Dear Jan,
I recently was the lucky winner in two separate contests. One was pure fun and such a delight to win - Vicki Notorious, dyer of the lovely Make.Do yarns. I took a semi-educated guess at how many little hexagons Vicki would get knit, and who’dathunkit, but I guessed correctly. My reward for this little mental exercise was this lovely skein of yarn, Make.Do Be which is a 75:25 blend of superwash merino and nylon in fingering weight.
Monotone yarns are wonderful for the way they show off stitch patterns, and this one has layers of color intensity to add a richness that a simple solid dye job would never have. It is lovely and soft and I look forward to knitting it into foot joy. Thank you, Vicki!
I also lucked out in another contest of a sort, a lottery to be able to buy some of a very rare breed of yarn spun from a few fleeces that Blacker Yarns managed to source. In the process of closing the deal, I got to speak with Susan Blacker. She is delightful, and so passionate and excited to be able to help preserve this breed.
The Boreray sheep from which the yarn was spun originates from an archipelago south of Scotland and is considered the rarest breed on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. As many of those North Sea island sheep are, it is a primitive, dual coated and kempy breed, but also soft in a strong kind of way. You can see the heavier fibers and even the kemp in the yarn. I believe this is going to knit up nice and tweedy, great for outerwear. The color is fabulous - oatmeal with bits of brown sugar, is how I think of it. I am also thinking of a super weather-resistant hat with this rarest of all commercially available yarns on the outside and perhaps some super soft yarn for a liner.
And as the last post reminded me, it really is time to start getting those warm winter woolies knit up. Is it autumn in Quarryville yet?
Love,
Ellen
Jan and Ellen are identical twins who have always had an innate fashion sense. Crafting is an integral part of their lives and they stay stitched together sharing their love of knitting, family and community.
September 28th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
I love me some overdyed yarn! And the marled look of the Boreray is stunning. Perfectt for outerwear and very reminiscent of the Wensleydale I recently spun.
Trees are starting to change here, we think it will be glorious in 2 weeks!
September 28th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Cool!
And now I’ve got Mick Jagger singing Brown Sugar in my head.
@Jan: Wensleydale! I read a two-paragraph filler news article years ago about a shepherdess with the at the time last herd of them, telling how a Japanese order had saved the flock. I spent several years searching for a source and finally did. I have a handspun coat that just needs the ribbing and sleeves added so that I can enter it in the Spin Off Rare Breeds contest…of…1999… Um.
September 29th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Those are great prizes! Love the colors in the first, and the second looks like pure fall comfort. It’s just the right time for steaming oatmeal. =)
September 29th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Those really are great prizes! I totally agree about how nicely yarns on the monochromatic end of the spectrum show off stitch patterns, and that color of green has really been speaking to me lately (in fact, I’m just about to cast on for a shawl in yarn close to that color).