I have had some very good experiences with bamboo yarn. My favourites so far are Stella 4ply by Naturally and Bamboo 4ply by Cleckheaton. These bamboo yarns have a lustre and drape that is similar to silk and it blocks quite well too.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try any bamboo blends, so I was very excited when I received a shade card from Bendigo Woollen Mills for their new bamboo blend yarn.

Bendigo’s new yarn is called “Serenade” and it’s 20% bamboo, 80% superwash wool in an 8ply weight. I haven’t knitted with it – I’ve only groped the shade card a bit – but it does feel soft and slightly slick.

There are 13 shades in the range, which are mostly on the dark side. I like the colour Merlot and Clover is really nice too. At the moment it’s AU$13 per 200g ball – but this will be going up to $17 soon. I have quite a few 8ply patterns that I’d like to use for this yarn but I also have a huge amount of 8ply yarn in the stash that needs to be used. I really should use the stash.

For some reason, I thought that bamboo fibre was produced in a similar way to flax and linen. I expected that the banboo leaves and stalks we all squashed and beaten so only a fibre was left. Kind of like eating celery and ending up with only a mouthful of celery strings. The production of bamboo yarn is NOTHING like this – it’s a bit more like making spaetzel.

To make bamboo yarn, the hard woody parts are removed and the crushed soft parts and leaves are soaked in a sodium hydroxide bath to extract the cellulose. Then the big blob of resulting cellulose is squirted through a fine nozzle into a bath of sulfuric acid where it hardens into fibres. Then the fibres are rinsed and spun and turned into yarn.

Ok – so there are a few more steps involved but that’s essentially how bamboo is turned into yarn. Soy yarns are produced in a similar way. I’m not sure why, but I feel a bit disappointed that its a chemical extraction rather than a mechanical one.

It’s still nice to get a shade card in the post. It reminds me of being a kid when all the yarn in our house came by mail and my sisters and I would fight over who should get a jumper made in the most coveted of colours – “dusty pink”.

Well, it was the 1980s.

Work has been a bit too crazy for words this week.

So, instead of a post – here is a gratuitous photo of Cobey. The original Little Yellow Cat modelling a granny square blanket made out of Noro Taiyo. Every cat deserves his own blanket made out of $90 worth of Japanese boutique yarn.

If you’ve visited this site before you will have noticed it has a new look.

A few months ago I decided that my branding needed an overhaul with a new logo and updated site design. So I turned to two very talented people whose work I admire.

Rhian Atta does graphic design, web and logo illustration in Baltimore, Maryland USA. You can find her etsy shop, Reani Design, here. After wandering around etsy over a year ago, I stumbled upon her shop and I fell in love with her designs. I adore the logo she created for the Little Yellow Cat brand and I’d absolutely recommend her to anyone looking for a new logo.

Steph Ann from Yellow and Savvy Design in Phoenix, Arizona USA created the new site using the logos Rhian made. I love her clean, uncluttered design style and she is a pleasure to work with. Steph Ann put together my previous site based on one of her standard templates. So if you’re not after a complete website built to order, she has some lovely “off the shelf” site templates too.

Over the next few days I’ll be adding some new products to my online shop. I think you’ll really like them – I’m very proud of them.

Enjoy the new site.

I’ve been knitting a lot lately and had to take a day off the needles because my shoulder, elbow and wrist were causing me pain. It’s not easy to stop, even for a day, but I’ll be back into it tomorrow.

I’ve just finished blocking a sample for Morris and Sons Melbourne shop. The May issue of Better Homes and Gardens had a knitting supplement which featured quite a few patterns and yarns from Morris and Sons.

I made up samples of the Chullora Chullo in a grey colourway and the red below.

These pictures were taken in a hurry at night, so the quality is pretty bad.

I have also been knitting sample scarves for knitting kits that I’ll be adding to my online shop soon.

I made a sock (one lonely sock that will have to wait a while for it’s mate).

I made a big, soft, chunky scarf for the man.

I made a tea-cosy as a prototype for a pattern.

I finished a shawl I was working on for ages.

All this just in the last three weeks. No wonder I’ve got knitting related injuries.