John Arbon Yarnadelic

John Arbon Textiles has long been one of my favourite yarn companies. So, when Sonja invited me to design a limited edition colourway for their Mill Open Weekend, my answer was a resounding yes!

Playing with colour? Blending fibre? Learning a new skill? This collaboration brought together ALL of the things I love, and allowed me to work with folks I admire and trust too. Thanks Sonja!

Order the limited edition shade (and others too!) on July 6

Moonage Daydream is the colourway I designed in Yarnadelic, a range of gorgeous heathered shades in 100% Falklands Corriedale fibre. This limited edition colour is available in Sport Weight and Worsted Weight, plus as Tops for spinning. This custom colourway (and other gorgeous colourways created by Ysolda Teague-Long and Aleks Byrd) will be available starting on Saturday July 6 at 11am London time; but you might wanna mark your calendar in case these beauties sell out quick!

A deep weathered turqoise skein of yarn, with a spinning top behind it made up of the same shades.

Em Learns to Blend!

One early morning, over Zoom, Sonja taught me how to blend colours, so I could put together a recipe that could be reproduced at the mill. It was SUCH a fun process!

It’s pretty hilarious, because I went through a WHOLE discovery process after blending an initial shade, but in the end, I arrived back at (nearly) that very first shade that Sonja and I put together on our call 😂.

Two hand hards, a jewelers scale, a scrap of paper, and many colours of fiber on a table. — **The tools we used:** a jewellers scale, a bit of paper to write down the recipe, solid colour fibre, and hand cards for blending it together! The process was much more straightforward than I had imagined.

Next came the fun part: experimenting!

A series of different colourful bits of fiber, loosely spun at the ends. The colours are plummy purples, teals, golden yellows, and punchy greens.

I loved the teal I’d created initially, but I was also interested in exploring punchy shades of yellowy-green, and deep vivid plummy purple. I created several subtly different versions of each shade; teal, purple, and yellow. I even spun up short bits of sample yarn (just 2 grams each!) and knit samples.

A series of different colourful bits of fiber, loosely spun at the ends, taped to a bit of paper with the colour recipe on it. Next to it is a knit swatch in chunks of colour.

These photos don’t really capture the subtle differences in the shades. The entire process was such a joy to me!

Finally, after much experimentation, I arrived back at a fabulous, slightly weathered, turquoise, which we named Moonage Daydream, after the David Bowie Song – in keeping with the musical inspiration theme of Yarnadelic. I also found out Alexa is a huge Bowie fan, and Moonage Daydream is one of her fave songs!

Skeins of a deep weathered turquoise yarn next to a top of the same colours.

4 skeins of yarn in a dark green, Emily's deep heathered turquoise, a bright light blue, and a more saturated teal. — I think this limited edition shade plays beautifully along with other Yarnadelic colourways, don’t you?

Sign up now for my free talk! I’ll be talking about the new Tin Can Knits App, my experience of blending a shade, designs I’ve made in John Arbon, and spinning John Arbon fibres too. And there are MANY other excellent speakers running classes and chats!

What will you knit?

Antler toque is just beautiful in Yarnadelic worsted!

A close up of the crown on a cable knit hat.

And look at how gorgeous the Simple Sweater is in this shade!

A person in a deep weathered turqoise knit sweater, wearing overalls.

Both of these patterns look gorgeous in Moonage Daydream, and you can knit them both from the app! You’ll see only your size, tap through the pattern, and help is just a tap away! Check out the Tin Can Knits app here. It’s free to download, give it a try!