Ochre

There was a time I would have walked past the Dutch Masters room, and spent a full day’s admission elsewhere. I sought splashes of blues, wriggling shapes, full handed strokes the painter pushed across the canvas in a full-armed wave. But it’s been three “half price” Thursdays, and all I spend time on is Papa’s favorite Rembrandt. I’ve worn a familiar dent into the gallery bench and cricked my neck at just the same angle, staring into the same portrait. I used to think: all those browns and shades of skin and shadow were so dark, so muted, so similar, one after the other in a line on the vast green walls. And then I paused. I stare at the canvas, a woman wading into water, hitching her skirts and exposing her knees to the fading sun and the stream. How is a painting so dark in shadow, and yet so warm? I take a deep breath, and I am full of ochre: garden mud in the ruddy sink; a hand-fired mug full of cocoa; the yellow light spilling across Papa’s table.

Words by Caitlin Ghegan

For more information about our yarn bases and spinning fibers, including care instructions, please visit our Yarn Bases page.

Please note that, due to the nature of hand-dyed yarn, no two skeins of yarn will be exactly alike. I recommend alternating skeins every few rows for projects using multiple skeins of the same colorway. If you order multiple skeins of the same colorway, I will do my best to select skeins that are the closest match.

I dye each skein with professional acid dyes and leave the yarn in the dye bath until the dye has exhausted before rinsing and soaking in wool wash. Minor color bleeding may occur on the first wash, especially with extremely dark colors.

Although I do my best to accurately represent each colorway in product photos, please note that the colors may vary depending on monitor and/or device settings.