Peru Collection fundraiser January 17 2018, 1 Comment

My 16-year-old daughter, Lily Orr, hopes to travel to Peru in 18 months. In a bid to raise the £4200 needed to get there, she spent New Year's Day dyeing up some colourways inspired by Peru on yarn spun in Peru. Some of the colourways she has named after workers in the mill which spins the yarn. 

As I started Skein Queen when she was five, Lily has grown up with dyeing and used to help out sometimes when I dyed from home.

Lily says:

In 2019, I hope to travel to Peru in the summer to spend a month working on rural community building and environmental projects. I also can't wait to visit Lake Titicaca and trek to Machu Picchu - we may be some of the last people allowed to visit as they're closing the site to tourists soon.

In order to raise funds for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure, Skein Queen will be releasing a limited edition collection inspired by the diverse cultures and landscapes of Peru. 100% of the profits will be going towards the trip. 36% of those funds will directly be helping Peruvian communities, many of which live below the poverty line.

Lily also decided to dye up some semi-solids and we wanted to link the Linger yarn, which is spun in Peru, to the mill where it's spun. 

So I asked the lovely Jeni of Chester Wool Company if she could maybe ask the names of some of the workers on her next visit and she was good enough to video it for us. 

We struggled with some of the spellings, but hopefully we've done justice to the women who each have a role in the mill.

We used Linger which is a superwash merino and nylon which comes in at 425m - perfect for making socks for trekking! 

The Peru Collection will be available to buy from the online shop from 8pm GMT tonight (January 17th).

The trip is organised by Camps International.