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Knitting

Toots LeBlanc & Co.

Michele Camacho and Carl Brittain
Michele Camacho and Carl Brittain

One of the nicest yarn companies I saw at Stitches West 2009 was a sister and brother team, Michele Camacho and Carl Brittain  of Toots LeBlanc & Co. a family owned business located in Oregon.

We had stopped to look at another booth and as I turned around I noticed an Alice Starmore designed hand knitted fair isle sweater hanging up on the booth opposite. The sweater knitted in two soft natural colours using Toots LeBlanc yarns was really lovely and of course I then had to touch and feel everything they had in their booth.

Carl Brittain
Carl Brittain

They sell roving in a blend of Jacob/Alpaca and then several blends of yarn including, Merino/Angora, Jacob/Alpaca, Jacob/Alpaca/Mohair, and Blue-Faced Leicester/Pygora Goat. Looking at their website they have yarn from lace weight up to bulky weight in a selection of natural colours and blends. In this day and age when everyone is looking for natural plant and animal fiber it was nice to find out that this company use just the natural colours from the animals. And also no harsh soaps or chemicals were used in the processing of the fiber or yarns.

Michele Camacho
Michele Camacho

When I looked at the website for Stitches West 2010,  Toots LeBlanc & Co is listed on the vendor site so will be visiting their booth again this year.

They have some very nice patterns for sale including, a felted tea cozy which I think would be great for gift for the 2010 Holiday Season…. And if you notice Michele has a ‘bracelet’ hanging on her left arm which holds a wound skein of yarn safely while knitting anywhere. I bought one and find it great when knitting outside as I don’t have the fear of my yarn falling on the ground or on a dirty floor inside a store. An added bonus is that  Chester and Lester my two Maine Coon cats ignore the yarn when it is not loose on a chair, a sofa or table and I can knit in peace.