Advent Calendar 2024 Day 23 - Emmet

I have never heard of this character so I had to Google him and he is something to do with Jim Henson Studios and The Muppets as Kermit the Frog narrates the story.  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I don't think this design is based on the story but the colours in the design do seem to match the colours in the fibre.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  This is not my favourite colour combination and, to be honest, its a bit too busy for my liking so I will need to tone it down somehow.

I did manage to find a photo online of the character of Emmet and the I can see how the colours match his clothing.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 12 - Yulecat

This one is apparently the pet of the Yule Lads, which were mentioned in last years fibre calendar on Day 4.  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I'm guessing that this is another bag design that isn't matched to the story specifically.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  I like the colour of this one but not the feel.  The Icelandic is pretty coarse but I do have a large chunk of what I believe is black Corriedale that was in a mixed bag of fibres and I have the two colours of bamboo that was used to make this shade of green so I might be able to re-create something similar to this and then pre-draft and spin them together.  This would up the softness of it by diluting the Icelandic content.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 8 - Nakatomi

This one isn't about a person, it's not actually a character, it's a building that got damaged a lot.  Die Hard, is it really a Christmas movie?  The events take place during Christmas so I guess it is but there are no flying reindeer, just a flying (or falling) Alan Rickman, out of a window. All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I like the designs on the little packets and this one features a Santa hat, which one of the dispatched "bad guys" (I won't use the word used in the movie here as it is bound to be picked up by word watching technologies) was wearing when the elevator doors opened, but this design is less gruesome.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  I do have some Gotland somewhere that I may be able to use with this but due to the fact that there are very subtle hints of other colours running through this I will most likely just order another bump of this one.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 3

The Cycling: Stage 3 is 230.8km of a flat route that starts in Plaisance and ends in Turin.

The Daily Challenge: Beneath Turin there are supposedly three alchemical caves, one of which may hide the elusive Philosopher's Stone.  You can't visit these caves as their location is only ever known by three people at a time - and these people don't know each other so they can't share it!  Turin is shrouded in a lot of magical myth and mystery; we fell down the rabbit hold and had to be forcibly dragged out!  Our first non-spinning challenge of this tour!  Share your favourite myth/legend - it could be something local to your area, lesser-known, or just something that you like!

Suggested Fibre: Myth, a lightly textured amber-coloured blend of 33.3% Merino, 33.3% Tweed and 33.3% Bamboo (the remaining 0.01% is a mystery)

What I did

Well, the fibre I chose to start spinning yesterday was picked to fit in with today's challenge and Rudolph is certainly both a myth and a legend. I plied the two singles that I spun yesterday of Rudolph's Nose from the 2021 Advent Calendar.  The finished yarn is wonderfully soft and I have 101g/363m of sport weight yarn.  It is 25% Shetland Wool, 25% Tussah Silk, 25% Bamboo, 25% Bio-Nylon.  

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2024 Stage 2

The Cycling: Stage 2 is 199.2km of a hilly route that starts in Cesenatico and ends in Bologne.

The Daily Challenge: Bologne is home to one of the oldest universities in the world. Alma Mater Studiorum was founded in 1088 making it 936 years old!  In the spirit of learning new things today's challenge is to use a new technique.  This could be for spinning, plying or drafting - it could even be something you've recently learnt and want to practice.

Suggested Fibre: Dusty Brick - a warm orange blend of 75% Shetland and 25% Bio-nylon.

What I did

I'm not doing today's challenge but I made a start on spinning a 100g braid of fibre called Rudolph's Nose, which was the Day 16 fibre in the first fibre Advent Calendar that World of Wool produced in 2021, and you can read about the fibre by clicking on the highlighted link.  The reason that I have picked this fibre is because it fits in perfect with tomorrow's challenge about myth's and legends, and of course Rudoph is a both a myth and a legend. The different fibres are very subtly slightly different shades, not massively noticeably, but probably just the difference on how the same dye looks different on different fibres types. Two of the fibres in the blend actually fit with today's suggested fibre of Shetland and Bio-Nylon and Rudolph's nose also has Tussah Silk and Bamboo.

I managed to spin two singles today and this will be ready to ply tomorrow.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 15

The Tradition

Day 15 is called Krampus and the tradition comes from Austria. Krampus is one of the variations of "Santa's helper", where the helper is assigned the naughty list duties.  Krampus is an anthropomorphic goat figure with one human foot and a very long tongue. He is said to have accompanied Saint Nicholas on visits to children on the night of 5th December, immediately before the Feast of Saint Nicholas on 6th December, and he would warn the children to be good otherwise he will return on Christmas Eve with Saint Nicholas and punish naughty children with birch rods.  After WWI the Krampus tradition began to be banned and replaced their Saint Nicholas traditions with the kinder version of the American Santa Claus.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Mohair, 20% Merino, 20% Bamboo, 16% South American Wool, 4% Viscose.  This blend represents arguably the most terrifying Christmas tradition I have ever come across.  This blend is called Krampus, who is like the polar opposite of Father Christmas, so instead of giving children gifts for behaving he scares them into behaving.  The figure of Krampus is large, horned, has fangs and even as an adult I think if some threatened me with Krampus I would probably start behaving myself.   This blend is very interesting looking, it's dark grey, as Krampus is usually depicted as dark greys, browns and blacks.  This contains Mohair, Merino, Viscose and Bamboo.  There is a lot of Mohair in here, which gives a nice drapey feel to it and whereas Merino blends tend to feel quite squishy this definitely feels smoother and a little bit more lank, which is actually quite nice, makes a nice change.  So the Bamboo and the Viscose that is dotted throughout here gives a lovely tweedy effect and actually the colour of the Merino has been lightened by the Mohair in it.  This is a very versatile blend.  If you're spinning it you probably don't want to spin it too tightly because the Mohair in it could risk it feeling a little bit harsh and a little bit hairy.  If you give it a nice light spin and a light ply it will keep the bulk of the Merino.

My Thoughts

I like this one.  It has lots of different shades of grey and black interspersed with blue viscose nepps which will give texture and interest to the finished yarn.  My initial thoughts were to work this with something equally dark from my stash but then I decided to buy an additional 50g when they became available.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards are incorrect and different to what was printed on the bags. They gave us the fibre as 60% Fable, 40% Mohair.  What?  I don't recall ever seeing a mysterious Fable animal in a field, is that a sheep, a goat, a horse, what is that?  Oh, right, Fable, as in the name of a blend in the shop, so we have to go find out what that is ourselves and work out what we actually have here.  Fable is 33.33% each Merino, Bamboo and Viscose Tweed, but wait a second, Viscose Tweed is itself made up of 80% South American Wool, 20% Viscose.   This means that the overall fibre content is 40% Mohair, 20% Merino, 20% Bamboo, 16% South American Wool, 4% Viscose. 

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 14

The Tradition

Day 14 is called Misa de Gallo and the tradition comes from Spain and translates as Roosters Mass. The Festival of the Rooster has a few origin stories, the one we like tells of how they (we're not sure who they are!) were trying to work out when to have a mass to celebrate the birth of Jesus; it was hard to come up with an agreeable time so they settled on "when the cock crows".

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Corriedale (Amber & Crimson), 35% Manx Loagthan (natural), 15% Bambo (Ella).  For this blend we've looked at a traditional barnyard cockerel and tried to pull as many colours as we can into this.  I don't think we've done a bad job.  The base of this is brown, like many chickens are and this brown is Manx Loaghtan which originally comes form the Isle of Man, they're always brown and they have four horns, two at the top and two down below.  Quite a short staple but it is a remarkably soft fibre for something that you'd find from our shores.  The rest of the fibres in here are Corriedale because we really didn't want to put Merino in with this, we wanted something that would be similar in handle to the Manx and we've also put a little bit of bamboo in here just to get that sheen that you see on the rooster tail feathers and if you look at a strutting rooster in the sunlight you will see all of these colours in this blend.  For spinning, what I would probably do is split it along the length and do a nice loose spin to make sure I'm not muddying all the shades up.  This is a nice springy versatile blend with a good amount of colours in and every time you spin it it will go differently.  If you spin from the fold or if you spin from the lines (down the length).

My Thoughts

The colours are interesting, I didn't get excited or squeal at this one or anything, but I don't not like it.  This isn't soft and squishy or luxurious but it is a hardworking kind of fibre blend that would make great winter accessories like hat, scarf and gloves.  I'm not sure what I will be doing with this but I could maybe find some similar fibres and similar colours in my stash and make this braid go a little further.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct, yay!  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 10

The Tradition

Day 10 is called Red Candle and the tradition comes from Ireland and dates back to the 17th century. During the 17th and 18th centuries there were oppressive laws put in place by the British Government to try to restrict the practice of Catholicism in Ireland and churches were not allowed, forcing Catholic priests into hiding.  During the night, Priests would sneak back into towns to say mass in people's homes.  A lit candle in the window would signify that it was a safe place for the priest to go but it also drew the attention of British Soldiers who wanted to know what the reason for all the candles were so the innocent story that they were placing candles in the window to light the way for the safe passage of Mary & Joseph began. On Christmas Eve large red candles are lit and put in windows to mark the arrival of Christmas and also to welcome home friends and family.  Many also use the candles in the window to remember departed loved ones or to pray for the safe return of a loved one who was away from the home at that time.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 55% Merino (Crimson), 30% Bamboo (Harrietta), 10% Flax (Carmine), 5% Stellina (Gold).   We have blended Merino, Bamboo, Flax and Stellina for this blend, you've got to have a bit of glitter when you're talking about candles. The Merino is what holds all of this together, this is 23 micron Merino so is soft but not super soft and the flax adds a bit of texture. The bamboo in it will just give a very very light sheen and we've balanced the Stellina with a little bit of white as well so its not too heavy in the red department.  This is a really really versatile blend. In terms of spinning and weaving this will do that all day long if you draft out and pull it into sections you can make sure you get a bit of sparkle in every single bit of yarn.

My Thoughts

I love this one, it's red and sparkly and I love me some sparkles! The phone on my camera didn't do too bad this time.  This should make a soft yarn and it shouldn't be too difficult to spin as the flax and Stellina will give a bit of grip to the other fibres. My immediate thought is to put this with the other red that we've already had this year on Day 3, the KFC related tradition. We will see in the future.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Spinning "Chocolate Box"

This is the second of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I topped up what was left on the bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 53g of "Selection Box" 50% Shetland, 25% Bamboo, 12.5% Flax, 12.5% Sari Silk from Day 20 of the Advent Calendar 2022.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the Selection Box was used up.  I used 52g of black Jacob with the 53g of Selection Box.  The fibre content is 50% Jacob, 25% Shetland, 12.5% Bamboo, 6.25% Flax, 6.25% Sari Silk.

I love the way that the colours of Selection Box are constantly changing like the flickering flames of a fire and plying that with the black Jacob really shows that up.  I've played around with the original name and the fact that it is now plied with the black/brown Jacob and called it "Chocolate Box".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 97g/214m

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 8

The Tradition

Day 8 is called La Ribote and the tradition comes from Martinique in the Caribbean.  Music and singing features a lot in the Christmas celebrations on the Island and a Ribote is the term used for the tradition of a large group of people that go from house to house singing hymns and carols on the evening and sometimes they will call in on people who are working such as Fire Stations, Hospitals etc and then after all of the singing they are usually invited to share in food and drinks.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Bamboo (Amelia & Naomi), 40% Gotland (grey & white), 10% Mulberry Silk (Buenos Aires). Martinique is a beautiful island and this is an absolutely beautiful blend to go with it.  Just because it's winter doesn't mean the colours are going to be any different.  We have got bamboo, Gotland and Mulberry Silk.  Bamboo and Mulberry Silk are really soft fibres so the Gotland is in here to hold it all together and this Gotland also adds a bit of sheen because Gotland is a lustre wool.  If you look really closely at this blend you can see there are lots of different shades in it.  We've taken all the blues from the Mulberry Silk ranges and the Bamboo ranges and blended them with Gotland to get this lovely shiny fibre.  In terms of spinning if you were to spin this quite fine or make a four ply with it you find it has very good drape when its knitted or crocheted.  

My Thoughts

I love this one.  I love most things blue and I do like a bit of Gotland and I never say no to blends with Mulberry Silk in them.  I did have a lot of trouble trying to capture the colours in the original photo with my mobile phone, it just would not show all of the lovely tones.  I would say that it will be spun as it is, there is no way these colours can be separated out at all, it's too well blended for that.

This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours and at the time I couldn't get it to show all the variation of blues and greys that are in this blend but my proper Canon camera has.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct for this one, Hurrah!

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 7

The Tradition

Day 7 is called Nisser and the tradition comes from Denmark.  They are actually called Nisse and are small gnome like creatures with white beards that live in homes and gardens and look after the area they live in as well as any resident animals.  They are one of the most familiar creatures in Scandinavian folklore.  In English editions of Hans Christian Anderson stories the word Nisse as been translated and replaced with the word Goblin.  Rice pudding with a pat of butter on the top is put out for them on Christmas Eve and if you skimp on the butter you risk them playing tricks on you for the next year. 

The Fibre

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The actual fibre content is different to that that was printed on the bags, see the comments in "My Thoughts" for full details.  The blend is made of Merino, Viscose and Bamboo and its this wonderful green shade because if you're living the garden you're actually going to want to be well camouflaged in the foliage.  The Merino brings the green to it then we have the Bamboo running through and also the nepps and tweedy-ness of the Viscose coming through as well which gives us a lovely amount of texture.  It's really soft which makes it versatile for spinning, crochet, wet felting and it will do all of that at a drop of a hat. 

My Thoughts

As soon as I opened the packet this one looked very familiar to me as I have something the same or similar in my stash called Riddle and I kind of know what I will be doing with this one, spinning them up individually but to the same thickness and using them both in the same project, maybe something with stripes.

The percentages that they originally gave on the chat boards was 50% Riddle, 25% Tweed, 25% Merino, which is different from the Merino, Viscose and Bamboo that is printed on the bag.  I have some Riddle in my stash and this is made of 33.33% Merino, 33.33% Bamboo and 33.33% Tweed.  We have already discovered that this Tweed is actually made up of 80% South American Wool, 20% Viscose. So, there is Tweed in the Riddle part and also extra Tweed has been added.  Figuring this one out actually made my head spin a little but I done the math and the actual fibre content, with figures rounded to 1 decimal point, is 41.7% Merino, 33.3% South American Wool, 16.7% Bamboo, 8.3% Viscose.  The also informed us that the additional Merino element is made up of two colours, Emerald and Lightning.

Top: 50g of Nisser containing 50% Riddle
Botton: 100g of Riddle

As I've already said a couple of times, as a customer/consumer I don't want to know the percentage of "other blends" that are in the blend and I shouldn't have to then do research or ask questions to find out what is in that blend and do the maths to add those fibre percentages into the main blend fibre content percentages.  Thankfully I was not the only one that brought this oversight up with them and they've been pretty good about it. 

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags, as this one got quite messy!.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2023 Stage 21

The Cycling: Stage 21 is 115km of a flat route that starts in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and ends on the Paris Champs-Elysees.

The Daily Challenge: As always - spin something yellow (and try to finish it)

Suggested Fibre: Destination

What I did

I finished spinning my own blend for the Yellow Jersey celebration.  It hasn't turned out light and fluffy like the fibre at all, it's actually spun up quite dense despite me trying to keep it thinned out and light and I think some of that is down to the Suri Alpaca element of the original main blend that I dyed yellow.

The finished yarn is 50% Merino, 21.5% Suri Alpaca, 7% Cellulose, 7% Bamboo, 4.5% Angelina, 3.5% Mulberry Silk, 3.5% Trilobal Nylon, 3% Sari Silk, fingering weight and 338m/125g.  I have named this braid after the winner of the yellow jersey, Jonas Vinegaard.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2023 Stage 20

The Cycling: Stage 20 is 133km of a mountain route that starts in Belford and ends in Le Markstein-Fellering.

The Daily Challenge: Share something that you are immensely proud of.  It could be your achievements so far this tour or something completely unrelated.  Time to blow your own trumpet.

Suggested Fibre: Leo

What I did

I made a start on something that I am proud of and also it is something I created especially for tomorrow and the celebration of the Yellow Jersey.  There is enough of this to take more than one day to spin.

There is about 130g of fibre in this blend so I spun the first 65g, the first single and then made a start on the second single.

Dyeing all kinds of plant based fibres using Dylon cold water dyes

I've had a full day in the kitchen playing with a variety of plant and cellulose fibres and some cold water dyes.  My usual Greener Shades Dyes are not suitable for this kind of fibre and I now have quite a lot of it thanks to the two years of Advent Calendars and the occasional purchase by me, like the lap waste bags and a sample pack. 

I've bought some small packs of cold water hand-wash dyes by Dylon, they also do dyes you can use in the washing machine, I don't want those.  It doesn't say on the packets but working things out logically you can actually just use the amount of dye you need to use for the amount of fibre and keep the rest for later, you just need to be able to seal the packets up in between uses.  I have some food packet clips from Ikea which are really good and provide a nice tight seal.  You can also mix the dye colours to make new colours and shades, like my usual dyes, again it doesn't mention this on the packets but it does work. 

Each 50g packet dyes up to 250g of fabric or fibre.  The instructions say to weigh and then soak the fabric or fibre and to dissolve the whole pack of dye in 500ml of warm water.  Weighing the fabric seems like a daft instruction amongst the rest of the instructions to me, other than to make sure that what you are dyeing is less than 250g, because you would only weigh the fibre if you are weighing out the dye to achieve a specific depth of colour and these instructions are assuming you don't care about the finished shade or depth of colour, just shove all of the dye in and hope for the best.  It then says to fill a bucket or sink with 6 litres of warm water.  Next you have to add 250g of salt followed by the dye and then the fabric or fibre.  Stir for constantly for 15 minutes followed by regularly stirring for 45 minutes.  Rinse in cold water and its done.

My revised instructions for enabling these dyes to be used in smaller amounts is as follows: 

• use 1g of dye for every 5g of fibre
• Dissolve the required amount of dye in 10ml of warm water for every 1g of dye
• use 5g of salt for every 1g of dye
• add the dissolved dye to a further 120ml of warm water for every 1g of dye
• add the fibre and stir
• rinse in cold water after being in the dye for about an hour

So, the fibres that I have dyed are:

I also planned to dye a 10g sample of Egyptian Cotton, which I don't have a before photograph of and I have over-dyed two pink fibres that I have in my stash, 11g of pink Bamboo and 75g of Pink Soybean/Soysilk.  The pink soybean isn't too bad a shade of pink but I do have quite a lot so I have split it into 3 lots, keep one in the original pink and dyed the other two lots.

My "dye pots" are re-cycled plastic take-away tubs and these hold enough dye to dye roughly 30g-35g of fibre.  The dye colours that I have used are Vintage Blue, Deep Violet, Tropical Green and Sunshine Yellow.  The results are not always what I expected but I am dying this fibre purely to put into my "ingredients cupboard" in a variety of colours.  The fibre base colour will have an affect on the final result, especially the Soybean.  The Mint fibre is a kind of pale mushroom colour in real life so that is likely to have a bit of an affect on the results too.

There were 16 "dye pots" throughout the course of the day and most of them had 3 different types of fibre in them.  All of the fibres were soaked in warm water with the addition of a small amount of Synthropol prior to being put in the dye to remove any finishes that may have been on the surface of the fibre. 

The Soybean, Trilobal Nylon, Hemp and Faux Cashmere/Bio-Nylon are larger amounts and have been pulled into lumps of about 10g each.  The other fibres that I am dying from scratch are 25g samples htat have been split roughly in half to be dyed two different colours.  I will let the following photos tell you all need to know.  Where there is no percentage figures on the dye photos means that it was 100% of that colour.  I have only put percentage figures where I mixed the colours in those proportions.

I'm pretty happy with my dyed fibre.  The Soybean/SoySilk fibres didn't take the dye too well on the first attempt and I went back through and re-dyed them in the same colours as the first time around but this time it was on its own in the dyepot.  I also over-dyed the Trilobal Nylon and the Faux Cashmere/Bio-Nylon blend that had turned out bright pink from the Deep Violet dye.

I will write a separate post to discuss the results, as this one is long enough already.

Making my own yellow blend for the last day of the TDF2023

I've been playing with my blending hackle again today and making a yellow fibre blend in preparation for the upcoming Tour de Fleece 2023.  There is always a "yellow jersey day", usually on the last day of The Tour.  I'm not buying any fibre for this event this year, I will make do with what I have because I have plenty that needs to be used up.

I have already dyed some fibre for this purpose just a few days ago and I have sorted out what else will be added to it to make it more interesting.

Top row: unknown cellulose/plant fibre and Trilobal Nylon both dyed a few days ago
Middle row: Angelina, Merino/Suri Alpaca blend I dyed a few days ago, Sari Silk in shade Honeycomb
Bottom row: Bamboo in shade Clara and Mulberry Silk Noil I dyed a few days ago

So the fibres I have picked out are all yellow but in different shades and textures and some are matt and some are shiny/lustrous.  In total 140g of fibre went through my blending hackle and I got 130g back out all nice and ready to spin in four bumps of fibre, which when paired up give me two x 65g lots.

Look how soft and fluffy this is.  It's gorgeous and I can't but help think of cute little ducklings.

The final fibre content is: 50% Merino wool, 21.5% Suri Alpaca, 7% Cellulose, 7% Bamboo, 4.5% Angelina, 3.5% Mulberry Silk, 3.5% Trilobal Nylon, 3% Sari Silk

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 20

This one reminds me of one of the fibres, Red Canary, I had from when I used to have the monthly subscription from another supplier that I have already spun.  It's called Selection Box and is a blend of 50% Shetland Wool, 25% Bamboo, 12.5% Sari Silk, 12.5% Flax and I think this one will be blended with other stuff to make a much bigger finished skein of yarn.

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 16

This one is the most Christmassy coloured one we've had for a while and is definitely heading for my "ingredients cupboard" because its 100% Bamboo and called Garland.