local traditions, and feeling a bit closer to the sheep and the land while knitting them.
Discovering local traditions, a commitment to slow living, their uniqueness, affordability are the many reasons why I love knitting with local natural yarns!
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I love bringing back yarn as a souvenir from vacation. But not just any yarn! I always look for a natural yarn, produced locally, if it exists in the region I am visiting, because I care about promoting local products of wool and traditions. This quest led me to discover the Menez Hom yarns, without knowing it at the time, when I was in Brittany a few years back. It was in a local shop in Locronan (called Ar Stivell), where in between wooden clogs and other local products, there were a few skeins of beautiful rustic local yarn in natural brown and white colors.
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For the Terroir collection, I wanted to showcase small yarn companies, the beautiful people behind them and local initiatives to promote natural yarns. Fonty is a bit different from the other companies that I chose because it’s a bit bigger, way older too and it is also a spinning mill which work is really important in the promotion of local natural yarn in France, so that’s why I wanted to introduce them to you!
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I discovered Bouclelaine back in April 2018. After a few messages on Instagram, I discovered a gorgeous world of colors and texture, an interesting initiative to promote local natural yarns from Brittany, and two beautiful persons: Brigitte and Clotilde, the mother-daughter creative duo at the head of this project.
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A few days ago, I did a post on Instagram where I shared how clothes have always been my favorite form of self-expression and how creating my own clothes through knitting has always had that power to make me feel confident to wear things that feel true to me. In the post, I asked the question: If you love it, what’s holding you back from wearing it? And I got a lot of great answers to that question!
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With my latest design, Celtic Maze Shawl, I went looking for my celtic origins and I want to share a bit more about this journey with you.
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