back to the dyepot

I'm trying to get some yarns done for Homespun Yarn Party - someday, I'll get ambitious and create a similar event up here on the Seacoast.

I think it's time to really start recording how I make some of these colors. It'd be nice to be able to replicate some of my efforts, sometimes. Right now, I have a pretty good instinct for how much water to how much dye, and which colors to blend to make new ones that go together, but sometimes I'm sad when the yarns go off to sale knowing I'll never be able to make ones I like again.

These guys are springy colors, since I'm starting to yearn for spring. The bottom picture is my friend Emily's first attempt at dyeing - I love the eggplanty colors together and some of the blends that her different colors made when they ran into each other.

chevron cowl

For those of you who haven't met her, this is Cassie. She often gets stuck modeling my knitting projects. She's a nine year old amalgam of dog breeds. In this picture, she's wearing my newest cowl project. It's based loosely on the chevron scarf in Last Minute Knitted Gifts - I love the idea of alternating a strongly variegated yarn with a solid or almost-solid yarn. I also dislike purling, so working the pattern in the round was pleasing.

Here's how I did it - I'm not a very professional pattern writer, so comment away if you want to try this at home and have no idea what I'm trying to say.

Chevron Cowl

needles: 16" circ in 3s and 5s
yarns: CC - Noro Silk Garden (the neutral one) and MC - Mini Mochi (I have no idea what colorway this is). one skein each (with leftovers of both)
one stitch marker

I didn't work a gauge, but the 5 row repeat was about 3/4” for me on the larger needles.

total length: 10”. circumference ~20”.

CO 144 sts (or another multiple of 18) in CC with larger needles (or even larger, if you cast on tightly like I do), place marker, join w/o twisting.
knit 1 row and purl 1 row in CC (to create a garter ridge, to try to keep the thing from curling up).
join MC, knit 1 row, purl 1 row, knit 1 row.
next row, begin chevron pattern below.
continue to a couple inches short of desired length (i did 15 repeats of the 5 row pattern).
change to smaller needles (i did this to change the gauge enough to make the cowl stay up around my nose when it’s cold).
work pattern twice (10 rows)
work the pattern row (row 1) of the chevron, then purl 1 row CC (this will create a row of garter stitch instead of stockinette). work 1 garter ridge of MC (k 1 row, p 1 row), another of CC, and bind off w/larger needles.

chevron pattern:
row 1: w/CC, k2tog 3 times *kfb 6 times, k2tog six times* repeat to six st rem, k2tog 3 times.
row 2: w/CC, knit
rows 3-5: w/MC, knit

[i knitted three rows of mini mochi because the yarn is a little thinner than the noro and i didn't want the color to get lost]

resolve

My Knitting Year Resolutions:

1. to post something here at least once a month. even if it means no pictures and mundane text. just get something here so that i don't forget that it exists.

2. be more active in woolarina. dye more. knit more. bust through the stash with some handknits out of all the handspun that i'm accumulating. this should be even more fun now that i have my own drum carder*.

3. get to at least one fiber gathering, whether it's spa or nh sheep & wool or rhinebeck or something. it'd be nice to just be immersed in fiberness for a weekend to stay in touch.

*the husband bought me a louet carder for xmas. gold star for husband! i'm still trying to figure out how to use it well (ie so that it makes decent batts, of a good thickness, without being scared that i'll break the crank mechanism).

oops, i missed november

but only by one day, so i'm not doing that badly.

i finished a project, but i can't show you, because it's a christmas gift.

i bought some yarn, but i can't tell you about it, because it's a christmas gift.

so ummm... here's some corned beef hash with roasted beets and sweet potatoes to tide you over:

used the cook's illustrated best recipe as a jumping off point. so good.

once a month

i will try to vow to write at least once a month. Crafty Bastards has me back on the fiberwagon, so here i am.

business was good at the fair - lots of yarn found hopefully happy homes. a few newer knitters were asking how much sock yarn it'd take to make a scarf... more power to folks who knit scarves from sock yarn, but i'm thinking it might be time to test drive some worsted weights and see if we can add one to the inventory.

on my needles right now are lots of hats, in prep for a winter craft fair and a couple of new babies. my camera is still packed from this weekend, so no pics today, but hopefully soon!

Crafty Prep

First of all, the main woman behind Woolarina is now plus one baby boy! congratulations, Paula!

baby Oliver means that I need to pick up the pace in carrying the weight of the wool, at least when it comes to Crafty Bastards, a fair that we wouldn't miss. I'll be flying down for the weekend, yarns in tow. I'm still in the process of dyeing, so if anyone has colorway recommendations, send them this way!

I've had the week off of work recovering from pesky medical issues, so I've been entertaining myself by knitting on very small needles. I have a whole box of odds and ends from previous dye jobs, so I started making wrist warmers. None of them match, but they do show off the yarns that I've made, and they've been keeping me company while watching season three of Dexter and some Red Sox games.

sunny days

Okay, it's been years since I managed to knit a sweater of any kind. I know myself well enough to know that sleeves and seams are not likely to happen, but I have an 8-hour car ride to and from NYC this weekend, so I figure I should have something to work on. Plus, I sit in front of the tv for baseball games a lot these days, so more mindless projects will come in handy.

Thus, I've decided that Soleil is a good next project to put on the needles. I have a full bag of Classic Elite Premiere that's been in my closet for years that should be perfect. Wish me luck!

halfpi

halfpi
Originally uploaded by kismet09

Paula gifted this yarn to me for xmas, and i've been fretting about how to do it justice. it's a gorgeous handpaint from fleece artist called Suri Blue, a blend of Suri Alpaca and Blue Face Leicester, in the Midnight colorway. I finally decided on a half-pi shawl, since I had such good luck with the full pi shawl that I gifted away. Yet another mindless knit, and that's all I seem to like these days.

soxscarf

soxscarf
Originally uploaded by kismet09

i'm still here. i'm barely knitting. it was too cold to dye in the basement in the winter in maine. but, i do have a traveling scarf that made it home that i figured i should show off. it's about 8" wide, and fairly short, and i like it a lot. i was worried about what a bunch of different reds might look like together, but it turns out that they behave just fine. i have two more projects to show off, but i'm too lazy to code things, so i'm going to keep using this flickr blog engine to post them, and just make them two new posts instead of combining everything.

Pi Shawl

1208-shawl3
Originally uploaded by kismet09

this is my favorite knit of the year. It's an Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi Shawl, with yok2tog rows every six rows, knit out of a bunch of scraps that I have from various dye projects. I love the way it looks after being blocked - it has been awhile since I've done a lace project, and I forgot about the magic that comes with blocking. It's hard to tell with this lighting, but it's mostly dark purples, blues, etc., but it has all the colors of the rainbow in it. It took a very long time, and measures about 6' in diameter. It ended up being a Christmas present for my mother. I also just finished a merino/silk Clapotis that I meant to keep for myself, but my grandmother liked it, so it went to her as a gift. That just means I get to treat myself to more of that yarn and dye it up. I'm currently in California and stopped by a yarn shop with a wall full of Schaefer yarns, and realized that I can pretty much replicate any of their colorways, if I really put my mind to it. That's pretty cool.

winter break plans

So, I have 16 days of vacation! Some of them will be taken up by traveling, but a fair amount of the traveling also allows for knitting. I spent a good hour staring at my boxes of yarn and shelves of patterns. Here's what I think I'll try to work on:

Japanese Vines in a Louet that I dyed awhile ago and haven't found a use for.
Turn a Square Hat - Cascade and Berocco Jasper
a pair of wristers for the sister in law - maybe swirling gauntlets (rav link)?
A red-friendly scarf for a Red Sox Traveling Scarf project...

Basically, I'm just shoving a bunch of yarn, all my double points and size 5-8 circs in my bag. Luckily, there's a yarn store nearby when I'm home in case I need extra supplies, plus the sister has knitting stuff I can steal from.

Cash Island Wristers

These were a fabulously rewarding quick knit. First off, I love this new Noro, because it's super soft. I wish the other Noros were equally soft, because the colors make me so happy. I knit the first wrister of this pair on a weekend visit to friends - most of it was knit at a bowling alley on a Sunday morning (doesn't every bowl on Sunday mornings?) The second was knit today while waiting for the power to come back on in Maine - I started it at a coffeeshop, and finished it bundled up in bed, trying to maximize the last few minutes of daylight. Happily, the power kicked back on soon after.

The mitts are just taken from the Anne Budd 'handy book of patterns' - my go-to when I want to knit thumb gussets without having to calculate anything. I started them on sixes and went down to fives to make the finger area nice and snug (a few more details on ravelry here). They took almost exactly a skein, and are fraternal twins, thanks to Noro's long color stripes - there were no real color repeats in the skein. I still have ends to weave in, but I tucked them all in and took a picture -- this is one of the few projects I can share, since so many of them are xmas gifts that have to remain under wraps for a couple more weeks.

ready for next weekend

My yarns are labelled and inventoried, including the merino/sea cell pictured here. All the rest are also previewed in my flickr photostream. Come visit - Sunday at the Castle in Boston!

back to the dye bench

IMG_0897
Originally uploaded by kismet09

It's good to be dyeing again. All of this will be for sale at Bazaar Bizarre. I'm about 20 skeins into my dyeing, with about 30 to go. I missed it a lot and am glad to be back to the dyepot. The new setup is also making it so much easier to get stuff done. Yay!

workspace!

1108-bench2
Originally uploaded by kismet09

Among other things, since i last updated, I:
-- sold a house, bought a house, moved to Maine
-- started a new job at the U of NH
-- broke the top 100 in competitive Scrabble
-- was accepted to Bazaar Bizarre

That last one has finally motivated me to get my dyeing back in action. We moved into the new house about 2 months ago now, and today, I finally had things more or less in order to get to work. We bought a kit to build a work bench from Home Depot, and refitted it with longer legs, which means I can do all of my dyeing without bending over and straining my back. I worked for about 2 hours today, with no soreness. This is almost a miracle.

I threw out all of my old dye storage containers at the old house, but found some perfect tupperware-esque containers in town. I now have six stock solutions to dilute and combine to my heart's content. I'm trying to be a little more scientific so that I might be able to actually recreate colors once in awhile, but I admit that my last two skeins of the evening involved dumping small remnants of all the other colors into each other to finish things up.

Pi Progress

piprogress
Originally uploaded by kismet09

This shawl is great for baseball and Olympics watching - I barely have to look down. With all the tiny remnants of yarn I'm using, though, I do have to join in yarns every few rows. I'm knitting the old and new yarn together for 4-5 stitches, and then knitting the rest of the round. When I come back to the spot with the join, I pick up one of the stray ends and knit it together with the active strand for another few. Hopefully, this will save me from weaving in too many ends by hand. the colors look kind of weird next to each other here, but I think it'll all blend okay by the time it's completely done.

a shawl to be

0808-remnants
Originally uploaded by kismet09

I found my tupperware of remnants! These are little bits of almost all of the fingering to sport weight yarns that I've dyed for woolarina. They will become a pi shawl. I started yesterday, and it took me about 45 minutes to finally give up trying to start it in the round on dpns. Instead, I knitted the first couple rounds, including the first increase round, on two needles, then moved to the double points. I can fuss with it to make it look like it was joined from the beginning later. This should be a good, mindless knitting project to keep me occupied during our move. Due to timing of buying and selling, we'll be in a rental for a month, with no cable or wireless. I'm going to guess that I'll get a lot of knitting done, or possibly go crazy.

even further north

BadgerIsland
Originally uploaded by kismet09

As it turns out, we'll be moving about a mile north of New Hampshire, to Kittery, Maine, in less than a month! This is the view from a restaurant on Badger Island, between Portsmouth and Kittery, where we ate freshly caught seafood on one of our house hunting excursions.

knitgoods

knitgoods
Originally uploaded by kismet09

So, we're moving again -- Woolarina North is heading further north, this time to New Hampshire! Since it's summer, and since we're moving, all of the scarves, hats and mittens have been packed away in preparation. I'm in the process of packing my stash as well, and am glad to report that it hasn't grown in commercial yarn since my move from MD to MA three years ago - I have one new Tupperware full, but it's all stuff that I've spun or knit.

Spring means...

No leaves on the trees yet, but nice weather, sun and a breeze - perfect conditions for hanging newly-finished handspun yarns out to dry. All of these guys - plus lots of Woolarina Handpaints - will be for sale at the Cloverhill Yarn Shop booth at Maryland Sheep & Wool next month.