Last post was August 2025. Now it be November 2026.
I don't know why I post so compulsively on my other blog, Return to the Swamp, about every aspect of my life except making stuff.
August 2025 I said I wanted another Dragon Fire shawl. It got done. It morphed from "Dark Academia" to "Forest Walk."
Did I take notes? Yes, extensively. Can I find them. Nope.
The fleece I got was a natural light brown blue-faced Leicester that was given to me by a woman who inherited the sheep along with some land that she had bought, and it hadn't been sheared for two years so was pretty cotted. It didn't help that I experimented with the washing, using Ecos laundry soap instead of my good old Dawn. The small sample I did seemed fine. Alas, over time, the rest of the wool just sort of felted. I did manage to pull apart and comb enough to make this project (about a pound. The rest, alas, was mulched). I blended it with 25% tussah silk.
It was at the end of August that I was walking by my stream, trying to think of a color scheme, when I took this picture:
Green leaves, sandy brown dried leaves, and sunlight on the tannin-rich water. I had my color schemes. I spend quite some time making color samples, and then a ridiculous amount of time dyeing the yarn. The problem is that I wanted long color runs. Normally to make a yarn with lengths of color, you make a skein and paint the dyes on. But I wanted color runs of about 5 yards (dammit- I want my notes) so it would have to be 20 yard skeins, which would be a bit unwieldy. So I ended up making little balls of yarn and laying them (still connected) in rows, then pouring on the dye and setting it in the oven. Then I had to carefully roll them back into one big ball again. It worked, but never again.
But the yarn was beautiful.
The knitting was fascinating, watching the colors swirl. Because I had to dye in batches, even though I was careful with my measurement some skeins were less saturated than others, so what the heck - I turned it into a design element by having both end the least saturated, with the most in the middle. I had planned on making a 7-panel shawl - about 3/4 of a circle, but it took less yarn than I thought (I made a lot because I certainly didn't want to run out after going through all that).
Although the pattern is a bit complicated, with every row being a short row (you knit part of a row, then turn around and knit back) I loved working on it because it was like having an earth-toned kaleidoscope on my lap.
And it looks very much in place in the landscape that inspired it. Suitable garb for a swamp witch.
