Category: Tweed Chronicles

Ajrakh cloth, a timeless textile art originating from the Sindh region, is one of those artful things that I love. I brought it down to make a beautiful & cozy space to spend a lot of time in, a place I am now calling The Tweed House ( previously known as the tiny house , repurposed for a place to dye and card wool ), but I wasn’t expecting it to be such a beautiful backdrop with the afternoon light streaming in, making short light for a photographic effect I love most. Just sitting on the Ajrakh covered futon, with drop spindle and carders in hand, listening to the dye pot rattle, and sipping a tasty cup of coffee, in the woods … well, it just doesn’t get any cozier than that!

This particular blend is inspired by the traditional madder red and blue of Ajrakh, but also rich browns and golds too, a blend of three colors in equal amounts, which when combined together create more beautiful depth of colors, attempting to blend together the colors of the block prints I love. The trick I am finding is not to blend too much, so that the individual colors are still present and not too fused into each other, so the little bumps of color show in the spinning. I kept track of the dye amounts to get the deep madder red wool, and surprised myself, and the deep gold color does just seem to belong, then finally the turquoise is the gem color that pops, tones it all down and brings all the colors together, and this one is so far my favorite. But there needs to be some refinements before I write the recipe, and you can see Tweed Notes below.

♣   Tweed Notes  ♣

• Fiber: Dyed Merino wool (dye recipes are not yet decided).
• Measured: 1g my own “Madder Red”, 1g my own “Ajrakh Gold” (in Sindh region is achieved from pomegranate peel and/or turmeric), 1g Turquoise Blue.
• What I will do differently next time: I will experiment on achieving a truer yet still bright indigo blue mixing different powdered dyes, but the red and the gold are spot on, because although the individual colors are maybe too bright and not exactly the same as the natural dye used in block printing ajrakh , the combination creates a perfect mixture which, in my opinion, tones all the colors down and gives the feel of the ajrakh.

The vernal equinox has arrived, and the days are now racing by. Over the long reluctant winter, I’ve been spinning quite a bit, and these finished skeins are my favorite of them all, a colorway I want to spin again and again, this apricot & gold wooly confection. The dominant color mood is like the inevitable spring, through the grey of vernal rain clouds, bursts of amber, gold, and pink, create a rich deep apricot color all mixed together, and seems to define my coloring. Photographing was, as usual, a disappointment, impossible to grasp all the colors uniquely. The skeins have a little bit of a story behind them, and to get the spinning notes right I had to do some guessing, but managed to write them out so I can repeat this in the future. The sky is greying again, we’re expecting rain again, I am so in the mood to knit another sweater, but there is likely not quite enough yardage from this experimental batch, so will do another Apricot Tweed soon.

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Techy stuff for Apricot Tweed

• See Speed Tweed #2 recipe carded December of 2023. The mix of pinks and amber created a deep apricot or terracotta color.
• After I spun two skeins from the batch, I thought it was too bright for my liking so I put the rest of the unspun wool in the closet for a few months.
• Eventually I re-carded the remaining wool, cut in with Wool Of The Andes Mink Heather Roving– the color of sand, about 100g I think, as well as some other colors I did not keep track of, but definitely some topaz bamboo, which I will do more of next time, for it creates streaks of shimmering gold!
• Yarn is 2ply bulky weight, 400g total.