Some people love roses 🌹, we knitters prefer wool 🧶, but if you love both like me, this is for you!

Be my Valentine, a new mini skeins set inspired by English roses 💐

I admit, I've never been particularly interested in celebrating Valentine's Day, although I'd never say no to a box of chocolates 🤭

I believe that every day is a good day to celebrate love, in any form. Whether it's for a loved one, a pet, friends or colleagues, someone in need, your hobbies or passions, your home, your garden, your neighborhood, your country, or this crazy world of ours.

Not to be sappy, but objectively love is what makes our lives meaningful, and what helps us overcome difficult times, and I would love for us all to celebrate love every day and in every small gesture. It's not always easy and I'm the first to forget it, often, especially when something or someone makes me angry. But we can always try, and remind ourselves, that it's possible to celebrate love every day!

Therefore, this small collection is not meant so much to celebrate Valentine's Day per se, but rather to celebrate love, in all its forms.

And with this small set I would like to celebrate my passion for color, and for English roses!

As I always say, dyeing yarn has taught me to see the world in color. 

Before, a rose was just a rose, perhaps pink or red. Now, when I look at a rose, I see the new leaves that sprout red, then turn into a series of copper tones before becoming their bright green. I see the bud, which may start as a small pink ball, opening into peach shades, with a yellow heart and pink tips, and after just a day or two, the yellow turns towards orange, the peach transforms into a skin-pink, the pink warms into an intense salmon, before slowly fading into antique pink. I could spend the day observing its transformations. 

Some say there's no rose without thorns, but I would rather say a rose isn't pink without scent. Until recently, I didn't particularly appreciate roses, because every time I saw one, the first thing I wanted to do was smell it, expecting a sweet and strong scent, but instead, nothing! Becoming passionate about gardening, I understood that in many modern roses, the scent has been sacrificed in favor of larger flowers, with more petals, or perhaps for more flowers. I know there are many scented roses, even modern ones, but I've become passionate about English roses. They are simple, with light and delicate colors, rarely red or dark, no variegations, and above all, they are all scented! I don't know, but they make me feel a bit like Mary Lennox in her Secret Garden 🌷

These are my small praises of love today. And who knows, maybe you, or a loved one, share these same passions of mine, and want to treat yourselves to a small gift as a gesture of love.

For an extra dose of flower power, there are also some new Wisteria sets (my beloved Wisteria), both in sets of 10/20 gr mini skeins, and in larger Fade sets, which would be perfect for the Sunset River scarf, which would look more like a colorful flower field than a river at sunset!

There's also a batch of Baby Alpaca + Merino DK, and if you feel the need to celebrate love with a new dedicated project, with a skein in two different colors you could knit a beautiful Cold Hearts set! 

The photos below are by Caitlin Hunter, aka Boyland Knitworks.

Thank you for being here and for spending time with me. See you soon, and in the meantime, let's spread some Love! 💖

Valentina