I’m always looking for quirky sources for seasonal colors, and I loved this stack of vintage bowls, with their robin’s egg blues and new-shoots chartreuse greens. Throw in a little storm cloud grey, and we have a winning spring colorway.
This month I dyed some fabulous Rambouillet combed top. Rambouillet sheep are descended from the best of a small flock of Merino sheep from Spain in 1786 and the breed takes it’s name from the town of the national sheepfold where it was developed. The breed came to the USA in 1840, and this offering of wool is indeed from United States sheep. You can learn more and see pictures of the sheep here.
I dyed the wool in a graduated gradient…..cream, light green, light blue….grey, dark green, dark blue. The wool itself formed a nice resist and broke the grey, leading to a bit of pink, and other areas of dark and light. Spun into a straight 2 ply, this would make a great shawl, or mix it up by making a fractal, or combining it with other top (Spin Off had a nice article in their spring issue about this). Or tear it up and do a combo spin. Rambo is a nice soft fiber like the Merino it descended from, but I feel it has more bounce. Perfect for next-to-the-skin projects. It is happy to be spun worsted or woolen.
I enjoy throwing a striping yarn into the Club mix from time to time, and I took inspiration from the bowl rims, and the alternating of cream and green with blue. I made a stripe of lighter blue and green in the middle of the darker stripes, it came out a little more subtle than I anticipated, but I still like the effect. For the cream, I decided to throw in the grey as the stripe. It turned out nicely, and will be great colors for spring and summer. Start about a foot in from the green end for the beginning of the pattern if you care about matching socks. Shown is a 64 stitch tube, at 8 1/2 stitches per inch, 10 1/2 rows per inch. I could go a bit tighter, but this would work fine for socks, too. The wool in this yarn is Targhee, which is a breed developed especially for the western United States. The development of the breed is a little complicated, so I’ll let you read about it here. The yarn is nice and soft like Merino, but more durable, and it quite bouncy with more memory than Merino. I really like it in this sock yarn.
Interested in joining us? I have a few sock and fiber spots open for May’s Tiger Club. If you’d like a combo (double fiber or double sock, or sock and fiber), drop me a line and I’ll rearrange the button inventory for you.
