This morning I was out in the pouring rain photographing the sparkly yarn I've dyed for Saturday's 7am update... obviously the yarn was kept under the garden brolly but myself & camera ended up stood just outside the edge of it. I had woollies (handknits, obvs) and a waterproof on, and ended up creating a rainhat for my camera out of parcel tape and a sandwich bag. As you do. Anyway, this all means that all of the yarn photos are now up in the Facebook event page for this update, so you can see that HERE. If you mark yourself as 'interested', Facebook will send you a reminder both the day before and on the day, which is quite handy.
This yarn is a one-off lot that we've got in lieu of the sparkly yarn that we'll have going forwards from about September/October onwards from our main supplier. So you'll notice that for a start the hank/skein circumference is really long, which is unusual for us. I've test-knitted it, and although I think it looks quite woolly in the skein, it knits up exactly how you'd expect a bouncy superwash merino/silk/sparkle blend to; it's crisp, smooth, soft, and has good stitch definition.
I have dyed lots of pastels, because I thought sparkly yarn would look really pretty with my floral colours, but I did also go off the other end a bit and do quite a few darker shades - again, they work well with the sparkly because they show it off.
There's even a decent red (Apeldoorn Tulip) - I don't often do reds (no idea why!)!
And there are greens, of course.
Now, we have sent out a newsletter today about this update, but we'll be sending out a reminder on Friday as well, because it's happening quite early on Saturday morning (7am) so might require an alarm setting! So if you're not already on the newsletter but would like to be, you can join HERE.
Before I finish I thought it might be nice to tell you a bit more about the stars of the show from my garden. At the top are hydrangeas; a plant I used to dislike for being too brash and leggy. However these days I've learned that if you keep them nice they can be really beautiful, especially when they're like this - a cacophony of delicate colours. It's exactly this kind of thing that inspires my work the most, and I hope that shows through. I even love the creams and golds of the starting-to-die petals.
Moving on, left to right we have: achillea terracotta (aka yarrow); heuchera Little Cutie Coco; festuca glauca 'Intense Blue' (blue fescue grass - the colour is a soft smoky teal, it's really beautiful); Achillea King Alfred (yarrow; a short variety); Lavender augustifolia 'hidcote'; Physostegia virginiana 'Crystal Peak White' (known as the 'obedient plant' - is a member of the mint family); Veronica longifola 'Pink Eveline' (I think - I need to pop outside and check this); heuchera Plum Royale Shiny; and finally a string of small-leaved and profuse hedera (ivy - it's handy for softening edges and filling out areas quickly).
Of course, after cutting all of these from my garden, and bearing in mind that my border is in its earliest stages and therefore there aren't many of each of the flowers... there's no way I'm about to just chuck them in the brown bin, so I've got them in a (handcrafted from the Lake District) jug on the kitchen windowsill where I work. I will undoubtedly keep them until they're definitely dead - I'm not one for binning flowers until they really have absolutely had it!
