Top of the Month Club September

I love how the summer begins to attenuate in August; there is less daylight and the constellation Orion is visible in the early morning sky. Leaves are beginning to show wear; the greens are deepening and the leaves on the black walnut trees have begun to turn yellow, already fluttering down in ones and twos. The hedgerows are getting an aged look, a quiet prelude to the raucous colors of Fall. The sun is still intense, heat emanating from everything the sun touches hours after the sunlight is gone. Things are drowsiest in mid-afternoon when there is a golden haze of heat shimmering over the yard and fields. It seems that only the grasshoppers and bees are busy working, tending to the clock of the season and not to the heat of the day.

Ive worked to capture this song of late summer in our September Top of the Month colorway, Honey Meadow.

The wool this month (pictured above) is Organic Polwarth. Polwarth sheep originated in Australia from a cross of Lincoln (coarse long wool with luster and curl) and Merino (fine shorter wool, highly crimped.) At 22 microns, this Polwarth is AMAZINGLY soft; this wool is less crimped than Merino and thus more open and so is easier to spin. Polwarth is low on the luster scale, absorbing and muting color: very modest indeed!

The wool/silk blend (pictured above) this month is the much-beloved Polwarth/Silk, an 85/15 blend of Polwarth and Tussah Silk. This blend gives quite an instructive display on how a small bit of silk can really jazz up a blend: silk takes color deeply and adds reflective shine.

Instead of a companion tonal colorway for Honey Meadow, I decided to maximize the color instead! Introducing Coral Fields, which will be available by pre-order and in our Three Waters Farm Etsy shop. (Pictured below, Polwarth/Silk on the left, Organic Polwarth on the right.)

I couldnt resist spinning Honey Meadow myself. In order to preserve the chunks of color, I decided to spin a bulky weight yarn. I split the fiber in half so I had two pieces of equal length. One of the pieces I split into 13 strips and the other into 8 strips. My goal was to have the color shifting in the final yarn at different speeds, one fast and one slow. Because I have a history of falling asleep at the wheel and shifting the grist of my yarn, I notched a sample of the yarn I was aiming for onto an index card and kept checking the yarn I was currently spinning against the card. I ended up with 161 yards.

I love the way this turned out: Polwarth has so much Poof and the yarn has lots of bounce and squish. I dont know what its final shape will be but for now, I am quite happy to admire the yarn as it sits on my desk!

To join our Top of the Month Club, go here!