Yarn Along #83--shawl progress and Mary Magdalene

Progress is being made! Yay!

If you’re new, it’s the Drachenfels shawl in Quince and Co’s chickadee yarn—here you see peacoat (a dark navy blue, not black), and camel. The third color that will be incorporated is gingerbread.

I’m reading (well, one of the things I’m reading) Saint Mary Magdalene Prophetess of Eucharistic Love*. It’s really good, in that it talks a bit about the history of Mary Magdalene, her presence in the gospels, and how that relates to Eucharistic Adoration today. I’m underlining an awful lot! I’m pretty passionate about the Eucharist, so this book is definitely inspiring me to get to Mass and adoration as often as I can!

Today I’m getting another package from KnitPicks, which has the needles I need to start either Felie or Find Your Fade….which one shall I start first?!?! The Drachenfels shawl is in a good place to stop; I have to do one more repeat of the main section and then I’m done with the first page of instructions. Which one do you think I should cast on first?

*Amazon affiliate link

Yarn Along #81 (Not the swatch post!)

This is NOT the swatch post that I promised here. That’s coming. So you’ll have to come back if you want that!

This is the “Yarn I got for Christmas and projects I’m planning with it” post. Also, “Books I got for Christmas”.

But let’s talk yarn first.

First of all, I got delicious Chickadee Yarn from Quince and Co., which you know I love for yet ANOTHER Drachenfels shawl! But this one is going to be autumnal in flavor. These shawls are really done based on colors I see and want to do—the Sage shawl was in part Sage influenced, but also influenced by early spring in Ohio.

Anyway, the colors for this one:

Gingerbread

Camel

Peacoat

This is autumnal, but also inspired by Eowyn’s wardrobe in the Lord of the Rings movies. One of her outfits is that gingerbread color, she wears a dark blue robe in Return of the King, and her hair is the sort of camel color, but it also echoes some of the embroidery on her Rohan gowns. So again, this is a doubly-inspired shawl!

The next two projects were financed by my dear friend Sarah, who gave me a gift certificate to Knitpicks, which meant I could take advantage of their yarn sale and buy enough yarn to do a Find Your Fade shawl! I know I’m late to this party, everyone else did this years ago, but now I know the skills needed to do it (thank you Aunt Sue for your tutelage yet again!).

So here are all the colors for THAT. The yarn is Knit Pick’s Hawthorne line, in various types—kettle dyed, multi, and their speckled.

Whew! So the fade goes from top to bottom, and the colors are: (KD=kettle dyed, S=speckled, everything else is the multi)

Sellwood

Goose Hollow

Delphinium (KD)

Alameda

Abernathy

Turkish Delight (KD)

Berry Smoothie (S)

I sort of adore these colors! Which is good because this shawl is SO big that I’ll be using them for a long time!

The last project is the felie shawl, where I’m using Frabjous Fibers yarn—their speckle in Victorian China—and the Hawthorne Turkish Delight you see above.

So, WHEW! Is that enough yarn for you?

As for books:

I adored Marilla of Green Gables. I also got The Gown, News of the World, The Terror, and Book Girl either as Christmas gifts or bought with Christmas gift cards/money. So I’ve been reading a lot, and, as I always do at the beginning of January, I’m re-reading One Thousand Gifts. (those are Amazon affiliate links) I will report on the others as I read them, or you can follow me on Goodreads!

What are you reading/knitting?

Sage's Shawl

Yes, it's Wednesday. It's a yarn along post. But....not really. 

When I finished my first Drachenfels shawl, I knew I wanted to knit it again. My head was full of color combinations and possibilities. In May, I ordered a special edition yarn from Quince and Co (carnation--the pink above) and knew I wanted to use it in this shawl. The question was--what to pair with it? 

When I went to Sewickley Yarns in July, I brought the ball of carnation yarn with me so I could color match. Immediately, I latched on to the green color you see above. And then I checked the tag. 

It's called "Sage". 

Then I knew I had to have it. 

Some of you may remember my friend Sage, who died two years ago Friday, waiting for a double lung transplant. Like me, she had CF. And we had so much in common besides that. She was a true kindred spirit. We spoke (well, texted) almost every day. She was funny, supportive, deeply faithful, and just....well, a perfect friend. 

We never got to meet, but we had made plans for it...in that nebulous future moment of "post transplant", the transplant I was just so sure she'd get. 

She didn't. 

I think about her almost every day. I think of things I want to tell her and then I realize I can't. 

So when I saw the "Sage" yarn, I had to get it. And then I had to get the purple (Frank's Plum), because purple was her favorite color. It's also the color for CF awareness. 

I wish I could give her this shawl. I think she'd like it. I know she'd love the purple. I dunno how she felt about pink. But since I can't give it to her, I make it for me--and when I wear it, I can remember her encouragement, her sense of humor, her strength (really, she was so much stronger than I am. Anyone who gets a chest tube put in WITHOUT ANESTHESIA is MUCH stronger than I am.). 

Some people, post-transplant, talk about living for their donor. I never felt that way. My donor was a lot older than I was, for starters, so it wasn't like she was a compatriot in age. But after Sage died, I do get the feeling that I'm living for her. That I do some things because she can't. It's hard to explain. 

I'm at the halfway point of the shawl. For the rest of it I'll be working with the pink and the purple intertwined together. I should finish it within the next few weeks, which means I can wear it this autumn. 

So, if Sage was alive, I'd give this to her. But since she's not here, I'll wear it for her. 

Yarn Along No. 78

Remember the yummy yarn from last month? 

Many projects being made with it! Yayyy!

So the first thing was the Kate cowl, and for that I used all the gray, deep red, and some of the yellow yarn (they are Quince and Co. Owl in Abyssinian, Cranberry, and Steppe). I didn't use the provisional cast on the pattern called for; instead I just whipstitched the edges together. She's currently on the blocking mats and then she'll be done! Yay! This is a great project for introducing colorwork, because the changes are really easy. 

The purple and green (far right) are going to be used in a second drachenfels shawl, which I've started knitting. (Colors: Frank's Plum and Sage, Quince and Co. chickadee) The third color I'm using is a Quince special edition color called carnation, which they released on Mother's Day this past May--and they only had a little bit of it, so I had act fast! 

This shawl has a few special meanings for me: I had a friend, Sage, who was very special to me, and she died two years ago this August. So getting the "sage" color was a no brainer. Purple was her favorite color--so that led to the Frank's Plum. And we both have CF, and the CF awareness color is purple--so double meaning there. The pink is just a color I enjoy. So working on this shawl is going to be special for me, as will wearing it. 

(Oh, the brightish pink? That's Chickadee in Pomegrante, and it's going to be used in a beret pattern! My first hat!) 

As for what I'm reading: 

A ton

The Melissa Wiley books are about Martha Morse, Laura Ingalls Wilder's great-grandmother, and I'd always wanted to read them--the library, thankfully, had most of the "good" copies (apparently the ones with the photo covers are edited/abridged in some way from the illustrated covers), so I sped through the four of them (the third one isn't seen here). Quite enjoyable. 

Queen of Hearts was good, even if I did find the ultimate "reveal" a bit weak. If you like medical drama, you'll like this book, since it was written by a doctor and thus you don't have the medical errors you find in a lot of other books, but if you're squeamish, you might want to pass on this one!

I also read The Widows of Malabar Hill (OK. A decent mystery, likable main character, a few too many modern references for a book that takes place in 1920s India) and I'm about to start Us Against You. 

Yarn Along: The yarn overfloweth!

Guys. Look at all that yarn. 

Isn't it delicious?! 

I picked up all this yarn yesterday at Sewickley Yarns in Sewickley, PA--they are a Quince and Co. flagship store, and I adore Quince and Co yarns, but there are no flagship stores in Ohio--meaning, a place where you can get more than their linen line. I wanted their wool! And it can be hard to color-compare on a website. So, when we made a trip to Pittsburgh for my grandma's 88th birthday, I really wanted to stop here. My parents graciously obliged me, in the middle of a crazy heat wave, and I got to look at and feel lots of squishy wool!

These are destined for three projects: The four skeins on the right are Quince Chickadee for a new Drachenfels shawl, with a light pink yarn. (The colors here are Sage and Frank's Plum) 

My first Drachenfels scarf, also made with Quince Chickadee. 

The pink skein (chickadee in pomegranate) will be used for my first hat, a day beret. 

The other skeins are Quince and Co's Owl, which is wool and alpaca together, and I love it already, even though I haven't knit with it yet. This is for a Kate Cowl, and I chose the Abyssinian (gray), cranberry (red), and steppe (yellow) color ways. The Abyssinian is fabulous in person, hence the reason I was so glad that I could see these yarns! I never would've selected it otherwise. 

Kate cowl--abyssinian will be the large gray section, cranberry the green section, and steppe the stripe! 

Just looking at all that yarn makes me so happy. :) 

I'm planning on doing a TON of knitting today so I'll have finished projects to show you soon!

And also, what I've been reading.....

Yarn Along No. 76

It's May, and that means--Yarn Along with Ginny!

So I've been finishing a commission for Barton Cottage Crafts, but for my own knitting, I'm working on the Skye Cowl from Quince and Co., with their Puffin yarn. (My ravelry page here) I'm using the sorbet colorway, because I wanted something fun. 

Yes, my nails are terrible. Sorry. 

Above, the project is with the Magnolia Table cookbook (birthday gift), and I've been reading various things all month--the spring Bella Grace, which is a great magazine, Ann Voskamp's The Way of Abundance, and the fifth Outlander book, The Fiery Cross. So I'm all over the map. 

And, Barton Cottage Crafts (my little knitting shop) is taking commissions! I do the basketweave scarves, shawls (basic ones), and plain garter stitch scarves. You get to pick the colors for anything you commission, obviously. Plain scarves are $30, basketweave's are $35, and shawls are $40. That price includes shipping!

I don't have a good picture of the "plain" scarf--bad me--but it's really lovely. I use Quince's osprey yarn, so it's very plush and squishy! 

If you'd like a commission, contact me and we'll get started! 

Yarn Along No. 75: Back to basics

So, after finishing the shawl, I wanted to go back to basics, this is about as basic as you can get--a garter stitch scarf in a nice, squishy yarn. This is Quince and Co.'s osprey in winesap, which is just a gorgeous true red. I adore it. It's really relaxing knitting. No pressure, no difficult pattern, just knitting with beautiful yarn. 

The next project I'm working on is their Skye cowl, so I can work a project in the round. It's basic stockinette stitch, and I wanted something basic to ease me into a new technique. Once I knit this, I have some plans for other cowls, with other lovely yarns. 

Also: Barton Cottage Crafts is open for orders! Basketweave scarves, shawls, and even this scarf are available. You can choose your color. Shipping is included in the price. This scarf is $30, basketweave scarves are $35, and shawls are $45. Drop a note in the comments if you'd like to talk about an order! 

Some birthday gifts

As for what I'm reading: Birthday books! I read Force of Nature and Unmasked over the last few days and I'm into The Bronte Cabinet, which I'm really enjoying. It appeals to my English Lit Geek Nature. The book discusses the lives of the three Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) within the context of nine of their possessions. Really intriguing. 

Yarn Along No. 74: Drachenfels!

My shawl is off the needles! 

It's not finished, because I have to block it, and I can't block it until my eucalan order comes--no one in Columbus sells it, apparently--so I'm waiting for that. Blocking is where you wash your finished object and then shape it on blocking boards. Some pieces require extensive blocking, but this is going to be pretty gentle. (Here's a good post on how to block, if you're interested, or looking for a how-to for your own knitting projects.) Once it's blocked, I'll show you the final product as well. 

This took me about three months to do, start to finish. The yarn was a Christmas gift, I started it a few days after Christmas, and I was working on other commissions during that time, so that affected how long it took. If this was my sole project, it might have taken a month off the finish time. I really enjoyed this pattern and am already thinking about color combinations for the next one! 

(Whoops! Forgot to link to Ravelry! This has all the details and my notes.) 

But my next two projects are going to be much simpler: Puck's Scarf from Quince and Co., and then the Skye Cowl (partially because Outlander, and partially because I want to learn to knit in the round, and this will be a good starter project). 

Yarn Along No. 72 and My Lenten Plan

So, um, Happy Ash Wednesday? :-D

I do like Lent. We'll talk about that more in a second. First: Yarn!

This is a completed Barton Cottage Crafts commission--it's my signature basketweave scarf in the weathervane colorway. The colors are much richer in person. In the line this is my "Jane Bennet" color--I think it suits Jane quite well. :) 

I'm currently working on a shawl for another customer, in a deep yellow color. When I have more of it to show, I'll post a picture. At the moment, it's a very small triangle!

My shawl is coming along gorgeously! I'm finally into the blue stripes! 

What are you reading right now? 

My Lenten Rule

AKA, what I'm doing for Lent. 

1) Giving up book buying (except at the Catholic Women's Conference this weekend--and actually, my book buying has dropped off a lot this year since I'm focusing on my financial goals. So go me!)

2) Attending weekday Mass at least once a week

3) Confession every other week

4) Doing Nancy Ray's Contentment Challenge again. You can read ore about it on Nancy's blog here and here . Here are the first month guidelines!  I think Lent is a perfect time to kick this off. 

And of course, Above All. You can still join us! Order the book, pop into the blog, or join us on facebook, twitter, and instagram. 

How about you? How do you "do" Lent? 

Yarn Along No. 71

Big progress being made in my shawl (pattern: the drachenfels shawl)

I am finally done with the gray yarn! (In case you're just joining me here: I'm using Quince and Co. Chickadee yarn in Iceland (gray), bird's egg (light blue) and fjord (dark blue). 

The next section of the shawl alternates the two blues, and I'm excited about diving into that. I love the fjord color and I can't wait to get to use it! (Well, really use it. I used it for one stripe, which you can see above!) Maybe by the time we get to the March Yarn Along link up, I'll be done? Probably not. But you never know!

I'm reading two books on psychology, habits, all sorts of goodness. Really enjoying both of them. (It's actually my second time through the Peterson book. This time I'm taking notes. The way he talks about suffering makes me want to do a Baptist "Amen!". So accurate.) Since I'm back to living in Hoth, today is a good day for knitting and reading!

Yarn Along No. 70: Shawl forward motion!

Hi y'all! 

So we've gone from Hoth, to spring, to Hoth, to--spring. Sort of. :) It's not bitter cold but it's not in the fifties. Dare I say it's...seasonal? But it was great to have a thaw and really clean the house and take out trash from decluttering! And when it's cold, you have time to be creative inside. So that's what I've got this week--the results of forced staying in! 

First, in the Barton Cottage Crafts department, this little sweetheart is  done! She was mailed off to her lucky recipient earlier this week. I just love the variations the yarn gave me in this particular scarf. 

The book is a re-read: The Dry, by Jane Harper. I don't really like mysteries, but this was a good mystery, and it's becoming a series, with book two coming out on February 6. So as much as I say I don't read mysteries, between this and the Sherlock-Russell series....I guess I do? 

And on the shawl....I am finished with section one! That's right! Yay! 

The next section involves ridges of alternating colors, using the same stitch pattern as in the first part. So it's not new stitches, but new colors. I finally get to add in fjord, my third color! Yay! 

I've also cast on a new scarf for BCC, in the weathervane colorway. It's not far enough to have a pretty photo of yet, though! It is pretty, however, just...short. 

And a few notes: 

The Take Up and Read Lent book, Above All, is available on Amazon! Here's my post about it, and there's a link to buy on the sidebar, too! Go get it! (It's also available on Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, and other countries!) 

Catholic 101 is now available! Blog subscribers get a 15% off discount code! Buy your copy here. 

Yarn Along No. 69

It's going to be 50 degrees today! As opposed to last week, when I was dwelling in Hoth! Oh, Ohio weather....(Next week? Looks like it's back to Hoth...) 

Anyway, time for a yarn along!

Still working on the shawl. It's coming. I actually had to frog quite a bit of it last week but I managed to save it, and now I'm sort of frogging-shy. :) Does that make sense? (Frogging is where you rip out stuff you knitted.) But I'm planning on diving back in today.

In the mean time, I've been working on this scarf, for an ebook customer who won this scarf as part of my release week** events! Isn't it pretty? 

This week I finished Pachinko, which was one of my Christmas books. The book revolves around four generations of a Korean family that moves to Japan--the book starts in the 1930s and goes until 1990 or thereabouts. I enjoyed it--mostly--but if you're not familiar with Korean culture, you might need to Google a lot of references, especially early on. 

**Speaking of the book (my book, that is!): If you haven't ordered it, you can do it right here. It's $9.50, but if you're a site subscriber, you have a code for 15% off! You can read all about the book here, but a few notes: isn't not something you have to read straight through. You can jump around to the sections you want to read. It has several new pieces that I didn't feature in the original blog series, and it's illustrated! (Not lavishly. But there are pictures.) I'll be writing another post that goes into more detail soon. 

(Note: There is WAYYY more than 80 pages of content. It's almost 200 pages! So I need to correct that!)

Yarn Along No. 68: Knitting to keep warm!

I don't live in Ohio anymore. I live on the planet Hoth. :-P As I write this, it is -1 for the real, actual temperature. It feels like -16. Yeah. No thank you.  

(And yes, this is an old graphic, but I thought it was worth sharing because it amuses me.) 

So I am knitting to keep warm! And then reading, under mounds of blankets, also to keep warm. A good set of conditions for a Yarn Along. 

First up: some completed/almost completed scarves from Barton Cottage Crafts:

"Marianne" scarf 

"Brianna" scarf 

My big personal project is the drachenfels shawl. I am really liking working this pattern. It's not hard, once you get used to it, because the pattern doesn't appreciably change over the extent of the shawl. 

I'm using Quince and Co. Chickadee in iceland, bird's egg, and fjord. The needles I'm using are Knit Picks harmony interchangeables. 

Above, you can see how far I've gotten. Ignore the wobbly end bits that need woven in and tightened up! For the first part of the shawl, you do many repeats with color one (Iceland) and do a few rows of color two (bird's egg). I'm almost done with this first section. Then we get into using all three colors! Exciting. I won't exactly be sad to see the Iceland go. 

The book is one of many I'm currently reading. One of my goals for the year is to have a simplified, comfortable, cozy house, and Emily Ley's A Simplified Life is helping me do that. All the sticky notes are pages that have lists or ideas I want to accomplish/incorporate. I did a huge closet clean out last year and book purge, so that's really helpful, but if there's anything else I want to get rid of, this is the time! 

What are you knitting/ reading? 

******

Site notes: Catholic 101 is now available, and it's also listed on Goodreads! So you can leave a review if you've read it! If you haven't read it, you can pick up your copy here. Blog subscribers get 15% off! 

Yarn Along 67: Looking Ahead

So, I'm looking ahead today to 2018 project (wow, 2018 is SO WEIRD TO WRITE)! There are a few on the horizon that I'm excited to share with you. 

First up is the Drachenfels shawl. This is a BIG project. However, it's all garter stitch work, so it won't be as hard as it could be! But it still involves colorwork (my first time doing colorwork), and some new stitches. I'm hoping to get some help from the knitters in my family when they're here at Christmas!

For my colors, I'm using Christmas yarn--yes, yarn that I haven't gotten yet, but I know I'm getting because I had to pick the colors! I'm using Quince and Co's chickadee in Fjord, Iceland, and Bird's Egg, so it's definitely a cool-toned shawl. I wear so much blue that it just made sense. 

The next project is this scarf from Quince and Co.--Dahlia. I have the pattern and the yarn, I just haven't cast on yet. I'm using Frabjous Fiber's Mad Hatter Speckled Yarn in Victorian China. The colorway is just gorgeous and I had to have it--and then I had to find a use for it. :) 

And finally, speaking of must-have yarn, I'm going to be using my Williamsburg yarn to create this cowl.  Special yarn like my Williamsburg yarn requires a special project! 

So there you have it--the Project List for 2018 (thus far), in addition to any Barton Cottage Crafts creations I create! I'm excited to start!

Need a last minute gift? Catholic 101 is easy to give as a gift! Just click the present icon at checkout in the email field, and voila! Shopping is done. Also remember that blog subscribers have a 15% code to use! 

Yarn Along No. 65

This is a little different. :) I'm working on a new project! Rejoice! (I still have basketweave scarves being worked on, too, though. So if you've ordered one, don't despair. The knitting machine works overtime around here.) 

One of my Christmas gifts is yarn for a big shawl pattern. But before I begin that pattern, I needed to learn different ways of increasing. So, my lovely friend Sarah taught me two ways to increase stitches, and now I feel like an expert! 

I made this project to help get the technique in my head. 

This is the Urban Wrap shawl. It's knit on size 15 Caspian circulars, and the yarn is Sugar Bush Yarns' Canoe in the Whitewater colorway. I love the tweedy goodness of this yarn, and it's very soft and warm, which is great for this shawl. 

Check out that tweedy goodness!

The original pattern called for this to be done in Stockinette stitch, however, since my big shawl is in garter stitch, I made this all garter stitch, too. But I love this pattern so much that I think I will make another and add it to the Barton Cottage Crafts inventory! So keep an eye out, if you want a shawl. 

The book I'm reading is A Gentleman in Moscow, which I finally got ahold of. I'm liking it so far. Russian history has always been something I've enjoyed, so this book taps that niche in my reading list quite nicely. 

Various and Sundry:

My piece on living a painless life was picked up by ForEveryMom.com! I'm so honored to be featured there. You can read it here. 

Don't forget to pick up your copy of Catholic 101! It has great tips for Advent and Christmastime inside, plus the St. Andrew Christmas novena! If you're a subscriber, you can still use your offer code until the end of the year to save 15%. If you're not a subscriber, subscribe to get the code! You can buy Catholic 101 here. (Don't forget that you can also give it as a gift!) 

Yarn Along No. 64

It's back! Whew!

Knitting definitely took a back seat during the frenetic pre-release period of Catholic 101. (Which you can purchase right here!)  But now that it's out in the world, I've got a bunch of orders to work on, starting with this little guy: 

This is the Sugar Cookie Colorway, called "Lady Sibyl" in Barton Cottage Crafts parlance, because it mirrors a lot of the colors and personality of the youngest Downton Abbey sister, Sibyl Branson. And this is  tied with Lady Mary ("Red Velvet" colorway) as my top seller, so the Crawley sisters are dominating the BCC world these days. 

The book is Be The Gift, a photography book based on Ann Voskamp's The Broken Way. I really adore this little, pretty devotional, especially as we head into the holidays. Ann gives concrete ways to bless people's lives that don't involve a lot of time or talent expenditure--just a little bit of heart. 

And if you'd like a Basketweave scarf of your own, I'm currently taking orders! I have a pile of scarves to knit right now, so any orders will be ready late December/January, at this point (I think). I work on projects in the order I receive them, so first come, first served. So if you'd like a scarf, just drop me a comment and I'll email you back and we'll talk! The scarves are $35 each, about 40x6", and you get to pick your colorway. Just let me know! 

Yarn Along No. 63

Anddd we continue the knitting! Since I'm working on getting the ebook ready for publication (you can pre-order here!), I'm keeping the blogging to a minimum and devoting all my energies to editing, and knitting, because I have commissions!

So here we have a commission: this is the Lady Sibyl (after the youngest Crawley girl on Downton Abbey). The book was pretty good. Adriana T. can be hit or miss, and I'd wondered about this when it first came out. It's got a bunch of side plots/characters that the book doesn't need, but the core story is good. 

Yarn Along No. 62

I'm SO GLAD that I'll be having a new, fun, just for me project starting soon! But in the meantime, here are two recent Barton Cottage Crafts finished products for your perusal. :) 

First up, the Fanny Price. I chose this color way (called "Surf's Up") because of Fanny's brother's enlistment in the Navy, as well as Fanny being from Portsmouth, a naval port in England. 

And here's the Brianna Randall, based on the Outlander character who wore a Day-Glo colored dress to the moon launch party in Drums of Autumn. I think she'd love these colors!

Right now I'm reading The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker, which I checked out of the library along with several other novel, so I'm looking forward to reading them!

(Speaking of reading: Don't forget that my ebook, Catholic 101, is available to pre-order!) 

Yarn Along No. 61: Barton Cottage Crafts and Linen

Barton Cottage Crafts is what I call my nascent scarf business. It's named after the Dashwood ladies' house in Sense and Sensibility, which is also what I call my own little house, and I think it has a nice ring to it, right? So this week I'm showing you what I'm working on there, as well as linen piece progress.

This is the Anne Shirley scarf, done in an autumnal colorway to channel Anne's love of October. 

This is the Lady Edith, done in blues and greens, and named after Downton Abbey's Lady Edith Crawley, who looked quiet lovely in these shades (even if she wasn't my favorite character. :-P) 

This one is in progress, and it's the Brianna Randall, named after the Outlander character. I chose to name this bright colorway after Brianna because of the Day-Glo colored dress she wears to the moon landing party in Drums of Autumn. 

All of these scarves have been commissioned, but I'm hoping eventually to knit up enough stock to have an Etsy shop for them. If you want one, just drop me a line and we can talk! 

For my own personal knitting, we've got the linen kerchiefs going on.  There's the supermoon one, in purple linen (Venice colorway): 

And the sans kerchief, in the Truffle colorway (these are both Quince and Co.'s sparrow yarn). 

The Supermoon has a textured pattern, so each row is different; you work in sets of seven rows at a time. The sans is just stockinette stitch, so it's a lot easier! It's also the project I brought on vacation because I thought it would be nice and relaxing to do, which it was, for the most part, but linen can be a pain when you're purling, especially in the beginning. Gah! 

When I have commissions, I work on my own pieces on the weekends only, usually Sundays, because I want people to get their pretty scarves as soon as possible! So I've been going back and forth between the two linen projects. No rush on those, especially on Supermoon, since it's a bit more complicated than anything I've done before. 

Yarn Along No. 60: Yarn in Colonial Williamsburg

Freshly dyed yarn in the weaver's shop at Colonial Williamsburg

This is an extra special yarn along, because today we're not talking about knitting, we're talking all about yarn! We're taking a field trip to CW and the Weaver's! 

A few months before I visited CW, I heard that it was possible to buy yarn that was completely handmade by the artisans at Williamsburg, using 18th century methods. Of course, this piqued my interest! I knew that I was going to want some of this special yarn. 

The yarn at CW starts with the wool, of course. The wool comes from their herd of Leicester Longwool sheep. 

Leicester Longwools were developed in the mid-18th century by Robert Bakewell of Leicester, England. The breed became popular throughout the British empire; George Washington purchased Leicester Longwools for his flock at Mount Vernon. 

According to the Leicester Longwool Sheep Breeder's Association, "The fleece of the Leicester Longwool is prized by hand spinners and crafters for its curl, soft handle, and lustrous beauty... The wool dyes exceptionally well, maintaining the purity of color; the natural luster still shines through. This premium wool is very versatile, working well for combing for worsted products, carding for woolen products, and felting projects. " 

The sheep are very rare these days, and CW plays a big role in keeping the breed alive. 

So, we have this gorgeous wool, which looks like this, in its raw state: 

Check out that curl! 

The wool is incredibly soft, even in this "raw" state, and really pretty. At least, these pieces are!

The sheep shearing is done by other people. Before it reaches the weavers, the wool also has to be skirted (taking out pieces that are too short or too matted to use), and scoured (cleaned). 

After the wool is clean and dry, it's ready to card. 

Here you can see a few things--raw wool, that needs picked over (in the crock), wool that's been cleaned, but needs carded (back basket), carded wool that's being spun (on the spinning wheel), and finished thread/yarn on a bobbin (in the yellow basket, foreground). The bobbin will go into a shuttle, to be used in weaving, as seen below. 

The weaver is holding the shuttle in her left hand; here, she's weaving linen cloth. 

After the wool is spun, either with a drop spindle or on a spinning wheel, and the appropriate thickness reached (I'm simplifying, massively, for our purposes), it's time to dye!

At CW, there's an entire book about how to dye with their natural dyes. Since the colors are all natural, it's really hard to reproduce exactly the same colors. In fact, it's probably impossible. So when I went to buy my yarn, I chose two skeins that were close--but they're not identical. 

You can see, even dyed in the same vat, they're different--but close enough! The differences really drive home the hand-dyed nature of it, for me. 

Here's what the CW website says about 18th century dyeing: 

Nature provided the colors used in dyeing textiles in the 18th century. Today, Colonial Williamsburg’s weavers use the same 18th-century recipes for dyes – all safe enough to drink. An insect called the cochineal from South America makes the color red. 70,000 cochineal are needed to make a pound of red dye that can turn everything from leather to makeup and frosting red – including paint and textiles. Brown comes from walnuts, blue from indigo from South Carolina, Spain, or South America. Purple comes from the Spanish log wood tree, and turmeric from India gives yellow its hue. Orange comes from the root of the madder plant.

Wool is the easiest fabric to dye; cotton is more difficult, and linen is the most difficult of all – the dye tends to sit on the linen, in a sense, not in it. Dyeing was often done on plantations, using different colors of clothing to identify slaves from the same plantation – colorful and expressive folk art came from this practice as slaves used the rich colors to express individuality. (For the rest of the article, click here.) 

As you can see, the weavers at CW get incredible colors from their natural dyes! They were really beautiful, even more so in person. 

I hope this post gives you a taste at how difficult it is to make yarn, especially if you're doing it completely by hand!  I'm so glad I was able to purchase some of it! 

If you go to CW and are looking for yarn, I found it for sale in the Prentis store and at the Milliner's. Be warned: It's going to cost you more than the $10 skein at Jo-Ann's! But I hope after reading this you'll see why, and appreciate the artistry that goes into handcrafting yarn. 

Some articles, if you want more: 

"Everything you've been dyeing to know about 18th century weaving", Making History Now

"Weaver", history.org

"Weaving, Spinning, and Dyeing" Colonial Williamsburg Journal

Hamrick, Max. Organic Fiber Dyeing: The Colonial Williamsburg Method. AQS Publishing.