A Trip to Rosa's Retrosaria. . .

I don't set out deliberately planning my holidays around wool acquisition, but such is the global scope of wool and knitting (and that's one of the reasons I love it!),  it's inevitable that most of my trips will include a stop at a local yarn shop. The Liverpudlian has come to accept this.

Even on the train to Porto, I never saw an actual Portuguese sheep. The closest I came was spying this section of tiled mural in the National Tile Museum.

But the minute I knew we were going to Lisbon, I was looking up the address of Rosa Pomar's Retrosaria (the Portuguese word for haberdashery).  I had previously read about her store and the beautiful wool that she creates from Portuguese sheep here and in an interview here but a stop to her store is a must, if only to fondle and squish the actual wool itself. 

The store is on the second floor, but I couldn't resist snapping a shot of the colourful mailboxes in the foyer of the building.

The stairway is a little dark, but when you emerge into the shop, it's a beautiful light-filled room, full of woolly goodness.

                         

All of her own yarn is non-superwash and comes from free-range sheep.  When we visited, it was nearly 30 degrees and the staff were quite amused at the three customers all exclaiming over the wool. Turns out we were all from northern England - Manchester and Newcastle too!  And we all nodded knowingly as we discussed how one can pretty much wear wool every month in the UK.

There's also a selection of many other yarn brands but to be honest, I was there for Rosa's wool and only gave the rest a brief glance.  But it's a really lovely, well-stocked store that also sells Portuguese fabric.

Of course, I had to bring back some souvenirs.  I bought a sweater quantity of her lovely Brusca worsted weight - that shade of coppery brown just glows.  The light blue is some tweedy laceweight with bits of orange and darker blue running through it, and above it is some 4ply, again with lovely nubbs of colour.  Finally, I fell in love with the purple wool/cotton blend on the far right - I am thinking it'll make a beautiful summer shawl. 

The wool is lying on some cork sheets that I also bought in Lisbon; I am planning on sewing them into some project bags. And the grey bag at the top?  Well, another must-visit store in Lisbon is the Burel Mountain Originals store - there's one just a few streets away from the Retrosaria.  Again, using Portuguese wool, this company makes the most beautiful bags, fabric and soft furnishings.  Fringe Association also blogged about a visit to their factory here.   And just look at their front window homage to Tram 28 in cushion form!

I had a hard time choosing which bag to buy and actually had to go away for several hours to think about it, but am really pleased with my decision and have been using it ever since we returned - it's nice and roomy, has two front pockets for coffee mugs and water bottles, a strong shoulder strap, and  an expandable feature for the body, which was probably its main selling point.  It is so beautifully and impeccably made; I am sure it will last me for years. As for the gorgeous yarn - I am just waiting for the right patterns to come along and then I'll be casting on. I definitely want a sweater in that Brusca in time for autumn.

Dyeing For Colour. . .

Last month, I attended a really fun workshop at Ovis Yarns in Liverpool.  In celebration of Wool Week, we got to test out acid dyeing on mini-skeins of different breeds of British wool, finishing up with the chance to dye a larger quantity on our favourite base.

There are lots of different techniques to hand-dyeing;  we dipped, painted, splashed, speckled, and smooshed the dye - both in powder and liquid form -   onto our wool.  Below is a mini-skein of Wensleydale that I dyed.  Once you are happy with the result, you wrap it up in clingfilm like a sausage and put it in the microwave to set.




And this was the finished result. The setting softens the colours and brings out more depth.  I was very happy with my efforts.



We dyed a mini-skein of Jacob - the natural brown of the wool  goes really well with the greens.

And this was a mini-skein of superwash Bluefaced Leicester.  I'll admit to going a little bonkers with all the colours, but it'll make a nice contrast toe or cuff on a pair of socks. 

I wasn't at all happy with my initial attempts on this mix of Bluefaced Leicester and Masham - I was going for teals and mustards and it ended up becoming a really insipid limey-yellow.  So I overdyed the lot with a mossy green and it turned out fabulous!

Practice skeins completed, we were then let loose on some full 100g skeins of 4ply. I had ordered a few extra skeins of the BFL/Masham blend (my favourite) in advance to get a garment quantity. I really wanted to try speckling and though it looked okay initially . . . 

. . . a little of the powder goes a long way.  It got too squished in the rolling stage and when it was set, it came out more variegated than speckled.  I still like the colours though and I think these are destined for a striped garment of some sort.  I have several undyed skeins of BFL/Masham in my stash. 

Then I tried to replicate my mossy green practice skein, but dyeing is a precise recipe and this was as close as I could get. I am still pleased with them however - I did get the deeper greens in places, and I quite like the hints of turquoise and yellow that pop out every so often.  I think I will turn these into a summer top and alternate the skeins while knitting. It will be fascinating to see how they knit up.

There were five of us in the workshop and part of the fun (apart from getting to know some very friendly and inspiring knitters), was seeing all the different colour combinations that we came up with. We all had very different palettes and were drawn also to different styles of dyeing.  These group shots do show however, the similarities in tone and undertone that the different sheep breeds offered.

Jacob:

Wensleydale: 

BFL superwash: 

BFL/Masham: 

But my absolute favourites were these gorgeous skeins dyed by Jane. They look so professional and she nailed the soft autumnal colours that she was going for.  I can't wait to see these knitted up.

If you are in Liverpool, do check out Becky's workshop schedule here.  She's also starting to offer drop in dye sessions where you can bring your own skeins or purchase some from her.  I will conquer those speckles yet!