Variegated

Cleaning today, but I did get a little time for sewing . . . then the light goes! Anyway here are my last two stitches, just one more and I will be caught up. As we are nearing the 52 mark Anne has found some combined stitches - so a threaded backstitch and a raised chain stitch. I liked the latter - it needed a' ladder' of straight stitches and then chains worked on each 'rung'. 

I like using variegated threads for these kind of stitches as the changes in colour are more effective than solid colour. The only thing I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last week was a few variegated threads - there is one here. A lady dyes all her threads and she brought a huge range to the show. They were very popular, especially the variegated ones. 

I was thinking of the word 'variegated' - diversified especially with colours in patches. Linked to 'variety', vary etc. I presume the word has a similar meaning when applied to plants, but I wouldn't know about that. 

The thread beside it is a length of cotton thread dyed at the same time as we did fabrics in indigo. I presume we tied the skeins of thread at intervals so the dye didn't get to all of the thread. Not really variegated then, but nice to use - I used it to do the chains.