Tiger Club for October explored “Almond Blossom”, a work painted by Vincent Van Gogh for his infant nephew in 1890. The work contains strong features of the Japanese Ukiyo-e prints that Van Gogh had been collecting. These elements include:Cropping of the image, Bold outlines of the branches, Absence of perspective/horizon, and large, bright blocks of color.
I particularly liked this color palette reduction of the painting, as it pulled out those large bright blocks of color.
The yarn for this month is Journey, a nice round 4 ply SW Merino and Nylon blend. I folded the skeins and eased them into my dye pan, then used a low water immersion technique to apply the color. I actually did not apply any green, I simply let the navy and peacock blues blend with straight up yellow and gold. I didn’t worry about white areas, as they can represent the actual blossoms. Even in the same dye batch, each skein came out a bit different, it will be fun to see them transformed into projects.
The wool this month is a new one to me, Rambouillet. It is also referred to as French Merino. I’d compare it to Targhee most particularly, and also Polwarth. It has a great fluffy hand, and was fantastic to dye. I went for shorter color bursts, and actually dyed these in the same pattern as the yarn, it was fun to see how the blending happened differently.
Due to the upcoming Holidays, Tiger Club will not open for new subscriptions until January, however if you’d like to be on the waitlist I’ll fit you in when I can.
