You know I like to treat my club members around the Holidays, and this year is no different. Often early winter is fairly warm here in Iowa, but this year we experienced several very cold days, resulting in a few late starts for school. Hence inspiration for Twenty Below (with a little tongue in cheek of the inspiration picture being a dandelion!!)
The soft and sparkle are handled in fiber by a luscious new blend I got my hands on. 60 percent Polwarth and 40 percent tussah silk. Oh, the shine!!! You will have the best luck spinning this from the fold (or going all the way and making rolags). Besides keeping the wool and silk together, this will lend some loft to the finished yarn.
Not to be outdone, I have a new yarn for sock club, too! This is simply named “Sparkle”, and is a great 4 ply…three of superwash Merino with a hosiery twist, and one ply of silver toned Lurex. It lends a great regular sparkle to the yarn without being over the top, and it won’t shed out. I dyed this yarn for a shawl, and the colors are roughly even, so start with whichever end you like. The technique used is a ‘blended gradient’, meaning that there are not stark separations between the colors, but they will variegate between the two neighboring colors. Sea Breeze from January 2016 was also dyed this way….it’s really fun, and I plan to make more of these in various colors for the shop this year.
Thank you for a great year of Tiger Club! I’m holding on new subscriptions for January, it’s inventory and tax time, so consistency is good for this month! I will have some new openings on February 1!!
