macro~meadow – october
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Wandering through a meadow is one of my favourite things to do, and we've been lucky enough to live in and amongst meadows for the last twenty or so years. In Suffolk it's very easy to spend most of the time looking up at the huge skies but this year I'm going to focus on exploring what's closer to hand/eye. I'm going to hunt down the amazing micro-palettes in the blades of grass, the berries, the fence posts and field gates, and create shades that show another aspect of the fields all around us. I'm going to be looking at the textures and detail up close but most of all, I'm hunting for fabulous colour combinations to inspire beautiful yarn!
Each month I'll use one photo to create two shades; one variegated ~flash~ shade and a complimentary/contrasting semi-solid. I'll be focussing on fingering/4ply weight yarn and often the two shades will be on the same base but occasionally I might take liberties and dye something fluffy!
October – autumn is finally edging its way in, and as I type I am wearing a sweater for the first time since May some time, I imagine? My morning wanders up and down the meadow now leave me with soggy boots and trouser hems and a muddy spaniel. As I bent to photograph a tiny parasol mushroom on one such wander, with the October macro~meadow shades in mind, a sliver of tree bark caught my eye and the colours shining, wet in the morning light were absolutely magical. A piece of bark, from which tree I can't decide, that in my mind is 'brown' (OK, that might be an oversimplification) was glimmering indigo, purple, pewter, and edged with deep burnt orange. I didn't look any further before heading straight to the dye pots! The variegated shade that emerged combines deep aubergine, violet and periwinkle, with a flash of russet red and its semi-solid companion picks out that glimmered reflective silvery grey that leans lavender in the light. I've called them ~ burnished ~ and ~ pewtered ~ and they're both in the shop now and can be repeated if they catch your imagination the same way that little piece of bark caught mine...
Both shades are dyed on pightle | fingering/4ply, our go-to 100% superwash merino fingering weight base! It has 400m per 100g skein and is fabulous for shawls, scarves, and lightweight sweaters, vests, and cardigans.
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.
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.