January's "Spoiler"

Can you see the blue in the painting that I picked up on for the yarn? If you look under his chest, there's a lovely blue mixed with black that caught my eye. To that, I added little bursts of white to add a bit of light to the darkness of the colourway. This is painted on 100% superwash merino with a lovely tight twist - enjoy!

January's "Teaser"

I had fun with this one! I ended up being a little wee bit fixated on a certain colour of this painting which will be explained further with your package :) The teaser hints at the colourway but doesn't give away all - you will see what I mean when you get your yarn! Enjoy everyone!

January's Inspiration - Caravaggio

If you keep up to my blog, you would know already that I visited the Art Institute of Chicago recently. While on my trip there, I had the good fortune to see several different art pieces that were truly gorgeous and for this month of the club, I decided to draw on a piece from the artist who was having a special exhibit at the Institute while I was there. This piece is entitled Narcissus and I love looking at Caravaggio's version compared to Salvador Dali's. Same premise but such a different take.

Here's one shot I got of Carvaggio's work while at the Institute:


Happy New Year everyone!

December's "Spoiler"

I really enjoyed painting this one for everyone! I hope you enjoy knitting with it too! The colourway is called Broken Dreams and is painted on 100% superwash merino with a nice, tight twist.

December's "Teaser"

I had a lot of fun dyeing this one and to achieve a certain effect, I used a slightly different method for dyeing these. I hope you enjoy the yarns as much as I enjoyed dyeing them. It's always fun to see them finished as I never quite know how my vision will translate onto the yarn.

All yarns mailed today...happy holidays everyone!

December's Inspiration - Theo Den Boon

I’m a little early this month with the inspiration piece but I thought I’d try to get it up before the end of the month from now on so those that are wondering if they should join or not will have a chance to take a look at the inspiration piece and have a couple more days to join if they like the piece.

This month? I wanted something red. I think I’m in some sort of red phase or perhaps it goes nicely with the Christmas season. Either way, we haven’t looked at Theo Den Boon yet so this is the piece I have chosen for December entitled Broken Dreams. Gorgeous isn't it?

November's "Spoiler"

And this month's spoiler! I hope everyone enjoys this yarn - I'm anxious to see how this one knits up as the colours will blend nicely together as they knit up side by side. Now onto December...what to do, what to do? Oh, the colourway is called "Scream" and the base yarn is 80% superwash BFL/20% nylon which should knit up into some hard-wearing socks!

Also, if you'd like to follow through Facebook, ZYG now has a fan page - you're welcome to come on over and join :)

November's "Teaser"

A little taste of this month's colourway - it gives some of it away but not entirely! Hope everyone enjoys this yarn base - it's a lovely one for socks and should be hard wearing.

Everything mails today! Enjoy!

November's Inspiration - Edvard Munch

Yet another artist we haven't explored with the club!

This particular painting has a nice feel colour-wise to it for the yarn base this month as the base likes to produce matted colours instead of bright ones. It seemed appropriate for Halloween too given the title of the piece: "The Scream".

Yarns will ship on Monday - have a great weekend!

October's "Spoiler"

When I decided on October's Salvador Dali painting I looked at it and decided I wanted to go for something dark and moody. Looking at it closer, I saw hints of black with touches of blue that, if painted on yarn, could appear moody. For some reason Dali's paintings always make me think of the dark and mysterious and that's what I wanted to achieve with this month's yarn. Hope you like it!

October's Inspiration - Salvador Dali

I really enjoy Salvador Dali's paintings and when I saw this one, it really reminded me of Fall colours so I had to choose it! The painting is entitled The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and contains some lovely colour tones in it. Dali not only has a way with colours but his paintings always evoke a certain amount of thought. Can't wait to paint this one!

September's "Spoiler"

Really enjoyed dyeing this month's colourway as I tend toward darker tones as a preference and this one was definitely in the warm tone family...woot! Enjoy everyone! The colourway is named Velazquez.

September's "Teaser"

And here we go for this month's teaser! This colourway was fun, fun, fun to handpaint because as a dyer, I loveeeee dyeing dark and saturated colourways. They make my heart go pitter patter and I hope everyone enjoys this one as much as I enjoyed dyeing it!

September's Inspiration - Fernando Botero

I came across this painting and he made me giggle. No idea why because he looks so serious in the painting. However, aren't the colours gorgeous? It'll be interesting to see what inspires and jumps out at me when I get to the dye pots in the next couple of days. Stay tuned and welcome to all the new clubbers for this month! This piece is entitled Portrait of Velazquez.

August's "Spoiler"

As you can see, this month's colourway played with the undertones of the inspiration piece without capturing the most prominent colour of gold. Sometimes I like to do this as paintings as there always seems to be colours hidden in behind the most obvious. Click the image to see it larger. Enjoy!

August's "Teaser"

Here we are...I'm really pleased with how the colours came out and as you can probably tell I didn't do anything with the obvious yellow/gold colour from the painting...nah, I wanted to dive into the undertones of this painting instead and see what I could come up with. Hope you enjoy this rendition!

August's Inspiration - Vincent Van Gogh

Lovely, lovely piece that has some interesting undertones of colours that I couldn't resist! There's an obvious way I could have went with this colourway but I chose to go another and so far, so good! Everything ships on Tuesday, August 4th (Monday is a holiday here in Canada) and the yarns are in the dye pots right now...woot! This piece is entitled The Sower.

July's "Spoiler"

I really like this colourway this month - it's fun, it's vibrant and it's cheery. I hope everyone else likes it too! Handpainted on 100% superwash merino with a nice tight twist that will knit up into a nice firm fabric. Enjoy!

If you are particularly fond of this month, I have a few extras up in the shop if you'd like another. Don't hesitate to ask for combined shipping with next month's yarn - I can set up a special listing for that too! :)

Club Members Only

Seems I've been accumulating club yarns over the last few months and instead of hanging onto them I thought it might be fun to put them up for sale for anyone who would like to purchase another if one of the extras was one of your favourites.

If you are a current club member or a past club member, you're entitled to purchase these skeins if you like. If you aren't a current or past member, you're welcome to join here and then purchase an extra. Any questions, don't hesitate to email me at zenyarngarden AT yahoo DOT com.

For the current month's yarns, these will appear about 2-3 weeks after mailing so watch for those too if this month is one of your favourites.

July's "Teaser"

All mailed and on their way! Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians albeit a couple of days late and Happy 4th to those in the USA for tomorrow! This month's colourway was fun, fun, fun and I love the effect I got as the colourway is both bright and cheery. Hope you enjoy it too!