Hello again

07.14.2008

I have quite a bit of accumulated stuff to show today. I was too crazy to post one week, then Melanie posted her beautiful stuff last week, so now I have to catch up.

I finished two skeins of yarn. The brown is suri/merino and I got it out of a traveling stash box. It is interesting to spin - not easy to make uniform, so I'm going for a sort of chewy yarn. The blue is the colonial top that I showed the other weekend - it made a much nicer yarn than I was expecting, so I'm spinning the second bobbin with a little more respect!

Each skein is around 4 ounces and about 225 meters. The blue skein is a little heavier, somehow I managed to jam about 4.3 ounces onto one bobbin.

I made progress on Garnet and have the front and back done. I sort of stalled on the second sleeve, because I got wrapped up in my sock (see below), but it will be done by next week. This is the body.

To prove that Jared Flood knows what he's talking about, here is one taken with natural light falling across the fabric. On the Sticks and String podcast, David asked Jared how he gets such lovely photos of his knitting, and he said he likes to photograph it indoors but near a window, so the light falls across the surface of the piece and brings up the texture.

Moral of the story: quit pointing directly at your knitting.

The socks I got wrapped up in were my Master Upstream socks in the new colorway of Lorna's Laces: Franklin's Panopticon. Ordinarily, these are NOT my colors. But Franklin posted a photo of a piece of William Morris wallpaper that inspired it, and the wallpaper sang to me for some reason so I had to try the yarn.

This is hard yarn to photograph. Maybe next week I will try it with my super-cool new camera and see if it comes out better.

In real life, the sky blue is less dominant, and there is a thread of celadon green that runs beside the yellow, which is less lemony and more limey. But it is a neat effect.

I spent so much time on these socks because I got the heel turned and then decided I should really have made the foot half an inch longer. So, I ripped all the way back to the beginning of the arch increases and started over. This time I decided I didn't want to be boring and just have the Vee up the top of the foot, so after about half my increases I sent back to increasing from the center again. It sort of made a neat effect, maybe you can see it. After I got above the ankle, I increased to have 64 stitches and started a feather and fan pattern.

What I would like to do with this particular architecture is find a way to imitate laces criss-crossing up the segment formed by the increases. I am so not creative though, I'm going to have to spend some time noodling around with a pencil and paper. The other thing I thought would be fun would be to run baby cables up the center and along each side of the Vee.

I finally got back the processed fiber from the fleece I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool. Wow, I feel totally vindicated for taking a chance on this beast. It doesn't look like there was much waste, judging from the size of the bag, and the fiber is even nicer than I expected. It has the feel in the hand of some targhee I spun once - springy and not as silky as merino. Here is a wee sample I spindled up on my purpleheart Bossworth midi (I still love that spindle best of all).

It is going to make lovely yarn. It appears that the fleece has the spring of the CVM ancestry, plus some of the strength of the coopworth and a little of the sheen of the bluefaced leicester. Very very nice.

Posted by Prudence at 08:15 AM | Comments (4)

Where have I been?

07.06.2008

I don't know. I must have taken a wrong turn in Ravelry and couldn't find my way back.

Cooper says "Mommy, are you in there?"

I've been knitting baby sweaters and many, many soakers. This one is knit side to side all in one piece with short row shaping for the yoke and cuffs. The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in the Blue Lagoon colourway. The pattern is in Baby Styles by Beehive, bought decades ago but still available.

This is the Leaf Lace sweater, an old family favourite, from Paton's #111 Nursery Styles for 3 to 12 Months by Beehive. It's knit in Louet Gems fingering yarn (2 skeins).

I don't have any pictures of the soakers. They've been put to use as soon as they're off the needles. I tried a few different designs, but the favoured one has turned out to be Curly Purl's pattern.

I've been doing all this baby knitting because of this little fellow.

This is Jonah Samuel, my grandson, nestled in my arms, sucking his thumb, aged 3 hours. He's six weeks old now, getting bigger by the week, and needing lots of soakers. Oh boy.

Here is Sivia Harding's lovely Norwegian Woods shawl, knit with Malabrigo Lace (2 skeins) in the Bobby Blue colour, probably the softest yarn I have ever used. There is a single row of hex cut beads along the scalloped edge - a bit hard to see, but they're there. I love the shawl. It was one of those "I just can't put it down" knits, and those are always just the best.

In the "what was I thinking" department, I bought some merino-bamboo fiber in so not me colours at Madrona last February. Clearly, after another drab grey winter, I was desperate for a colour fix. This is Merino/Bamboo 60/40, in the Electric Serbet colourway from Dragon Fibers. Pretty bright, eh?

But it turns out that I kind of like the finished yarn, and it was very nice to spin. 2 ply, 4 oz., 496 yds.

The last time I popped in I was spinning some Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino in the Under the Boardwalk colouway. Here's how it turned out - 570 yds., 2 ply yarn.

It has been knit up into my favourite 3 by 1 rib socks. Not identical, not even fraternal, but they sure feel good on the feet.

Posted by Melanie at 09:58 PM | Comments (14)

The dog's breakfast

06.23.2008

One of my weird Veil of Leaves socks is finished. It really is a sight.

The yarn is fairly soft and makes an elastic fabric. The colors - well, let's just say that they are unusual.

This pattern is the 'Cedar' sock architecture, it spreads the increases for the arch all around the foot instead of concentrating them in one or two places. There are only two actual increase rows, and they each increase 7 stitches evenly spaced around. Then, you increase another handful of stitches all at once in the gusset areas right before you turn the heel. I think that makes for a sock that is too baggy around the back of the ankle. I think this architecture would feel better to me if the increases were in two lines down the side of the foot from the anklebone.

The cobblestone cuff is a nice elastic top but boy it takes forever to knit it! You cast on a total of 144 stitches (for my sock gauge) using the magic caston, 72 on each needle, and knit in rounds as if this was a huge fat toe until you've done 3 or 4 rounds, then instead of turning that wedge into a circle and increasing for your toe, you knit the two rows of stitches together to close up this little tube, then join it into the round and you have a 72 stitch cuff. It is hard to describe but very elegant, although time-consuming.

You absolutely HAVE to do it on two circular needles, too. If you try to do it on 2 DPNs you will make yourself NUTS and waste an hour before you go back and start over on circulars. The 72 stitches are so long that you need a curve, and you can get that if one side of your tube is on the cable of a circular needle.

I am keeping on with Garnet, I have part of the front knit with the leaf panel up the center.

With the smaller gauge, the leaves don't stand out as much, but the fabric is nice.

Since I don't have much knitting, here's a cat.

Posted by Prudence at 08:27 AM | Comments (7)

Summer's here

06.16.2008

These socks look very summery, too bad I can't wear them till fall!

The colorway is from Sweet Sheep and it's called 'Surf's Up' - it reminds me of the neon colors of snoballs. The photo just doesn't capture the intensity of these colors.

This was based on the 'Master Riverbed' pattern from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways book. In this photo you can see the increases on the sole.

I could have made them taller, but I didn't feel like increasing any more to fit, so I just threw on a linen-stitch cuff and quit.

The next sock architecture I decided to try was 'Cedar,' because I wanted to make another top-down sock with that snug arch fit. After some dithering I decided on the 'Veil of Leaves' pattern, and because I just HAD to, I wound up my dyeing fiasco yarn. It looks like the dog's breakfast but I just can't stop, I'm morbidly fascinated.

I'm at the arch expansion now, we'll see whether I can stand this much longer.

I am working on 'Garnet' from an Elsebeth Lavold collection, in Noro Lily, and I've finished the back.

I'm knitting this at a much tighter gauge than the label calls for, because I've used this yarn before and I know it tends to sag, so I'm making two sizes larger than I ordinarily would. It is a little hard on my hands but I think it will look nice.

I started the other weekend spinning up some Colonial top I've had in stash for several years. It is a pretty dark blue with green and red through it, but it is just not spinning nicely. Maybe it's sat around too long, but it is not drafting evenly and I'm afraid I won't like the yarn. We'll get a bobbin done sometime soon and see what it's like. It has just been too hot and sticky to spin much.

Unfortunately, none of these projects is inspiring me and making me thrilled to sit and knit. But I want them all to be done so I can use them....

Posted by Prudence at 08:09 AM | Comments (4)

All Dressed Up

06.08.2008

This spring I knitted several scarves from my handspun Silkworker tussah tops. I knitted them as 'allovers' using traditional Shetland lace motifs. Next week our local fiber guild is having a show. I decided to enter three of my scarves. It's the first time I've ever gone to a show, so I'm pretty excited. Here are my 'babies' blocking on the bed.

Gibson Girl scarf in Rose Lace:

Gibson Girl top is a soft mix of sweet petal pinks, apricots and rose. I spun and plied it fine and somewhat loose, to allow the colors to blend gently into one another.

Rose Lace is a delicate pattern of rosebud nosegays set into a flowing trellis.

Subtle colorplay, intricate lace. A nice match.

Gumball Machine scarf in New Shell lace:

Gumball Machine top is a perky parade of long runs of bright candy colors. I spun and plied it firmly into a fine, crisp yarn that preserved the sparlking color every step of the way.

New Shell is a simple one-row lace pattern of solid chevron ribs separated by open ladders. Its talent for showcasing stripes has made it a classic for scarves since the days of the old Shetland knitters.

The rich vibrant color of the scarf is not due to matching up the colors between the plies. Rather it comes from color clarity within each ply. At any one spot the colors in each ply are pure, even though the color combinations are constantly changing.

Darling Clementine scarf in Crest 'o the Wave lace:

Darling Clementine top is a mix of cool rose, berry blues and sweetpea pinks, highlighted with yellow. I spun it thck-and-thin, in order to give it texture and an earthy feel to match its garden colors.

Crest 'o the Wave lace, like its famous cousins Old Shale and Feather and Fan, is an undulating pattern that brings out the charming colorplay in handpainted fiber.

Darling Clementine and Crest 'o the Wave come together in a scarf that is graceful, spontaneous, and fresh.

Three new scarves ready to go out on the town. All dressed up, they look pretty good. I couldn't be happier.

Posted by Jan at 11:44 AM | Comments (20)