Inspiration Saturday: Cranberry Orange

Last Thursday, in the final sleep before starting the Crawl (Crawl Eve, if you will), my subconscious revealed just how excited I was about the impending yarn roadtrip by having me dream about it.  And in my dream I was on the Crawl and found a yarn in a color that is not my usual color.  I'm usually drawn to jewel tones.  Bright, saturated, and leaning towards the blue-toned.  But in my dream, there I was, buying a skein of orange yarn.  But not just orange.  A cranberry orange.  I think this was my subconscious again blending my foodie craving for all things fall-flavored, like pumpkin and cranberry, with a just-as-powerful fiber craving.

This was in the back of my mind throughout the first weekend.  But it wasn't until the final stop that my dream came to life.  You might have spotted it in my WIP Wednesday post:

It's the Plumage Ltd from Little Green Finch, a local dyer who just happened to be in the store.  I had a fabulous time chatting with her and playing the game of 'put random colors together and be amazed at how gorgeously they go together'.  I could play that game forever.  I really just need to find the job that requires me to match yarns and mix up ice cream flavors and I'm all set.  Anyway, when I first spotted this skein, I knew it was my dream come to life.  I don't know if I foresaw this colorway, or if she was able to read my mind, but one of us is clearly psychic.

And so I will take the lead from my subconscious and just share with you a few more cranberry orange things that inspire me:

If I were to try and evoke cranberries in knitwear, bobbles would have to be involved.  I particularly like the look of orchids & fairy lights from tiny owl knits:

Photo credit: tiny owl knits

Nice and chunky, and I can imagine just how squishy it would be in Malabrigo Worsted, as suggested.

Speaking of fruits and bobbles, I feel like this is also a good time to give another shout out to the gorgeous Blackberry Cabled Cardigan my mom made for me:

Less bulky bobbles here create a really nice texture in the back and on the sleeves alongside all of the cables.

Okay, so now I have to revert to the tastes that cranberry and orange evoke for me.  Since I gave my mom some props, I'll do some horn-tooting and mention the Cranberry Jaffa Cakes I made the other week, which had just a hint of orange:

These would be really tasty dunked in a mug of some Blood Orange Herbal Tea, from Tea Embassy here in Austin, to enhance those citrusy notes.  I don't know if that would be considered heresy in the UK, to dunk ones Jaffa Cakes.  But that will just be our little secret, no one needs to tell them.

And I can't talk about cranberries without passing on the recipe I use for cranberry sauce.  I use the one from Stephanie O'Dea from A Year of Slow Cooking.  Again, it's cranberry, but it's enhanced with the flavor and acidity of orange.  We don't just make this for Thanksgiving to go with the turkey and dressing, I end up making this several times in the fall season, to go with ice cream, yogurt, oatmeal, fresh fruit, scones, or almost anything else.  No, you don't really need to use a slow cooker to make cranberry sauce, but it's so easy to just put it all together in there and let it do it's thing.  

And in the meantime, you can knit.

For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.