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Thursday 24 April 2014

FO: Skye Light

Oops! I did not mean to leave it that long between blog posts - apologies! This week has been rather hectic; hopefully I'll be able to tell you about that, sometime. But first, I've been looking forward to telling you about a fabulous day I had back in December. My lovely former landlady (Hannah) kindly gave me some undyed sock yarn and also offered a 'dyeing day'; all I needed was an idea for colour. Now, I will be the first to admit that my creativity has limits, and being able to dye my own yarn left me somewhat paralysed by choice.

But then I started thinking about things past – maybe because of the time of year (as I said, December), or the changes that were on the horizon for the then New Year. I thought back to January 2009 (5 years ago!?); ahead of our final term at Uni, a few of us went to visit the Isle of Skye. We got on a bus tour in Edinburgh and drove out into the Highlands – my first time there. The scenery blew me away (definitely figuratively; almost literally given the shocking weather!)


Sadly, all I could find were these two low-resolution, poorly-taken photographs. Despite that, I hope they give you an idea of what this trip was like: beautiful if grey, with a light that seemed kind of ‘wet’. I thought I’d try to capture that in a yarn, if possible.  



Off I trotted to Hannah’s, with all this whirling around in my brain (along with the usual PhD thesis malarkey). We had a lovely day dyeing the yarn, nattering, drinking tea, and going to IKEA to pick up some essential vases and accidental Christmas decorations. I was pretty pleased with the result. 


And what pattern to knit with this little beauty? Why, the Old Man of Storr Shawl [rav link], named after one of Skye’s notable landmarks. Ironically, not one I have seen particularly clearly, because the path was far too wet to walk when we were there, but a fascinating geological feature nonetheless.


I used the pattern as my starting point, but essentially knitted it until I ran out of yarn. I've ended up with a small shawl / large scarf jobby - either way, I love it. 


It now reminds me not only of my first trip to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (with dear friends), but also of a day’s dyeing yarn (also with dear friends), so I really enjoy wearing it. 

2 comments:

  1. The yarn turned out so prettily. Have you caught the dyeing bug now?

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  2. Beautiful - and I love the story into it's creation :)

    ReplyDelete