A few weeks ago, I showed you my new Four Seasons yarn sets. Well, I got all the preorders for The Four Seasons dyed up and on their way to their new homes. I wasn’t quite satisfied with the original version of Autumn, so I made some small adjustments to it, and I’m glad I did. Here is what Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter look like altogether:

I’m so excited about these colorways that I just couldn’t wait to add them to the shop. I had several people reach out and ask if they could just get a couple of the seasons individually, and how could I say no? Now that the preorders are all done, I have The Four Seasons available as a set and each colorway available individually as well.

You can see them all right here. I’m really pleased with the way they turned out, and I hope you like them too! I have a plan for a triangular DK-weight shawl I want to design using these four colorways together as a complex gradient. I’m yearning to get started, but I’m trying to make myself wait until I’ve finished another couple WIPs before casting on. I know you know what that’s like!

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Handspun Diamond Twist Cowl Pattern

While that triangular shawl pattern may be a few months in coming, I actually do have a new pattern for you right now! I just published the Handspun Diamond Twist Cowl. The inspiration came from the Spin Together competition. If you’re a spinner and especially if you are a fairly new spinner, it can be hard to figure out what to do with the handspun yarn you spin, so I decided to write a pattern for spinners who knit and knitters who spin to be able to use a fairly small amount of handspun yarn and make something that’s straight-forward to make and fun to wear.

It’s modeled after my original Diamond Twist Cowl pattern, but while that pattern calls for a single skein of sock-weight yarn, this one is more flexible and can be used for any yarn weight between sock/fingering and super bulky. I included instructions to help you figuring out your yarn weight based on the wraps per inch as well as a chart showing what needles to use based on the yarn weight. You can find the pattern on my website right here and on Ravelry here.

For the one in the photo, I used two Call Me Ishmael art batts that I spun thick and thin and then plied, making it a worsted-weight yarn.

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Caribbean Sunset

I also have a new art batt colorway to share with you this week. My son Joseph created the colorway based on the Caribbean Sunset yarn colorway he created sometime back. Like the yarn, it is called Caribbean Sunset, and it is a gradient batt. Here it is:

Isn’t it beautiful? It’s made of soft merino and bamboo. Just like the yarn, Joseph’s goal was to represent a sunset over the sea with the mixing of the colors of sunset and sea in the middle. Here is Caribbean Sunset on Twinkle Sock:

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The March Club Colorway

This month we continue our journey through the Renaissance. I’m going to be using Botticelli’s Primavera as the colorway inspiration for March. Primavera means spring, and this is just in time for the beginning of spring–at least in the southern part of the country. Here is the painting:

Botticelli painted it sometime between 1478 and 1482, and it is in the Uffizi Museum in Florence. Apparently art historians differ on who each figure is supposed to be. Most say that the central figure is Venus but not all. If you want to learn more about the painting, here’s a great video from SmartHistory. As usual, the deadline to join the club in time for the March club colorway is February 28th, which is a week from today.

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Fresh from the Dye Pot

I have small quantities of lots of fresh-dyed colorways, so rather than showing them all to you here, come take a look in the New This Month section of my shop!