Creating the world around us, one stitch at a time

(Yes, it's entirely possible Gentian will turn out to be Customer of the Quarter, or even of the year, depending on how inspired I am to profile someone else. But Gentian deserves the recognition, regardless of how long it takes me to add a new blog entry. :)

Gentian has been a NearSea customer for years now, and as we've gotten to know her better we've been amazed and inspired by the wonderful lifestyle she's chosen to live. Living in the thriving town of Homer, Alaska (population 4,000, with another 8,000 outside the city limits and what looks like a splendid brownie recipe in the Homer Tribune), Gentian has made sustainability her focus.
Read on to find out more.

She writes:

"We are putting together a sustainable website for our town of Homer Alaska, with lots of very good info on living sustain-ably. It will be called "(for the love of each other)". It's a work in progress right now. We are also building a living school with my sister and her husband and youth, while we've just began working with others to get a larger sustainable community going and are writing a book called The Equation of Love."

Not only do they have the cows, pictured to the right, and other livestock (including a yak!), but Gentian and her family also raise "old race Icelandic Settler Chickens - the original chicken breed that the Vikings brought to Iceland. They are small in size and lay a normal sized egg and are very thrifty feeders, with great character and beautiful feather patterns" The birds live in a nontoxic chicken house built by Gentian's sister. Reading the description of the birds and looking at this wonderful series of photos on flickr (possibly only visible if you have or create a flickr account) makes me feel like our collection of heirloom breeds from McMurray Hatchery isn't as special as I thought it was. I still really like their eggs, though!

Gentian says her family lives in NearSea's sustainable and nontoxic fabrics; pictures of a series of dresses and aprons they've made are scattered throughout this entry and there are several at the bottom. Click on the images to see a bigger picture. (You can see that they've done some dyeing, too, with very impressive results.) They've also used our yarns and buttons to make some splendid purses, like this one. The details are very much worth looking at -- the flowers are beautiful, the antler buttons accent the purse perfectly, the strap is much more interesting than you'd think a strap could be, and so on. I'm not sure if they make me want to start knitting again or give up because there's absolutely no way my creations could be this neat!

I could write about Gentian for quite some time, if you can't tell -- her lifestyle, the choices she makes, and her intense efforts toward sustainability not only in her home but in her larger community are so very inspiring to me. Instead, though, I'll close with several more pictures of her creations. Enjoy!

Aprons and Dress Details:

Curtains:

Purse:

Posted by Tara at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Y'all know that we hardly ever have sales at NearSea Naturals, since we try to offer the best possible prices each and every day. Sometimes, though, circumstances let us offer better prices, and this is one of those occasions. In honor of my four-year-old, who believes that "everyone in the world needs blue stuff", we've put our Royal Blue 1x1 Rib Knit on sale. It matches our Royal Blue Jersey, for greater versatility. So get creating -- you'll love the clothes you can make with this beautiful fabric, and you'll be amazed at the price.

Oh, and I just added several new fabrics. It was particularly difficult getting some of the colors to look right, so do request swatches if you're not sure. I particularly like the Chestnut Pointelle, which is a gorgeous fabric.

Posted by Tara at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been remiss in writing for the blog lately. It's been very cold and very muddy here -- not necessarily at the same time, but frequently so. We made it to town fewer than once a week over the past couple of months, as there was more than a foot of mud on the road between our house and "the rest of the world." Thankfully both my husband and I work from home and we homeschool the kids, so our routines weren't interrupted all that much besides a bit of stir-craziness! (The kids may have benefitted -- this morning they were telling stories about Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and spring gardens.)

Our heaters have been acting up and our new, environmentally-friendly woodstove isn't installed yet, so we've been operating in "hibernate" mode. We have blankets made from Heavy Fulled Wool Flannel on our beds and as couch throws ("blankets" may be an exaggeration -- they're actually just pieces, not hemmed or trimmed in any way) and our slippers all have inserts made from Luxurious Wool Pile. It's so easy -- just trace a slipper and cut the shape out of the wool pile, pop it in the slipper, and ooooh, the difference it makes! A visiting friend, who loves to knit, was raving over our beautiful wool yarns (she particularly likes the Tweed Wool Yarn) and left having exhausted her yarn budget for the month but with a glorious collection to work with. She'd always thought she was allergic to wool, but was delighted to find that she didn't have any problems with the organic wools. And oh my goodness, have you felt a swatch of our Organic Merino Interlocks? They're absolutely luscious! We've also been wrapped in our alpaca/llama goodies, which are so light, soft, and cozy that they make even freezing houses somewhat more bearable.

I know spring's coming soon, and in preparation for that we've added many many new patterns and quite a few new fabrics as well, including Harmony's glorious Surrender knit. It seemed like every third woman I saw at the Farmer's Market this weekend was either pregnant or carrying a newborn; if you're surrounded by fecundity as well, you'll be glad to know that we've really fleshed out our Maternity and Nursing Patterns selection. And as always, THE Babywearing DVD is the perfect gift for new parents, especially when accompanied with a piece of fabric or gift certificate to buy their own.

Sad news to report -- the beautiful Danish fabric that I'd raved over in a previous blog entry suffered some mishaps in shipping, so there's nothing to talk about at the moment. On a positive note, that does give me more free time to enter other fabrics, patterns, buttons, merchandise, and more, so do keep checking back. Even when I'm not updating the blog (shame on me!), orders are still going out and business as usual is occurring.

As a final note, my eight-year-old wants me to share this poem tidbit, which he declares "just perfect for spring". It comes from Piping Down The Valleys Wild: Poetry for the Young of All Ages (though our edition is from 1971):

I like it when it's mizzly

I like it when it's mizzly
and just a little drizzly
so everything looks far away
and make-believe and frizzly.

I like it when it's foggy
and sounding very froggy.
I even like it when it rains
on streets and weepy windowpanes
and catkins in the poplar tree
and me.

--Aileen Fisher

Posted by Tara at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)