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time & tide - november

never shone the sun as fair - pightle | fingering/4ply (100g)
0 in stock
£20.00
£20.00
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#timeandtideyarn takes inspiration from our beautiful Suffolk coastline. Whether we’re walking the dog in deepest midwinter, picnicking on an almost-warm-enough Spring afternoon, or taking a dip at the end of a long, hot, summer’s day, the sea is always beautiful and there’s always treasure to be found…

Two shades each month throughout 2023, dyed on a variety of yarn bases and using our favourite dye techniques - one inspired by the sea itself, and one by the beautiful things we find along the shore.

November – I'd imagined a stormy sea beneath a leaden sky as we battled with the wind for a brief dog walk. I couldn't have been more wrong! We found ourselves strolling along the tide line at Walberswick on a gloriously sunny Saturday morning in mid-November, the sea flat calm and a low sun tracing an iridescent path to the glowing horizon...

Dyed on pightle | fingering/4ply, never shone the sun as fair, is imbued with all the shades of indigo, teal, sea-green, and aqua that we saw echoing a blue sky. There's just a hint of rosy-pink and violet picked out from the fabulous sun-path that led our eyes to the horizon. The name is from a poem by Edward Thomas called 'There's Nothing Like the Sun'. A poet who was killed in France in 1917, he didn't write 'war poems' as such, but this is poignant read in the context of his life. It is about precisely the feeling that the sun inspires in November; when the swallows have left, the last of the fruit has been picked from the trees, and the sun feels even more special for it.

The second shade picks out the rich sandy gold, cool sage green, and milky sky-blue of the sand dunes that frame the beach. Walkberswick is our go-to beach for a late afternoon swim and picnic at the end of a hot summer day (although those were few and far between this year!) and we could have nestled in the dunes on this November day if we'd had a flask of tea, gloves and a woolly hat! The coast is eroding fast along this stretch of Suffolk and these dunes have yet again been remodelled by a high tide and strong Easterly. Rather than shelving gently towards the sea, the powdery sand perfect for base camp while we swim and throw the Frisbee for the dog, they are now mini-cliffs, precariously topped with Marram grass and the perfect inspiration for if you're fond of sand dunes. I dyed this one on hoo | sock.


We recommend hand washing your finished projects in cool water to preserve the vibrancy of the dye and, as with all small-batch, hand-dyed yarn that doesn't have dye lots, we also recommend knitting alternate rows from two skeins when working on larger projects to avoid noticeable changes between skeins.

We use professional acid dyes with good light and wash fastness and do our best to exhaust every dye bath and reuse water wherever possible to reduce any further environmental impact. Occasionally a small amount of 'loose' dye may remain in the yarn after rinsing (most likely with deeply saturated shades) and we always recommend hand washing in very cool water and pre-washing your yarn separately if you are intending to mix light and dark shades in a single garment/project.