Going green

     Moving away from my favourite blues for a change, this is my latest purchase: Sophia 2 ply cashmere from Posh Yarn, and Tony has excelled himself with the colours in this one which Dee has aptly named "Undergrowth". My photographs really don't do it justice, but it contains myriad greens from spring green to moss, emerald to aquamarine and more.

It's on the way to becoming a scarf made in a simple slip-stitch pattern; that's the right side above and the equally pretty wrong side below. It's invitingly soft and the way the colours are developing reminds me of a tapestry hedge or a skillfully planted border.

   

Another passage from The Virago Book of Women Gardeners seems to suit this yarn; here's the designer Edna Walling writing in 1948:

" I love all the things most gardeners abhor! - moss in lawns, lichen on trees, more greenery than 'colour' (always said as though green isn't a colour!), bare branches in winter, more foliage than flowers, root-ridden ground with a natural covering of leaves, of grass....I like the whole thing to be as wild as possible....I like a mossy boulder....I like to throw myself into an inviting chair in the green shade of a large tree with my books on a low table beside me, but you might prefer to dig and to plant. I like to do that too....sometimes."

Comments

[Peter the Flautist]

I agree with Ms Walling. I love lichen and moss (and they are such important habitats for the smaller animals) and rarely do I see the point of lawns. Apple Green (to which our human vision has the highest photopic resonse) is THE colour for primates with trichromatic vision.

[sherry]

Ooooh greens! My weakness.
Tapestry hedge is the perfect description. Moss.
Luscious

[Deirdre]

The colour is beautiful, your quotes (today and yesterday) so fitting . . . and now the title is on my book list, too! Maybe it is time to find out more about these wool sites! Thanks, Karen.

[Margaret Powling]

Such rich colours! How I wish I'd learned to knit, but then I'd not write as there are only 24 hours in the day ...
Unlike Peter, I like to see lawns, great expanses of greenness ... Just think how dull it would be if underfoot we only had tree bark, paving slabs or, perish the thought, crazy paving! I don't mind if the lawn has moss or daisies, but nothing can better grass for relaxing on on a hot summer's day, or for setting off trees, shrubs and flowers.

[Peter the Flautist]

To respond to Margaret, I love large areas of green, just not in the form of the monoculture desert that is the traditional lawn! I certainly do not wish to see an increase in hard landscaping, quite the reverse.

[Anne]

The scarf looks so soft and cosy. I feel as through I can feel the yarn.What a suitable quotation for the colour.

[rosie]

Green is my favourite colour(apart from bottle green for school uniforms). One of the best bits of advice I ever read was the sugGestion that if one was feeling overwhelmed with worry one should just look through the nearest window and count every single shade of green that was visible. There are so many (and it is even more fun trying to name them).

[Charity]

This is beautiful yarn! I love what I can see of the shading, and you've chosen a great pattern to show it off. The quote at the end spoke to me, too. Like Peter, I prefer the wildness to tidy lawns.

[daphne sayed]

this wool is to die for Cornflower.It would make a wonderful, short sleeved spring jumper too. you have such agood eye for colour.;

[Barbara]

You really should not tempt us with this yarn porn. What gorgeous colours.

[Peg]

I'm with Edna. Just now I have quite a bit of moss in the garden, but summer will come and it 'sort of' dies back, but come the damp in Nov. and it will return. I like the yarn colour too!
I have a large shade garden - once I was unhappy, as I wanted a sun garden, but the 'greens' of a shade garden make it so much more restful!

[Margaret Powling]

After reading this blog I spent the afternoon in the gardens of Dartington Hall, which is a totally green landscape (apart from the grey stone of the Hall.) What a peaceful place in which to walk and relax ... and everywhere, carpets of crocus, daffs just coming into bloom, hellebores in every shade from white to deep cerise, and the white spires of snowdrops. And birdsong. And then tea and scones in Cranks at the Cider Press Centre. What better way to spend a winter-turning-into-spring afternoon?