Mooresburg DK. This is serious.

Hey everyone! So I sneaked a little teaser onto Ravelry last night, but for anyone who didn't catch it...there's a new yarn in Viola land!

This yarn is really special. It's exclusive to Viola, it's grown and spun right here in Ontario Canada, it's brand new for Kickstarter backers and it is soft, light, rustic and wooly. So I'm chuffed. You heard me right, it's an all Canadian, hand dyed sweater yarn! Whoa. 

The lovely Mooresburg DK is a light double knit weigt, 2 ply yarn. It's spun from the fleece of a Cotswold/Dorset cross sheep that live very close to me in Grey County (how exciting is this?!) It get's even better still, because this beautiful fibre is spun by the seriously lovely folks at Wellington Fibres. They're so close to me too, I really feel like I'm winning the day today!

So, I have some pretty big plans for Mooresburg DK. I've been swatching already for a jumper that I'm going to start on soon (more top secret...man, I feel like I'm some kind of knitting spy with all my secrets these days). I can say that my jumper is going to be knit in Giant Peach, which is one of my new favourites...and the reason for all the pictures of Giant Peach coloured yarn at the moment. 

Mooresburg DK will make it's debut in my upcoming Kickstarter Campaign (launching this Monday, the 16th!) It will be available in a selection of favourite Viola colourways, and some new special options too!

I've been dyeing quite a bit of Mooresburg DK these days. The red above is Black Lodge and has traveled across the sea to my fellow Canadian abroad, Natalie (Leeleetea) who is working on a pattern for the Kickstarter campaign. The pattern is going to be a hat and mittens combo knit in Black Lodge, Mooresburg DK. I can't wait to see what she comes up with! 

Black Lodge seemed to me to be the perfect colour for Mooresburg, and Kickstarter. It's the deep rich red that can be found around Grey County throughout the autumn and winter time, from dogwood and berries to the red roof of my new studio. This red just makes sense. 

Mooresburg DK will be available to Kickstarter backers before anyone else, and there are lots of colour options for available too! It's your chance to preview this seriously amazing yarn before anyone else. Hope that you love it as much as I do!

travel visit and adventure

As most folks already know (because I've been shouting it from the rooftops) I've just spent a month in England, my lovely other home. As always, I imagined myself with lots of time for organizing, working, sharing photos and all that stuff. In reality, I seem to have spent my time exploring, having fun and enjoying the beautiful landscape, sights and sounds. I have never been very good at multi tasking.

Now that I'm back in Canada (reunited with my maple syrup!) I've begun going through my little collection of photos from the past month. I love so many of my photos that I'm just throwing a whole bunch of them up, so hope you enjoy!

I spent a most lovely afternoon with Sophie, Meghan and Lydia of Pom Pom magazine. We visited the Horniman Museum and their famous walrus...

The museum's huge collection of taxidermy is displayed in the most beautiful way; each pastel-painted board arranged neatly with little samples. I couldn't help thinking that this was exactly how Wes Anderson would arrange a giant collection of taxidermy (and I have a feeling he would delight in such a project!)

 

 

 

LOVE this guy's face!

The Horniman is brilliant and I had such a lovely day with the Pom Pom girls! And on the subject of Pom Pom, I also had the pleasure of being interviewed for their podcast whilst I was in London. If you didn't know or haven't listened yet, click on over to the pomcast. Not just to listen to me waffle on, but also for a healthy dose of knitting chatter and news from the lovely Lydia and Sophie! I had so much fun participating, learning about rain interference in sound quality and chatting about knitting (of course!)

My London knitting consisted mainly of this lovely jumper. I'm using Speckled Mist, the bespoke colourway I created for Loop's 10th anniversary (hooray!) I've hung onto a collection of skeins that were a bit...crazy and am now having a great time blending them all together. The project began as a jumper, just a simple top down raglan pullover. But now that I'm into the knitting groove and loving the colours so much...I am considering something very crazy indeed...making this into a DRESS! Stay tuned, I don't know yet.

I managed to visit a few other of my favourite spots...although forgot to photograph some of them. Borough Market...

Columbia Road Flower Market...

And a fun new thing for me...canal walks!

London was loads of fun, and it's a good thing that I forgot to take any more photos because this post may just go on forever if that were the case. I moved onto Devon next, but will save that for my next post.