A Madder Shawl

The Christmas and New Year holidays are over, even Auld Yule here in Shetland has passed and it is time to get back to normal. Christmas decoration have been taken down and put away for next year, and hopefully most of the pine needles, the tinsel and the dust has gone too.

So I thought it was time to let you see the shawl I made for a birthday present. The birthday was on the 30th of November so I could not mention it here before then just in case the birthday girl saw it and made a connection.



The Madder Shawl





The request was for a shawl in Madder oranges. Getting the right shade of madder can be difficult. Usually getting the orange/red colour is easy except when you get really good quality Madder, which is what happened. I did a test dye but on dying the handspun lace yarn it was just too red. The second try was luckily just right. It did take time though as some more yarn needed to be spun.

Yarns used in the shawl

There are 11 colours in the shawl, 7 dyed colours and 4 natural colours. The dying was done on white, 3 grey shades and 3 fawn shades. I included a touch of the 3 fawn shades that had been dyed and a Shetland black. The lace edge and the centre was in the mig grey from the first dye batch after I reduced the red by cooking it again in onion. It adding just a little bit of madder red to the mix.

And I still have a nice batch of handspun lace yarn in beautful madder reds to use.