Good morning! I hope you are doing well this week and finding some time to enjoy the fiber arts.

This week I want to announce the June club colorway and show you some colorways on a few different yarn bases.

June Club Colorway

After a couple months of rather somber colorways, I decided to go with something bright and full of energy and movement. It has been on my short list for awhile now, and I am really excited about it.

I’m going to use Jackson Pollock’s painting that is simply entitled, “Mural” this time. Here it is:

He painted it in 1943 for Peggy Guggenheim who commissioned it for her New York townhouse. Her only requirement was that it needed to be big enough for the wall he intended it to go on. It’s 19 feet long, and apparently when he went to install it, he had to remove walls to get it in. Also, there is some debate as to whether he had to cut off a section to make it fit, though this may be legend and not fact.

Pollock was an abstract expressionist. When I look at this painting, I see a crowded New York street full of people moving, but I don’t know if that was Pollock’s intention or not.

The funny thing is that I tend to prefer Impressionism and Renaissance paintings and the chiaro-scurro of the 17th century Dutch masters. However, as time goes on I am finding that the 20th century is a tremendous source of paintings that work well as yarn and art batt colorways because of the more distinct separation of color. I know that I am certainly learning a lot in the process of doing this. It has taken me well beyond my college art history class and has made me question a lot of what I thought I knew about art.

Squoosh DK

I have had several requests lately for DK-weight yarn, so I ordered in quite a bit of it, and I have been dyeing it up on a combination of summery semi-solids (say that three times fast) and some of my new variegated colorways. Here’s a sampling:

I love how incredibly soft and stretchy Squoosh DK is! It’s made of 100% extra-soft superwash merino, so it’s great for everything from sweaters to blankets. In spite of the stretchiness, I have woven a scarf and a vest with it, and both turned out really well.

 

So Silky Sock

I have also been replenishing my stock of hand-dyed yarn on So Silky Sock. This yarn base is incredibly strong and soft. It’s made of 50% mulberry silk and 50% superwash merino. As you know, I have chosen each of my yarn bases with care for strength and softness, but if I had to choose just one yarn base to use for the rest of my life–and I’m glad I don’t–this would be it. It’s great for warp because it’s so strong and great for anything you want to knit or crochet as well because it’s so soft, and it has that wonderful silky sheen to it too.

Here is a sampling of some newly dyed colorways on So Silky Sock:

 

Alpaca Lace Cloud

I’m sure many of you are familiar with some of the many new knitting patterns where the pattern calls for a skein of fingering-weight yarn and a skein of lace-weight mohair yarn to be held together for some or all of the pattern.

Also, you probably know that my focus for all the yarn and fiber in my shop is on softness. There’s a place for every wonderful fiber producing animal, but I chose early on to limit what I offer to the very soft end of that spectrum and to only include yarn and fiber soft enough to wear next to the skin. In my opinion, mohair yarn just doesn’t quite do that. It has some wonderful qualities. It’s shiny and strong, and it’s just fine for outerwear and is actually the fiber of choice for handwoven rugs; however, I have opted not to carry it in my shop.

Instead, I have an alternative with just as much wonderful fuzzy texture but none of the itch, and that’s my Alpaca Lace Cloud yarn base. It’s made of baby suri alpaca for the fuzz and mulberry silk for the strong core.

I recently saw a video from another indie dyer, and she suggested pairing up the same variegated colorway for the fuzzy lace fiber as for the sock-weight yarn or choosing a semi-solid sock-weight yarn to go with a variegated fuzzy yarn in order to really highlight the colors of the fuzzy yarn. That made sense to me, so I’ve been dyeing up more variegated colorways on the Alpaca Lace Cloud.

You can pair them up with the same colorway on a fingering-weight base. I have a lot more undyed Alpaca Lace Cloud than dyed, but here is what I have available right now on Alpaca Lace Cloud:

I do have my own infinity scarf and cowl pattern called the Knit and Chat Infinity Scarf that uses one skein of Alpaca Lace Cloud and one skein of any of my sock-weight bases. You can find the pattern right here. The only counting is when you cast on. I wanted it to be easy to knit while chatting. I may be taking it down off my blog fairly soon and putting it for sale on Ravelry, but if you order a skein of Alpaca Lace Cloud, I would be happy to include a printed copy of my pattern along with it. Just mention it when you check out.

 

That’s about everything for this week. I hope you have a great week and that you are staying well.