Stripes

Yep, reveal is a wee bit late this month. Thanks for allowing us to take a little vacation. We are back, and ready to start April’s Club dyeing!

For March, I wanted to shake up the colors a bit….I’ve done a lot of subdued colors lately, and many of them have featured blue. I also wanted to revisit some dyeing techniques I hadn’t used in a while. So I took pure bright fuschia, and paired it with delicious strawberry red, and let them play in the kettle. The results are SHOCKING!, and my dye studio will be pink for some time to come!

Our fiber is New England Top, a wool pool of the Eastern states. It’s quite a nice general wool….corriedale like. It slurped up the color, and they actually blended and made colors I didn’t know would appear!

Our sock yarn is my personal favorite, Safari. The wool is Corriedale, which stands up to the abuse socks take better than Merino. It’s also blended with nylon, which adds more strength. The yarn blooms nicely into the stitches when washed, making a comfy and cushiony sock. These are kettle dyed (and overdyed!), so no two skeins are alike. It was really fun to do.

I’m gearing up for April’s club, and then I’ll be opening Tiger Club for new memberships on May 1. We’d love for you to join us, I love creating new things every month, and trying new fiber and yarn.

I found this lovely Amazon butterfly early this fall, and said to myself, ‘Self, you should make something like that for club’. What a challenge. The magnificent blue….not too blue, but not too bold, either. The lacy brown throughout, and the spots of red with incidental purple.

To meet the challenge, I looked for supplies. Originally I would have chosen mixed BFL for the fiber, but the brown in that didn’t quite have the contrast I wanted, and I was looking for something a bit luxurious as a Christmas treat for Club. Voila, a new fiber….. Continue reading →

November’s Tiger Club just came together in a serendipitous way. A new yarn was available to me (new! yarn! American grown and spun!), AND Targhee (EEEEeeeee!!!) became available. I wanted something simple, yet lovely to show them off. I took a browse through my dye sample book, and fell in love (again) with the range from Periwinkle blue through to passionate Petunia violet. Nothing but a gradient would do.

Our yarn is neatly divided into two matching 2 ounce skeins. Each skein is a single gradient of 5 shades from blue to purple. I figured each color is about 44 yards, so you can do a lot with pattern on this yarn and it won’t get lost. Warp up a stripey scarf or shawl. Knit alternately from opposite ends of the skeins and stripe it up. Or try some Fair Isle. So many options!

I was so thrilled to get my hands on some Targhee again. I took a different gradient approach with this, each color is longer than the last, planned for a triangular shawl. Keep the long color changes, or fractal it. This wool and the colors were having fun with me….each batch turned out a different variety of awesome, so you received something unique.

If you’d like to join the fun, we are open for December. I have another new yarn and fiber blend for you to try. Both are soft and stunning. Sign up on or before the 15th, I dye starting the 16th!

On the club thought track, I have some extras from previous clubs up in the shop now, so check what’s listed in the ‘new’ section.

Well, I’ve been putting off this post, mostly because I saved a skein of this month’s club for myself, and I really wanted to proudly show off my completed socks for the reveal. You know how those ‘best laid plans’ go…..anyway, I can proudly show you a strategically photographed sock that will be ripped out and totally remade. I had a math fail.  Multiply by rows per inch, not stitches per inch.  Duh, me.

So, I guess I should back up. October’s Tiger Club was actually inspired by the yarn, which is Tiger Tweed. All those little bits of Donegal plus some shades of blue and green and a glimpse of rust made me think ‘Shipwreck’, and here we are….Flotsam!

I really love how they turned out. And here is my proto-sock. Don’t feel too bad for me, now I’ll actually tweak my design and get them better fitting. If the first one had been ‘good enough’, I would have just made a second the same and been done with it. I think I’m going to take a few stitches out of the leg, maybe narrow the ankle, then add them back in for the foot. I also liked how I picked up one side of the heel, but somehow the other side is different. I am a little miffed that I cut the yarn already, so I’ll have to splice on the re-do.

Ah, and our fiber. I brought back a great fiber from last year, Masham. It is naturally an oatmeal-gray color, and adds amazing depth to our Flotsam shades.

Here’s the inspiration photo:

Want to join the fun? There are spots in Tiger Club open until November 15th. This month, both yarn and fiber will be products of the USA. I love supporting the return of the wool industry to America, especially when the products are so great.