Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Sour Grapes and Snow

Snow season is upon us. We’ve been under “lake effect” snow warnings for the past couple days. At least 6 inches fell overnight. So, the snow in my yard is about 14-16 inches deep right now.

Snow season is a productive fiber season. I’ve been spinning daily lately, and I’ve completed several yarns. The most recent is a fun slubbed yarn. I used two hand painted combed tops. One top is wonderful Rambouillet wool in a lovely combination of peridot and purple colors, dyed by a local fiber artist, Elizabeth Koeppen. She sells some of her fiber and yarns on her etsy website . The other top is a delightful Merino wool in a deep muted purple colorway, dyed by Chris Roosien of Briar Rose Fibers .

Here’s a picture of the two tops (Chris’s fiber is on top, Elizabeth’s below). Aren’t they lovely?


Perhaps you notice the little white dots in the picture. That’s snow. At this time of year, it’s rarely sunny here, so I took the fiber outside to get at least some natural light for the photo. I did get some light, but I also got some snow….

I spun a slubbed singles (thick and thin) from the green and purple wool, and a thin-only singles from the purple wool. Then I plied the two singles together.

Here is a picture of the yarn. I took this picture outside too. Even with natural light, albeit grey skies light, I had to use the flash on the camera. I’ll admit that the flash washed out the colors of the yarn a bit, so I adjusted the saturation and lightness with Photoshop.



I’m delighted with the result (of the yarn; not so much the photo). The Rambouillet and Merino combine to make a very soft, very elastic yarn. And the colors can’t be beat. I had several ideas for a name for this yarn, but I decided on “Sour Grapes”.

I’ll be taking it to Interquilten
where it will be available for purchase.

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