50 Shades

Ten days from today is the first day of winter (or the end of the world, whichever comes first), but I am already suffering from the winter blahs.

I'm really not a cold-weather person, in spite of the fact that I have lived in a cold-weather climate all my life. I tend to bundle up and hibernate for the wintery months. I am not a snow enthusiast, and the long, dark nights make me lazier than usual. But the thing about winter that drags me down the most is the grey.

When I look out at my garden, which is my favourite place on the planet in the summertime, all I see is grey. Even the spruce trees outside the gate take on a greyish tone in the cold, grey light...

The view out my studio window offers even more grey...

My usual cure for all the grey is to spin and knit bright yarns. But this year, as the darkest day of the year approaches, I find myself immersed in grey, even in my work.

Yup. Every single thing I am knitting right now is...you guessed it...grey...

A shawl, a sweater, and a mystery Christmas project. All grey.

And over on the spinning front, things are not much better. I'm working on samples for a few projects, but mostly, I'm combing a lovely Gotland fleece. A lovely GREY Gotland fleece...

So, to break the monotony of the unrelenting grey, I spent Sunday spinning a fabulous hand-painted roving from Spunky Eclectic. The colourway is called Undertow, all blues and greens, my favourite colours. Dyed over a grey NZ Crossbred fibre. And as I spun, guess which colour dominated. Yup. I now have this glorious blue-green-GREY 2-ply woolen yarn...

I surrender. I am just going to have to ride out these grey days.

But I would like to point out that the title of a very popular book has it wrong. There are waaay more than 50 shades of grey. And I appear to be knitting them all.