Halloween Roundup!

Some year, I will find myself approaching the night when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest and I will be pulling scarves and bags off of my loom in colorways dedicated to the three witches in Macbeth or to the legendary medieval flying salves as a celebration of this particularly witchy time of year.

Alas, that year is not this year. The studio is deep in the midst of transition and my timing in seasonal projects is as abjectly off kilter as it ever was.

However, I do have a seasonal thing or three floating around the shop so if seasonal crafting is your happy place, click through and take a look.

There’s one single solitary candy corn stitch marker left. I adore candy corn, and now that I’m having to avoid commercial chocolate due to dairy intolerances, I’m even more fond of it. I know, them’s fighting words apparently.

Halloween Spice on Snowy Day Sock Yarn

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This is a one of a kind skein on an eco processed organic merino sport weight yarn

Hallowe’en is a catch-all collection of one of a kind skeins intuitively dyed in shades of purple, black, and orange.

Samhain on Snowy Day Sock

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Potions inspired one of a kind braid of superwash merino/tencel

One of a kind braid of superwash merino/tencel inspired by cauldrons full of bubbling potions.

The Potions collection is inspired by bubbling cauldrons and dyed intuitively in shades of green of purple for one of a kind results.

Wishing you a Blessed Samhain and a Happy Halloween.

The Queen of Pentacles in the Dye Garden

The Queen of Pentacles has always been the card I choose to represent myself, whether for a tarot spread, a spell, or just for fun.  Specifically THIS Queen of Pentacles, from this deck (the Morgan-Greer, if you're curious).  I'm a little bit blown away by just how perfectly these colors work for the card.  

I went into the Dye Garden dye day with my local Guild thinking that I would use the wool I played with as a weft for a personal piece, and when these colors came out of the dye pot I knew just what the piece was going to be about.

I still have a bit of experimenting to do: these skeins were mordanted with a combination of alum and cream of tartar.  Other traditional mordants include copper and iron, both of which are useful as post-dye mordants to shift the colors.  So I made sure to dye 3 mini skeins of almost every plant color here and once the woodstove is going for the winter, I'll simmer a skein of each color in a copper cauldron I happen to have and a skein of each in a cast iron dutch oven.  I'm excited to see how much more variety that might give my colors!  

Represented here are colors from tansy, marigold, indigo, a relative of the borage plant known as bug-loss, coreopsis, black eyed susan, and a pot of gleanings from my yard and woods including birch and alder and aspen and yarrow and rhubarb leaves.

This wool will go on the upcoming Minor Arcana warp to represent the Queen of Pentacles.  Every piece on the warp will be unique, representing a different card, with most woven in all undyed yarns and then whole-cloth dyed after weaving in a variety of techniques.