Advent Calendar 2023 Day 22

The Tradition

Day 22 is called Dia De Las Velitas and the tradition comes from Colombia and means "The Day of the Little Candles" and it is celebrated on 7th December, which is the eve of  the Immaculate Conception.  On this night small candles and paper lanterns are lit and placed outside both a home and in public places, anywhere they can be seen in honour of the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception.  It is not mandatory to work the next day, on 8th December and it is customary to hoist a white flag with an image of the Virgin Mary for the entire day on houses.  

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Shetland (Corn & Cinnamon), 30% Bluefaced Leicester (Lightning), 20% Sari Silk (Honeycomb & Goldrush).  We have blended together Shetland, Sari Silk and BFL.  The Shetland and BFL are very British fibres and this is a very bright blend, much like all the light given off by all those candles.  There's a lot of texture in here.  The Sari Silk brings streaks of golden yellow, there's some paler yellows, little pops of red in there as well and you can see a pale yellow from the Shetland and then a pale creamy white from the BFL.  Because these are British breeds, they're not as soft as Merino but do not let that put you off, they are absolutely lovely.  They have bulk and a good smoothness and they're not going to run away with you when you spin.  When you're spinning it you will find that the Sari Silk clumps a little bit but that's absolutely fine because it will give you texture, lumps and just make a really interesting yarn so that whatever you make from it afterwards will have just a little bit more character than it would otherwise.

My Thoughts

I really like this one and I think this could work with Day 19, Volcancitos as the colours are closer in those two than they are with Day 14, Misa de Gallo (Festival of the Rooster). The Sari Silk in this will make an interestingly textured yarn and I find Sari Silk easier to spin than Silk nepps, which I have been adding to a lot of my own blends lately.  This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours, that first photo looks so washed out and pale but thankfully all the colours show up in the photos taken with my Canon camera.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct, although the name of the day seems to read as Vetitas instead of Velitas, that cross on the second t certainly crosses through what should be an l.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.