Introducing the Sampler Mittens

As I have now been knitting the Granliden Mittens for several years (since 2011, more exactly), the supply of vegetable dyed yarns is decreasing. It was part of the upcycling investigation, both seeing how long it would last, and trying to communicate the finite nature of the mitten production to those who wanted to buy a pair. Get them now, or that particular colour will be gone forever! Certainly an odd way of running a business, the concept of development and growth being completely detached from the whole thing.

At the moment, as most of the balls of yarn has shrunk to the size of… let's say, a meatball, I needed to take a new direction. 

As a way of using this material to the absolute end, I decided to make tinier patterns. They are inspired by or found in old pattern books, as well as old cross stitch samplers. So, here are the Sampler Mittens!

Available in the shop as from NOW.

Teal mittens and thanks

This is what I do these days. Knit knit. Orders keep coming in. I'm looking at alternative ways of production due to the workload recently gone massive. A very pleasant problem to solve. So I just want to say thank you - all of you who appreciate my work, for making it possible for me to do what I love most ♥ 

Muted pastels

The indigo and rose dyes are two of my absolute favourite ones - and there are quite a few to choose from. I might be able to knit one more pair from the rose dye. Just saying. That's also something I love about this entire project - the evanescence if you will. All things must pass.

And the webshop is updated!

They're finally finished, the first batch of the new Granliden Mittens! Some of them have fingers, some only a thumb - which means one more choice to make, except from the many colours...

The shop will be continuosly updated, since the mitten supply naturally is quite limited. At the moment there is just one pair of each colour, but I will knit knit knit and restock constantly - though some colours will be finished up sooner than others, due to the different quantities of each dye.

But, isn't it more exciting that way? :) I can't take special orders any more, so be sure to keep an eye on your favourite colour!

Any day now

Spent yesterday afternoon in Fredrik's studio, getting some help with taking my picture for a little press feature that will be out in December. More about that later.

The original purpose for the studio visit was to take some final shots of the new mittens, before updating my webshop for the autumn. But. Though I'm knitting like mad to be able to release the new Granliden Mittens, being done with the first batch already this week proved to be quite impossible. So instead I did this little teaser through Instagram.

Hopefully, I'll have updated the shop by the end of next week. Come back here for news and updates!

A room with a view (part 2)

Some more pictures from the house in La Romola. It was so quiet and still - a perfect place to work. I spent a lot of my time there knitting, writing and reading, all at a very slow pace. Still I got so much done. An equation to ponder on...

As you can see, a new addition to the Granliden collection was born. Originally an idea from my friend Linnéa, a knitted hat is of course the obvious complement to the mittens. I'm currently working on the final design and pattern. What do you think?

Forest bound

I love pine trees, pine needles, pine cones, pine bark.

...And the mittens keep growing fingers. I'm very fond of this mossy green dye. It's made from birch leaves.

Colour circles

I absolutely love it, the colour chart of vegetable dyes that my mum made back in the days. And apart from being just beautiful, it's also a great piece of documentation. It can be quite hard to get around to doing that sort of thing, but sooo rewarding. And useful. My mitten project wouldn't be what it is without these samples...

And then another color chart appeared in the sky. I'm very fond of how neatly organized it is, the rainbow.

A new collection

Not that I want to say that it will soon be winter or anything, but I have started knitting mittens again. I'm still using the original wool, even of most of the colours are now used up - except red, orange and the darkish pink. And some indigo I think.

But it won't end there. Some six months ago, I had a phone call from an old lady who had seen me talking mittens on the local news... Who offered me to buy all of her old vegetable dyed wool. Needless to say, I did. There were all sorts of wonderful dyes - moss, bilberry and rose for example. And due to some odd twist of faith, the street just outside her house was called Bergslagsgatan! (Meaning "mining district street" - there are actually one in each town in this part of Sweden.)

And along with some lovely new colours, I will also add... fingers! No offense to the fingerless mittens, but it just gets a little bit more classy, don't you think?

Last but not least, I recently started a Bergslagsgatan page on Facebook. Go there and like it!