Author: Tricia

How to Fall in love with Spring via Yarn

cosmos
Spring has been pretty schizophrenic out here – icy cold one week, heat wave the next. I’m amazed that there are any flowers out at all.
lavender mum
But there are a few here and there and I can easily see how the fabulous dyer Tina (of Blue Moon Fiber Arts in case you didn’t know) gets so inspired by nature. And we get the rewards.
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Knitting with Mermaid has been a bright spot of Spring in my day.
mermaid
As CupcakeFaerie will tell, I grabbed this colorway out of IrishGirlie’s hands at first sight. Here’s a tip: if you’re ever on a yarn crawl with IrishGirlie get what ever she does. That gal has an amazing sense of color.

And what’s that? Another sock in the background?
Yup – and a super secret Cat Bordhi sock at that – all details to be revealed by Cat in late Summer. So far this is the best fitting sock I’ve ever knit and lives up to Cat’s tag line of “Simple & Mysterious”

I finished a pair – knitted Socks that Rawk

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“If we took a holiday…
Just one day out of life”
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“It would be so nice.”

Pattern : Holidazed (StR Sock Club)
Yarn: Blue Moon Socks that Rock – Mediumweight
Colorway: Muddy Autumn Rainbow (Sock club color)
Needles: Knit Picks size 1 (2.5mm)

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I loved working this pattern. The yarn itself was magical.
When I first received it I thought, “oh that’s pretty.”
Then I wound it and thought, “wow, it is gorgeous.”
I cast it on and fell madly in love as the colors began to shimmer and shine.

And look how much I have left!

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The rib is stretchy and the yarn is cushy – what more could you ask for in a sock except dreamy color.
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Adventures in yarn dying : some photos of the process pt.2

One of the assignments in dye class was to work with your discomfort color. Here are my 3 skeins drying on the bottom rack this morning.

Drying

My discomfort color is orange, so the first skein on the left was (and still is) my least favorite. Here’s a close up fully dried – I’m showing the green here because I like that part best.

Discomfort

The dye color is a lot less saturated than it started out. My second favorite, the blue and green below started out with much deeper blues. But I like the faded look of these colors and they remind me of worn comfortable denim.

Comfortable jeans

My very favorite is the blackberry. I thought it would be black black but I still love the result.

Happy colors

So here they are – all happy together. I got a much deeper appreciation of independent dyers and their process. Especially when they have to try to replicate a colorway hundreds of times.

las tres

Thanks again Tina for this look into the dying world.