Look! Spring!

I love it when green things pop up in the garden. It’s still a little cold overnight for these little ones, so we’ve been ferrying their pots in and out whenever it’s below 40. Well, to be fair, Branden has been ferrying them – I haven’t had to do much pot-slinging lately. But they’re up! And they’re happy! I did the first divide today, and we should have real leaves in no time. This never ceases to delight me.

I also finished some yarn.

This is the first real laceweight that I’ve managed to make. It’s a little closer to sock in a few places, but 8 oz gave me 950 yards, plenty for a good-sized lace project. And the color!

This might be as close to perfect as it is possible for a color to be. I love it. Completely.

Want a closer look?

I bought 2 lbs of Corriedale roving to dye for a sweater, and it’s been very, very hard not to decide that I have already achieved the pinnacle of perfection and to dye it the same colorway. I would be happy to wear nothing but this color, but I also think it’s important to have variety. It’s hard for me to choose to be creative in the face of perfection, and sometimes I need to remind myself to find the unexpected rather than simply resting in the safe choice that I know I love.

To help me remember that there are other beautiful colors, I dyed up some samples.

All of these colors came from 5 dye solutions; one red, one yellow, one green, one blue, and one black. Different dilutions, different combinations. So many colors. I only scratched the surface.

I also dyed some samples of roving to see what they would look like spun up.

And I surprised myself by loving them all.

And then I picked none of them.

Because the one sample that was perfect was the one where two strands touched accidentally during wrapping. Coincidence. Blind chance. Two colors that I never would have mixed came together and made something beautiful. Sometimes the magic of the process teaches you more than all the thinking and planning in the world.

The roving is in the dye pot now, steaming away. I hope it’s as perfect as I think it will be.

Thanks again to the resident photographer for making my yarns look much, much better than they otherwise would.