Chloroplast Blast! is the February colorway for the Bam Huey 2017 year of Color.

The Spinning Box theme for this month is Fruit Orchard.  I always try to think a little outside the box when following a theme.  I figured many of the contributions would be bright and juicy colors.  I thought about what fruits would make a good color combination…….I thought and thought and thought……  but nothing came to mind that I had not done already.  Finally it struck me, what is in EVERY fruit orchard?!?!?! Leaves!  Yes those every-shade-of-green-under-the-sun leaves.  Those beautiful leaves do so much of the work to produce those juicy fruits I figured they deserved the spotlight this month.

I used 5 greens in a streak dying method, meaning that all color is painted on with the grain of the fiber.  This is done mostly random with a little control….you know me, I can’t give up ALL control 🙂  The colors are then bled into one another to create even more shades of green.  When the Bam Huey Fiber is spun across the top, one end to the other it creates a blended color. The well blended multi single can then be plied with bright colors to tone them down, or match one of the many shades of green with a solid green which will result in a slightly tweedy look once knit up.

The hat was knit with a DK weight for the ribbing and the body of the hat with a light sport weight.  When spinning the yarn used for the body, I picked out the darker shades of green and spun them on one bobbin then spun the lighter shades on another bobbin and plied them together.  The ribbing yarn I tried to spin larger sections of a color at a time rather than blending them while spinning.  If you look close at the picture you can see some color difference, but not a whole lot.

I found the best way to show the different colors in Chloroplast Blast! was to spin the fiber one end to the other and Navajo ply.  Here is the continuation of the Bam Huey 2017 Year if Color Scarf using the Navajo 3 ply.

On of my favorite yarns to make is a 2 ply consisting of 1 ply  very thin and colorful, and the other muted and fluffy. I forgot to take pictures of the yarn before knitting, but here are the tail ends which shows what I mean.

I also love knitting little purses in one piece on straight needles.  I think what I do is some type of double knitting but have never looked it up to check.  On this little purse I used the Chloroplast Blast with a thin ply of Burning Bush on one side and the other is the Chloroplast Blast with a thin ply of Calm Waters.

I’ve done a video again this month, you can check it out here on youtube.

Hope you enjoy spinning the Chloroplast Blast.  It will be listed in the shop Tuesday 2/28/17 for those of you who missed out on the Club!

Until next time, Happy Spinning and Knitting,

Cheryl