BFL/Nylon in ‘Zesty’

BFL/Nylon in 'Zesty'

BFL/Nylon in 'Zesty', is hand-dyed in my home studio near Angouleme, France. Each skein is hand-dyed directly onto the beautiful, creamy bare wool, which I like to see peeking through. Hand-dyed in a semi-solid style. 'Zesty' is hand-dyed in zesty, bright greens from very pale to deep. BFL/Nylon is very soft on the skin and because of the BFL fleece having a long staple length, it's hard wearing and naturally resistant to pilling. I hand-dye most of my colourways in unique, one-of-a-kind batches. Even my repeatable colourways are hand-dyed in small batches of 5 skeins because of my fastidious quality control methods. I put only one batch into the shop at a time, so please make sure you buy enough yarn to complete your intended project. If you need a larger quantity of skeins than I have in the shop, please ask me to custom dye a new batch for you.

BFL/Nylon in 'Zesty' is a sumptuous, smooth, soft, yet strong yarn that's perfect for socks. Of course, my BFL/Nylon fingering weight: 'Zesty/Zeste' is also great for larger garments and knits up beautifully for shawls, cowls, mittens and scarves. All of my BFL is from small, well-managed British farms. These farms adhere to high animal welfare standards and spun in British mills.

Your happiness is a priority for me

I do my utmost to take photographs which represent colours as closely as possible to the actual yarn colour in the listings, but please consider that your PC monitors and your device screens may show colours slightly differently.

As a Knitter, I know what I want from a hand-dyed skein of yarn, so every skein is hand-dyed; carefully rinsed until the water runs completely clear; washed in my gentle, own recipe soap; rinsed again, then dried in the French sunshine. Customers tell me that my wool and wool blends are 'softer than soft'!

I hate tangles in a skein of yarn, so I look at every skein and re-skein if I think it’s necessary. I also clearly mark the ends of the yarn with a stitch-marker so you won’t have to hunt for them when you wind your yarn. By the way, wool and wool blends are best left in their skeins until you are ready to use them.

Although this yarn is Super-wash treated and you can machine wash on the wool cycle at 30 degrees, I recommend hand washing in tepid water and a gentle soap to keep the colours looking their best for the life of the garment. Dry flat in the shade. However, please remember that wool is naturally resistant to light soiling, sweat and skin oils. Hanging your garment in the open air occasionally is usually enough to keep it clean and fresh.

Sustainability

I aim to take care of our little planet in everything I do and my practice in Mille Rêves en Laine is no exception

I am moving away from using wool blends with nylon as much as I can. Pure BFL wool is strong and durable enough to knit socks, gloves and mittens – no nylon needed!
I use blends with nylon only because it gives more meterage to the skein and/or creates a stronger yarn when blended with some wools.
I also believe that crafters who use hand-dyed wool rarely, if ever, throw away their creations – mainly because we make them with love, they take hours of hard work to make, and the yarn costs more money than commercially processed yarns. Nylon blended with hand-dyed wool would not usually end up in landfill.

My hand-dyeing process involves a lot of thought about the amount of water I use, so I rinse the yarn in a series of bowls of water, rather than water running over the yarn from an open tap.

All the water I use is re-cycled to water the garden.

I use the most eco-friendly professional-grade dyes I can find.

Only food-grade citric acid or white vinegar is used to fix the dye to the yarn. Both are safe enough to use in my garden water.

My home studio here in France is never heated - I wrap up warmly on any cold days!

The boxes you receive your purchases in are all made from recycled materials and can, in turn, be recycled.