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Grey Skies and Moss Forests

 

When you live in the Pacific Northwest you have to make peace with grey.  The sky is grey with clouds and the ever threatening promise of rain.  The kind of rain that starts as just heavier and damp air, not even a mist at this point. It’s like the clouds are ripe and full of water but not quite ready to let go of it and so just slowly leaks out.  Mist comes a few hours or a day later and then turns into a drizzle if… it’s feeling especially spunky.  Sometimes and in some places it will actually full on rain, in earnest.

In our rainy season, which is about November to June, the air here is just wet.  As with any place one lives there are perks and drawbacks and there certainly are to this prevailing moist air of ours.   Like… most of us have some pretty awesome skin and it’s very, very green with the growing of things and… there is moss literally everywhere. There is moss where you want it, gracefully draped over rocks in streams, and where you don’t want it. Which reminds me I  need to clean the moss off the roof before summer ends.

One of the best perks in my humble opinion is the Olympic Temperate Rain Forest.  ~  See? It really is wet, we even have a rain forest. ~  I love the Olympics they are beautiful and magical and soul restoring.  My girls and I were  doing some exploring on the other side of Port Angeles recently and we discovered  a secluded cove surrounded by rain forest.

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Dripping in mystery and magic.

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I count my lucky stars that I get to live close enough to enjoy the peace and wonder of it all. I think a grey and  mossy color series might be called for.

 

 

 

WestKnits dyes…

A few months ago I got to do one of my favorite things: play with dye with another color and fiber obsessed soul.

Stephen West  came for the day and we had all kinds of fun.  We talked yarn, color, pattern, chickens (we had a batch of new chicks that the time), hatched up a plan or two and bonded pretty quickly over my colorway, pond scum.  It was quite funny actually. At one point towards the end of that day I had to take the pond scum jar away from him or he would have walked away with mostly pond scum yarn (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)   You know, I never, ever, thought I’d encounter another person that loved the scummy goodness of that green as much as myself, but Stephen, well… you’ll see.  As I write this I have the same feeling I had then. I was just so tickled that he got it.

Also seriously love the two baster dye approach.

Pond Scum rules baby!

 

Stephen and I came up with three colorways: Sun Salutations (sun yellow diluted with a dash of…yes you guessed it, pond scum), Greige and Nudie Patootie. All three are on the website right now, two of which are in Stephen’s stunning new shawl/cowl/poncho design, Batad.  There are a lot of wonderful things about my job. One of them is working with creative and talented designers.  I love watching what happens to my yarns and colors in their hands.   I feel my Worthy Fingering (kind of hard to go wrong with cashmere and silk) and our sort of subtle hues, Sun Salutations and Greige, sing in Stephen’s translation of the Batad rice terraces in the Phillipines, where he spends time working with the Ricefield Collective .

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Photo Credit to Meredith Ramirez Talusan for the beautiful pictures of Stephen and Batad! 

I’m in love with so many elements of this design and I can’t wait to cast mine on.  We also think our Marine Silk Fingering would be a nice fit for Batad and a little easier on the budget than Worthy.  I am waiting for my yarn to finish drying so I can cast on! I am knitting it in, Pining for Ewe and China Rose.  I’ll post pictures when I get it going. I’d say when I am done, but it might be a  little while since I am a spinning fool right now.

As always if you’d like color choosing help please don’t hesitate to ask. I love helping you choose your hues! Just email me at info@bluemoonfiberarts.com or comment here.

Thank you Stephen, I really enjoyed our color play!