May 19, 2008
Better never than late
Dyeing experiments, that is. But we'll get to that later.
Here is the indigo dyed bluefaced leicester I spun up last weekend.
I am pretty pleased with how it came out. I think I underplyed it a little but it 's not too bad. It's somewhere between 275 and 300 yards, and 2 ounces. I have no idea what to do with it, I just like looking at it.
I finished off one of my Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks and am down to the foot of the second one.
I am still enjoying the architecture of these and I can't wait to see how they fit when I actually put the pair on and stand up. Then I want to try a different architecture. Of course, we won't be needing wool socks for awhile, but with all the lovely yarn I have, I have got to keep knitting them, now don't I?
I finally gave in and bought some Knitpicks Cotlin to make some hand towels. Of all the ones I saw on Ravelry, this 'Moss Grid' towel from Mason-Dixon Knitting was the one I thought looked the nicest. Lucky for me, my library has that book.
The design turns out not to be reversible, but maybe I can invent a variation that would be reversible.
By the way - is moss stitch the same as seed stitch? Because to me, this towel is all about seed stitch....
For awhile I have had a bee in my bonnet about this photo, taken by Lisa Souza in New Zealand a few years ago.
I wanted it in yarn, dammit. That blue sky, that slate-grey sand, that coke-bottle colored water. (I realize that nobody under a certain age would have any idea why I call that color 'coke bottle'. Sigh.) So I decided to try. I bought a cheap skein of undyed sock yarn (good thing I opted for the cheap stuff...), selected some colors of Cushing dye (dark grey, sky blue, and I chose jade green and aqualon blue to try to mix up that water color). I wrapped strips of plastic around the skein where I wanted there to be white clouds in the blue sky. I was so smart. But, feh.
There was too much dye in the solution so the green and grey are too dark. I didn't put enough blue into the mix for the water so it's bright green. I made the blue sections too short. Phooey. This looks like nothing.
Posted by Prudence at May 19, 2008 08:22 AMIt's beautiful! If you didn't have that picture to confuse you, it would look like Everything! ;-)
Love your transitions.
Lovely spinning. The colours in your photo are just great. I am sure you will get there with the dyeing.
Posted by: Lin on May 19, 2008 01:22 PMYou may not have captured the exact colours or proportions you were after in your hand dyed skein, but it's lovely nevertheless. So is the indogo BFL.
How do you like knitting with the Cotlin? It certainly shows off the pattern stitches well. I always thought for moss stitch you knit the knits and purl the purls on ther return row, then change to knitting the purls on the next right side row. That looks like seed stitch to me, but maybe it's all semantics.
Posted by: Melanie on May 19, 2008 05:16 PMWhat a beautifull indigo colour ! This yarns seems to be perfect , I don't mind it is underplyed... I find BFL is a bit rought if it is " overplyed".
Your sock is beautifull too !
I understand that it didn't come out the way you imagined it and so you are diappointed but it looks very appealing to me. Maybe you can adjust the color on the photo to match? LOL.
There's always more undyed yarn.
It's very lovely. This gives you the excuse to try again.
Posted by: elysbeth on May 21, 2008 07:15 AMWhat a lovely set of beautiful blue pics. I'm with Mel on the moss/seed stitch question. And, everyone else about the dyed skein. Might not be just what you were after, but lovely nonetheless.
Posted by: Vicki on May 21, 2008 07:43 AMThere are still Coca-Cola glasses that color. :)
Posted by: Romi on May 21, 2008 01:28 PMStitch names are just about interchangeable. It's amazing how many different names there are for similar techniques.
I love your dyed yarn. If I saw it for sale, I would buy it. I like those colors, like the intensity, and don't feel the least bit daunted by the photo, although it's beautiful on its own. I think you can cut dark colors with cornstarch to lighten them, but I am no expert!
Posted by: Joanne on May 22, 2008 12:36 PMAdd me to the list that think that's a lovely skein. May not be the picture, but lovely nonetheless. I hope it knits up into something lovely for you also.
Posted by: Mary in VA on May 24, 2008 12:32 AMI think seed stitch and moss stitch are the same. Not that I would want to be tthe family farm on it, though. As for the yarn dyeing experiment, it IS lovely. Not what you were going for, but lovely nonetheless. Keep playing with it. Dyeing is a learned thing just like knitting is. and it is not learned overnight. Try again. In the meantime, the "mistake" is lovely!
Posted by: Carol on May 24, 2008 12:31 PMO.k., maybe not what you were going for, but a really beautiful skein, nonetheless. I think you should say, "Yeah, I meant to do that!" and knit something beautiful. :-) The indigo dyed is lovely, too!
Posted by: Sam on May 27, 2008 09:23 AMLovely photo! Lisa has a great eye! Do you mind if I take a crack at dyeing the colorway? Yours might not look like the photo, but the color combo is still really pretty!
Posted by: Colleen on May 29, 2008 09:02 AMIt's beautiful! And that bluesy sock just reached out of the monitor and grabbed me--beautiful.
Posted by: AlisonH on June 2, 2008 03:36 PM