Path of Totality; a five skein fade set

Yesterday millions of people (in the right place, with the right weather) got to witness a very cool phenomenon. For Tito and I it was extra special; we are leaving our beautiful home for the new house in 10 days, and it just so happened that, at the time of totality, the sun was right in our backyard, perfectly centred between the house and our trees. It was a last gift, a last beautiful memory of a home that we have loved so very much.

This image was shot twice; I stopped my lens down to f32, then I locked the ISO at 100 and made sure I was on manual focus with the camera on a tripod. I took the first image with the shutter set to 1/8000th of a second, to get the "diamond ring". Then I shot again at 1/640th of a second to get all that cloud detail. I comped the two images together and voila!

Y'all know I can be a little crazy when inspiration hits me (try being married to me, poor Tito!) so of course I was so inspired I had to get into the dye stations that same day, and work on the sample overnight. The yarn was in my mind, fully formed and ready to go; a five skein fade that would start with jet black and then abruptly switch to a light pink halo before descening into the clouds of slate, taupe and deepest blues. It's hard to capture the surreal quality of light but I think we did it.

By popular request, see below for options to purchase the print as well. I will definitely go back to having the inspiration photo as a postcard in my shipments, so you will get a copy of the image regardless, but if you want a beautiful enlargement on fine art paper, I got you covered :)

Yardage Information for fade sets

115g skeins

Point Pelee: 625 yds (3125 yds total)
Manitoulin: 420 yds (2100 yds total)
Killarney: 420 yds (2100 yds total)
Huron: 420 yds (2100 yds total)
Muskoka DK: 280 yds (1400 yds total)
Niagara: 490 yds (2450 yds total)
Simcoe: 200 yds (1000 yds total)

50g skeins

Point Pelee: 275 yds (1375 yds total)
Killarney: 190 yds (950 yds total)
Manitoulin: 185 yds (925 yds total)
Simcoe: 92 yds (460 yds total)
Muskoka: 120 yds (600 yds total)
Huron: 205 yds (1025 yds total)
Niagara: 250 yds (1250 yds total)

Anne of Green Gables

Anne is special to all of us. Growing up I often felt that I could not relate to the kids in the children’s books I was exposed to, but I feel that everyone can see themselves in Anne, her tenderness, her love of romance and words, her search for love and family, and even her loneliness with only a vivid imagination for comfort. I wanted to do my very best, to honour what the books mean to so many. I hope you feel I got there.

Anne is a series of 6 tonal yarns, lovingly painted, each based on a paragraph from the book. She will come on 115g skeins, in 7 delicious bases. I dyed it 3 times before I was really happy, and it turned out that tonals, not gradients, were the right language. So I hope those of you hoping for a mega gradient will forgive me, but it just wasn’t the right visual language for Anne. I needed free-hand painting, whimsy, and, yes, freckles.

All the inspiration quotes below are from the book "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery, written in 1908.

Available Bases:

Killarney Sock {Fingering weight}
80% Merino / 20% Nylon

Huron MCN Sock {Fingering weight}
70% Merino / 20% Cashmere / 10% Nylon

Point Pelee MCN {Heavy Lace weight}
80% Merino / 10% Cashmere / 10% Nylon

Manitoulin Sparkle {Fingering weight}
80% Merino / 10% Cashmere / 10% Stellina

Niagara Silk Singles {Fingering weight}
75% Merino / 15% Cashmere / 10% Silk

Simcoe Worsted
80% Merino / 10% Cashmere / 10% Nylon

Muskoka MCN DK
80% Merino / 10% Cashmere / 10% Nylon | 3-ply |

Because most of our yarns are dyed-to-order, please note that it will take a few weeks to get your order dyed and ready for you. Most yarns take an average of 4-6 weeks, and mega gradients can take up to 8. We are a two-person company and we hand-paint every precious yard using our own super secret method, I promise the wait is worth it! If there is a colour you want that you don't see here please fill out this form and tell us :)

Anne with an 'e'

“A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, which looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others. So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.”

Woodsy & Wild & Lonesome

On the right hand, scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken by long years of tussle with the gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep red sandstone cliffs, so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness than the sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Down at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandy coves inlaid with pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, shimmering and blue, and over it soared the gulls, their pinions flashing silvery in the sunlight.

Green Gables

They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child’s eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise.

The White Way of Delight

The “Avenue,” so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.

Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb.

The Fairy Glass

“We keep it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind their chicken house. It’s all full of rainbows--just little young rainbows that haven’t grown big yet--and Diana’s mother told her it was broken off a hanging lamp they once had. But it’s nice to imagine the fairies lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it the fairy glass.”

The Lake of Shining Waters

“When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-- “a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.

“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.””

The Entire Anne Collection

Here you will find the entire collection of the Anne colourways, in either 115g or 50g skeins.