I wanted to tell you about my newest yarn collection. Lately, I have been combining my love of classic literature with my love of yarn and fiber. This time, I dyed the four main characters from The Odyssey, and I dyed them on a new luxury fingering-weight base made of superwash merino, silk, and cashmere. It’s soooo soft!

 

I designed each of the four colors to blend together, and I had to do some research into the symbolism of colors in ancient Greece, so both gold and copper represent wisdom and understanding, blue is for loyalty, green is for hopefulness, purple is for royalty, red is for both war and courage, and I used pink for femininity. I couldn’t find that one in any reference, but I think we can all agree on it, yes? Each “character” has at least a couple colors in common with every other colorway.

It took awhile, but I was really excited that I was able to make a gold that was really gold and not just yellow or brown. If you do any sort of dyeing or painting, then you know what a challenge that is.

Here are the individual colorways:

 

This colorway was inspired by Athena, the goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology who guides both Odysseus and his son, Telemachus. Her colors include gold and copper for wisdom, red for war (she’s also the goddess of war), purple for royalty, and gray since she is known as gray-eyed Athena throughout Homer’s epics. Her colors are deep and rich. I am especially pleased with the gold color, which really looks gold.

 

This colorway was inspired by Penelope, the wife of Odysseus who has finally agreed to marry one of her many wretched suitors as soon as she has finished making her father-in-law’s burial cloth, but she weaves the cloth by day and unweaves it by night, still hoping against hope that her beloved husband will return. Her colors include gold and copper for wisdom, pink for femininity, red for strength, blue for loyalty, blue-green for hope, and purple for royalty.

 

This colorway was inspired by Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope who grows more like his father with the help of Athena as the epic progresses. His colors include copper for understanding, blue-green for hope, blue for loyalty, purple for royalty, and gray for the sadness he feels at the beginning. 

 

Last but not least is Odysseus himself, the hero known for his wit and wisdom who spends ten years at war against the Trojans and another ten years trying to get home through many adventures. His colors include gold for wisdom, copper for understanding, red for courage, green for hope, blue for loyalty, purple for royalty, and gray for his many trials.

You can click on the photos to go directly to that listing or look at them altogether in the fingering-weight section of my shop.

As always, if you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to contact me here or on Etsy.

Happy fiber artistry!