Pressed Flowers Yellow Jersey
I’ll probably never ride the Tour de France Femmes and earn an official yellow jersey but I do have a few purchased yellow cycling jerseys in my closet. How fun would it be though to make a version of your own yellow jersey, well sweater anyway, with your own hand-spun yarn?
I really liked this idea and set out to dye a fiber for just this purpose. Yellow would be the dominant colour, naturally, but not the only colour because the fun and uniqueness of hand-spun comes from the optical blending of colours. To the yellow, I added some bright orange sunshine, a dab of greenery (nothing overwhelming), and some often painful tarmac purpley grey. I wanted the yarn to represent not just the prize but the beauty and the struggle along the way. Yellow Jersey, also affectionately called Limoncello, was born.
Yellow Jersey fiber slowly air-drying and returning to its gorgeous, fluffy, former self. Wet fiber really is quite sad looking!
I had a prior spin hanging around, a fractal I’d made in pinks and yellows. That seemed like a perfect pairing with Yellow Jersey. And the ever-popular Pressed Flowers Pullover by Amy Christoffers seemed like a perfect ‘jersey”, not only because the pattern used a base yarn and a fractal yarn but because the mosaic stitch seemed forgiving to this new spinner. Pattern and plan in hand, I began sampling my fiber. I pulled off a length of fiber with a full colour repeat and separated it down its length. I continued separating strips until I had a small amount to sample, I’d guess about 5 grams. Although the fiber was airy and light, I ran it through a diz on my blending board as an extra step before spinning. The tufts of fiber in the photos below are gently rolled strips of dizzed roving. It might seem extraneous but dizzing really does make spinning more pleasurable. I spun a singles on my Lendrum double treadle wheel with an 8:1 ratio and liked the ply back sample, (first photo below). It was too thin though. I was aiming for a DK weight so I spun some more singles and plied them together into a 3-ply. I knit up a few swatches, one with the Pressed Flowers motif and I met gauge. It was time for the rest of my TDF spin.
I stripped and dizzed 3 100g braids in the same manner as my sample. The piles of dizzed “lemons” were substantial. It’s amazing how much preparing the fiber diluted and blended the colours. The greens and greys toned down the yellows and oranges and provided some subtle shadows to the contrasting bright whites. Having the fiber all ready to spin made sitting down at the wheel throughout the 2024 Tour de Fleece effortless and enjoyable.
And here they are, 3 squishy Yellow Jersey singles and the resulting 3-ply DK yarn. Oh, did I mention the fiber is 70/30 merino/tussah silk? SOOO soft! I’m still a fairly new spinner. You can see some thick and thin, some under, some overtwisted strands. It’s all good though. As so many spinners will tell you, use your handspun. You can’t learn from it if you don’t use it. So, imperfect as it is, I’m using it.
Progress to date on my Pressed Flowers Yellow Jersey. The body went fairly quickly. It seemed quite short so I blocked it before starting the sleeves. It grew several inches and reached a length I’m happy with. The sleeves are a bit of a bother and have slowed my progress. Magic loop with mosaic knitting for me means loose tension and gaping fabric. I frogged the first sleeve and started again, making decreases earlier and more often. I might block the first sleeve when it’s done before starting the next. I am loving the rich colours and the heavy texture. I expect this will be my coziest, and hardest-earned, yellow jersey yet.
