The Postman Cometh again...with more fibre goodies!

The Postman Cometh again.... and he thought it was my birthday. I wish I'd get this many parcels on my birthday! I thought all my fibre orders would come slowly, but no, four on the same day! I had to put them away until later, as I could imagine the child being worse than the cat in terms of messing up my lovely fibres....Oh was I excited....

The first package was from Monike from www.softfibre.etsy.com. Based in Scotland, she has a lovely range of unusual fibres. From her I received some cashmere noil, angora, camel and alpaca tops. She also sent me little samples of cashmere tops and chinchilla. (A chinchilla is a type of rodent. One species of it became extinct through hunting, the fur was so valuable. Wiki for more info. Here's a totally useless wiki fact related to chinchilla's: Colonel K in Dangermouse, was a chinchilla not a walrus!)



The 2nd package came from World of Wool in the UK. I got a few metres of felt, which was going cheap, banana tops, and Seacell tops. Abaca is on the list of fibres to get, but I couldn't find a sample anywhere. It is also called Manilla Hemp, but I don't think manilla envelopes are made from it any more...It is also used in cigarette papers, money, and tea-bags! So, I thought if I can't get some I can always bring a tea-bag as a sample piece. I have plenty of those! It is a relative of the banana plant, and I thought well, I'd love to get some banana, and it would do as a sample of something similar to Abaca...The excuses we use to buy ourselves nice things.... The Seacell tops was not on the list, but it seemed like an interesting fibre, so I thought I better check it out. It's "A luxurious silky fibre made from Seaweed".


Also in the pile of parcels were some leaflets, posters, and stickers from Fairtrade Ireland. They sent some interesting factsheets on fairtrade cotton, one of the big campaigns they are running. An estimated 100 million households are involved in cotton production in 70 countries around the world. Those numbers are incredible, when you think this campaign will affect literally millions of people. Just by giving them a fair wage. (You can read more about it here on www.fairtrade.net/cotton) It's all demand and supply....and being seen to be green. Jeez, even Penny's and Tesco's stock fairtrade clothes now, but it is still hard to find fibres/yarn and fabric which is fairtrade. The only one I know of at the moment with a range of fairtrade cotton yarn is Debbie Bliss.

So, a lot of the fibres are now in, I think I have only one parcel left to get. But the preparation continues...I am currently working on my surprise display items....