Mustard
The Lavold folks named this shade of Silky Wool “sandstone”, but it conjures up mustard for me.
And mustard brings to mind so many things – seeds for tadka, indecision at sandwich counters, Kajol & Shahrukh in the fields of Punjab, steamed hilsa in banana leaves, tangy nostrils.. but above all, it evokes for me a beloved colour, and a most heady experience in a Madras saree shop many years ago. I merely expressed the wish to see some mustard-shaded sarees with contrasting borders, and for the next half an hour the attendant had me awash in shades of yellow with red, brown, green, black and maroon borders. I can still see some of those gorgeous silks; alas, I didn’t buy any. My senses felt like I had squirted a whole bottle of mustard into my mouth and swallowed, and I couldn’t decide.
When someone asks me what colours I like my pat answer is reds, earth tones, purples, but I also tend to gravitate towards mustard shades, especially in Indian clothing. Like the embroidered shawl you see above, or like the kurtas the silky wool is nestled in below. There are many many more kurtis, sarees and dupattas; for years my father despaired of what he colourfully called my “monochrome wardrobe of chicken-shit hues.” This observation was as frank as it was gross; fortunately, it was also apt and somehow funnier in Kannada. This is the first time I reached for a mustard shaded yarn, though, and even though it’s really mustard-lite, I’m really liking the fabric so far.
This Silky Wool is most unusual and like no other yarn I’ve used before. Very close up its silky nubs have the potential to make it look tired, plucked and ragged, but it surprisingly manages, overall, to avoid such a look. The nubby texture gives it a fine, grainy and crinkly look, but it is also quite soft. It’s so airy and light as to be almost weightless, even on size 4s. At $7.50 for 190 yards the price ain’t bad either, and if it wears well with washing, this could fast become one of my favourite yarns. What I cannot figure out is, why, at 6.25 spi, is it working up so fast?
And look! I have a new toy, which I got recently as a hand me down, actually. A Sony digital SLR DSC F828, which has so many buttons and such a large lens I can barely hold it up; so far all I have been able to do is snap some general pictures and figure out its macro function – not bad, eh? It’s so heavy I don’t know if I’ll go slugging it around to shoot pictures when I’m travelling, but I gotta say it takes good pictures of yarn. If it can also photograph food, I think I’m set. So what if it’s like killing a bug with a bazooka, right?
