The Touchwood Project

As my Dad told me recently, I’m well on my way to the 14th century at the rate I’m going. Well nothing says medieval like spinning yarn, so today’s post is for the crafty types and wool lovers out there with whom I’d like to share my newest project: Orkney tweed yarns.

My wedding dress looked like this. All I need now is the hat.

Getting started with spinning

When we moved to this house, our landlandy generously left behind her spinning wheel to use and it’s been beckoning to me since then. Problem was, it didn’t seem to be entirely in working order and I didn’t know enough about wheels to know how to fix it.

Then I heard from my friend Victoria about this spinning class and the instructor, Jan, generously came over with her husband Andy to chat with us about spinning and take a look at the wheel. She then took it home with her and gave it a complete overhaul so it could be used. When I offered to pay her, she brushed it aside and it was clear it made her happy just to have the wheel in working order and ready to be loved.

We finally agreed that perhaps I could barter something in return, and I had one of those moments where I reflected on how much I enjoy life when you don’t just pay for everything. You end up having the most amazing interactions with people and doing things you wouldn’t otherwise.

A few weeks on, and I’ve fallen in love with spinning.

So much so, I’ve become obsessed with a new project for Touchwood involving creating my own tweed yarns based on photos of Orkney.

An example of tweed yarn

And not just any tweed yarns, but ones that tell a story. A good yarn, as it were. I’m calling the line “A Tweed’s Tale”.

A Tweed’s Tale: the magic of a good yarn

I love stories, especially imaginative, magical ones, so it only makes sense to combine that with my love of all things wool, of colours and how they work together to create a mood, our vast collection of Orkney photographs, and Malcolm’s knowledge of folklore and history (for those of you who read the Ideation post a few days ago, this is another example of Ideation in action — linking up different ideas to create something new).

The inspirational photo

So I’m taking this photograph as my first inspiration:

The lone house waits for the storm to come

I took it this summer and it’s our view to the southeast (the sea is to the right, out of picture). That house in the distance is abandoned — it’s the grand old house of a great Arctic explorer, John Rae. I can never quite capture the full vivid richness of colour, but at the time I was struck by the powerful mood.

The ominous, forceful rainclouds form a canopy over the cheery, unflagging wildflowers in the meadow. I’m going to call the tweed “The Coming Storm”.

Getting from photo to wool colours

To get from photo to yarn, I first used software called Color Schemer Studio to select the colours I wanted (slightly different photo but same colours):

Sampling colours

Then I take primary colour dyes by Landscape dyes and mix them together to match as closely as possible the photo’s colour. I used a great tutorial to teach me how to do this. So far, I’ve been working on the paler, more subtle colours and have produced these:

Some of the colours for "The Coming Storm" ready to be blended

(That’s snow on the wool, by the way. I got hit by a freak snow shower just as I started to take the shot.)

Uh oh

I’m a bit disturbed because I felt dizzy and nauseated my first night after several hours of dyeing and I think it must be coming from the fumes. I did it in our kitchen with the doors and windows closed because there’s snow outside and (I thought) a girl has to stay warm.

But I was determined to press on, so for the last two days I’ve turned the heat off in the house completely and had the windows wide open. I think I’m getting the hang of this no central heating thing. Copious cups of hot tea, two hot water bottles, and staying as active as possible seems to do the trick.

Coincidentally, I heard from Malcolm this morning as he’s down in Aviemore teaching firemaking, and he spent last night sleeping out in the snow. So we both get to feel we’ve had a memorable experience with managing the cold these past few days.

Chemical vs natural dyes

It makes me worry to use anything that might be making me feel ill. I’d already researched long and hard about the pros and cons of different dyes, natural vs synthetic, and had concluded that it wasn’t necessarily far more eco-friendly to use natural dyes because you have to use such vast quantities for one, you can need chemical mordants (chemicals that fix the colour to the wool and doesn’t let it bleed out) and some dyes (like that which produces red) come from South America and so you’ve got a big carbon footprint.

Of course, my dyes come from Australia, so who am I kidding? At the end of the day, chemical dyes were easier and I could create far more shades more quickly. But now I’m thinking it’s not worth saving some effort at the expense of health, so I think I’ll try natural dyes next.

Going local with Shetland wool

Some friends of ours, Chris and Howie, have a farm and even produce their own yarn. When we were doing the Power Off Weekend in December, they kindly brought over a whole bag of Shetland fleece for me to play with. Isn’t that great?

Since Shetland is just the next island up from us, it’s a pretty authentically local kind of wool to be using. I washed that (which took ages), then carded it, and then put it in the dye pot.

More yarns to come

I already have two other yarns I want to do: “Midwinter’s Tale”, which is based on Malcolm’s photo of the Ring of Brodgar in the snow and the story of the Dancing Giants of Brodgar, and “The Seafarers”, which is based on his photo of the brightly coloured fishing/diving boats in Stromness Harbour.

Since I’m using so many colours, and also still learning how to spin, it might take me a bit longer to get the finished version done, but I’ll get there.

Knitters and spinners, your thoughts please

I’m thinking of doing a super bulky, thick thin yarn because I had in my mind to do scarf kits, and I certainly found that learning on Colinette’s Point 5 yarn was a delightful and easy way to learn how to knit.

If I did ever decide to do more of these yarns, for sale or gifts, what weight would you think would work best? My concern with doing lighter weights like aran or DK — say, 4mm to 6mm needles — is that you won’t see the colours as much.

Perhaps it’d be better just to do the batts/roving?

Any advice and thoughts most welcome.

I’ll post again as soon as I have a more finished product…

Tags: crafts, good design, Orkney

Trackback URI | Comments RSS