Colourway Spotlight – Polzeath Breeze
As the name suggests, this colourway is inspired by the popular beach at Polzeath, on the beautiful coastline of North Cornwall. I spent a lot of time gazing down on the the bay at Polzeath a few years ago. I was cleaning a fabulous holiday let which backed onto the beach. From time to time I would look up from the seemingly endless expanse of carpet that I was vacuuming to look out of the windows and down on to the bay. The sunlight playing on the water was endlessly fascinating.
Using a blend of fine, 21 micron merino wool, sourced from non-mulesed flocks and Tussah silk, Polzeath Breeze is a wonderful mix of bluey greens with the white of the silk hinting at the breaking waves.
The Yarns
As with all my repeatable colourways, Polzeath Breeze is available as two different art yarns, the first being a thick and thin yarn plied with blue metallic thread with lots of tiny bluey green glass beads. Each skein of beaded yarn begins life as 50g of fibre, and about 30cm of tiny beads threaded onto blue metallic thread. Polzeath Breeze beaded art yarn is available here.
For the second style of art yarn using either 50g or 200g of my fibre blend, I take a commercially spun yarn, usually a boucle, and spin the fibre so it wraps around the core yarn. I then ply it with a metallic thread to create texture and little glints of sparkle. The skein length of both types of yarn varies a little bit because I am not a machine and that is part of the point of handspun yarn. Polzeath Breeze Corespun yarn is available here.
For those who love the yarn but don’t have the time, inclination or skill set to use it, Polzeath Breeze is also available as a ready-made cowl. Easy to wear, warm and very soft the cowls are perfect for the chilly weather and make great gifts.
The 50g skeins are spun on my beautiful Ashford Traditional spinning wheel and the 200g skeins and the cowls are spun on my Ashford Country Spinner 2. Keep an eye out for blog posts about equipment where I will write about the wheels, their stories and what I like to use them for.
