Woman's Hour

Knitwits Yarns knitwitspenzance.co.uk

I was on Woman's Hour on Radio 4 this morning!!

Actually it was a re-run of a piece we did about Cornish Organic Wool nearly two years ago and then they did a quick update at the end about progress we've made since then. At the time of the original piece we only had cream wool as we hadn't found organically certified dyes which reached Soil Association standards. Shortly after recording the piece, we found the dyes we needed so have been selling dyed wool for some time now.

I well remember the first experimental batches we did when the sample pots of dye came in - on the Aga in my precious preserving pan which, funnily enough, has now disappeared into the dye house (a converted goat house on the end of our kitchen). FB still uses it for test batches. If we get the dye levels absolutely right, the water at the end of the process is completely clear and it was so exciting to pull back the skeins and see what colour the water was!

Following the original broadcast there was a discussion in the studio with Lee Holdstock from the Soil Assocation and Lucy Siegle, well known eco journalist at which there were some digs at some well known department stores! This was missed out today but you can find the link to listen again, if you're interested - here and you can hear what I sound like (always awful listening to yourself).

It's funny how time moves on though as we have had more hits on our Cornish Organic Wool site today than we did after the first broadcast. I like to think it's because people are more environmentally aware now (FB and I have always been ahead of the times!) and also people are beginning to think more about where products come from. It can only be a good sign.

In the meantime I'm still awaiting the arrival of Sari Silk and Chakra (both Fair Trade yarns) so watch this space and make sure we make our organic and fairtrade contribution this Christmas.