Here’s the thing, variegated yarns are fun to dye. It’s like being a kid again, playing with finger-paints. You paint and sponge and dip and drip and soak and squish. You can use almost every color within reach, and by the end of the day you and your yarn are covered in lovely colors.
If you browse the shop you’ll see we have lots of variegated colorways. But we realized that maybe it was time to create some colors with a little less childlike exuberance and a little more grown up sophistication, in other words, some solids and semi-solids.
So here you go. Two racks full of pinks, purples, blues, greens, reds and oranges. They looked so pretty drying in the sunshine.
And we had a little chuckle thinking about what Cheryl’s new next door neighbors must have thought of the scene in her driveway. The new neighbors haven’t officially moved in yet. They are finishing up a bunch of last minute things at the house and spent most of Saturday going up and down their driveway, with a few trips into the yard. Through it all they had a perfect view into the dye studio (a.k.a. Cheryl’s garage). Cheryl was working hard reskeining yarn, the swift and skein winder were whirring. I was working hard too, wearing my ratty old “dyeing pants”, a grungy t-shirt and bright blue rubber gloves, splashing dyes all over me and my yarn (see above). What a sight we made. Hopefully we didn’t scare the new neighbors too much with our “mad scientist” look!
If you look very closely at the photos of the solid yarns above, you might notice two skeins drying in the back. They are not semi solid or a solid, but instead a mix of light and dark blue, green, topaz and yellow. This new colorway is called “New Moon” inspired by the upcoming film of the same name, the second in the very popular Twilight series.
The movie opens in November, and in preparation for that, Nancy Fry, a talented knitter and designer contacted us to ask if we could dye some worsted weight merino wool to match the fingerless mitts worn by Alice Cullen in the film.
The finished colorway has a bit more green than we expected, but we are all pleased with the final result. Both worsted and sock weight are available in the shop and be sure to check out Nancy’s free pattern on Ravelry.
Finally, this was a big week for our little shop – we had our first international sale! Through the magic of Google I know that since we opened our shop a few months ago, we’ve had five visitors from Denmark. Which means, as of yesterday, a full 20% of the Danes who visit our shop, will buy our yarn! (I’m sorry, what can I say, I’m a marketing geek at heart). What a thrill to pack up that shipment and send it on a journey across the sea. To all our lykkelig visitors from Denmark, halloj and mange tak for stopping by.
Happy Knitting.
It’s taken a bit longer than we hoped, but Spring is here and we are dyeing again! Winter is a difficult time to dye yarn, especially when the dye studio is also the (unheated) garage. The snow and the wind and the rain and the freezing temperatures, make the work a lot less enjoyable.
