KnitMe

My Blue Period

Color me crazy, but I think I'm sensing a new color trend in my life.

Here's some yarn that recently came off of the Journeywheel:

It's a superwash merino/tencel blend that I Navajo plied for a sock yarn. This is the first time I feel that I have a really successful sock yarn. The grist is equivalent to Lisa S Sock! or STR Lightweight. The twist is tight enough to be durable, but not overdone - whew! I'm so pleased with this yarn! One skein down, one to go.

Next is a skein of merino in a color way called "Turquoise Jewelry" that I also Navajo plied.

This comes in at a light worsted/DK weight. I've got another pound and three-quarters to spin yet, but this is such a lovely fiber, and one whose color I find very soothing. My immediate plans for it are this. I've been drawn to this sweater since it was first published, but it wasn't until I saw it knit up at the Brooks Farm booth at Stitches West that I really got excited about making it. I think the yarn and pattern will be a good match.

Some lovely Shetland roving that I found recently. Gorgeous color, eh? It's only 4oz, so I'm not sure what it will be once it has been spun. Ideas, anyone?

Sheila and Michael Ernst must have been bitten by the same bug. These are called Desert Sky and Copper Blue:

and

And it's not just fiber and needles - it's yarn, too! This is what's crept into my life over the last year:

And one of my favorite projects from this year?

This is a sport weight , two-ply yarn that I spun from a couple of Crosspatch Creations batts. It's Sivia Harding's "Victorian Shoulderette" pattern. This is such a quick and enjoyable project - and only 250 yards of yarn.

Yup, I'm definitely detecting a color theme here!

Contrast

I have two things completed this week and they are wildly different from one another.

It isn't blocked yet in the photos, because I just couldn't stand to wait another week to photograph it - hence it hangs a little funny. But it's drying now and will be ready to wear by the end of the week. I might have to undo and resew the collar, as I carefully matched the center of the collar to the center of the back neck and it still went on just the teeniest bit off center.

I rummaged in my buttons and found some pretty glass ones that were sort of mauve with black - they harmonize quite well with the sort of rosyness of the brown. I tried to get a picture of the buttons on the band but didn't get anything you could actually see. Maybe next week.

I started knitting this in early February, but I started spinning the fiber back in October. I used just under 2 pounds of 3 ply yarn, and I have a batch of 4 ounces unspun that I bought as insurance. I haven't decided yet what to do with it.

I can't wait till it dries, I want to wear it.

I have to commend Vermont Fiber Designs on a classic and cleverly designed pattern.

Then there is the other thing that's complete, so different from the first.

Somehow the pictures I took yesterday just weren't that great. The merino/tencel is done. I spun as fine as I dared, but I guess it still isn't fine enough, because this is not really laceweight although it's skinnier than fingering weight. I got between 650 and 700 yards in a 4 ounce hank, and only had to throw away a teeny amount due to barfglobs during plying. It will definitely be a shawl although I'm not sure yet which one - it really does have a lovely sheen and is very soft, although I think I underplyed it a little and might feed it back through the wheel someday if I go to knit it and think it's necessary. (Although to be honest, most commercial laceweight yarn I've knit with has been underplyed, if I think about it - you don't consider that so much when you buy a yarn, it's the overplyed ones that are noticeable - but don't you agree that most commercial laceweight yarn is sort of floppy and loose??) The fiber was dyed by Mama E, and the last time I was in my LYS there was some of it on the shelf....

mm...mm...Mahogany!

I wanted to knit a pair of classy, comfortable and cushy dress socks for my special guy.
I think we have a winner.

The class.

For the yarn, I chose Lisa Souza's Sock!Merino in her handpainted Mahogany colorway. It is a perfect balance of elegance and liveliness. Lisa truly is a master at mining the rich warm depths at the heart of the rainbow. I knitted the socks on 2.75 mm (US2) dpns, in simple stockinette with a1x1 ribbed cuff, to let color take center stage.

The comfort.

Over the many pairs of socks that I've knitted for him, I've tweaked the classic top-down sock recipe (here) to accomodate Bill's wide foot.

I shortened and widened the top half of the toe curve by using the decrease formula here (p. 67). The wider curve fits smoothly around toes that are longest at the middle, with no seam to rub on the top of the foot, a feature that scores big points in Bill's sock drawer. Then I lengthened the foot to make up for the length that had been taken out of the toe. I used a Dutch heel (here, p. 63 ), which makes a broad, straight platform to stand on. There are no seams or bumps underfoot, and the heel flap cradles the sides and back of the heel snugly. Blisterless bliss.

And finally, my favorite tweak. If you look closely, you can see Pat Kirtland's innovative single purled seam stitch down each side of both leg and foot. As a car knitter, Pat likes it because it eliminates the need for markers. As a wearer, Bill likes it because it makes an expansion joint that keeps the top of the sock on the top of his foot and the bottom on the bottom, no matter how active he is. I like it for all those things, and because it adds a subtle touch of distinction to the stockinette leg.

The Cush.

Mm...mm...merino.
Mm...mm...Mahogany!
What more can I say?

Happy feet. Happy knitter.
I guess that's why we do it.

Which end is up

Things are confusing here. Two days of massive tree pollen followed by a day of sleet and an inch of snow. I'm not sure if I have allergies or a cold...

I finished the merino/tencel but couldn't ply it because I like to let singles sit at least overnight before making a center pull ball for plying. I used the flash this time to try to give you an idea of what this stuff looks like.

I finished a sleeve of the swing coat and started the second sleeve.

I am going to be fine with the yardage I have, so now I get to decide what to do with 4 ounces more of this dark bluefaced leicester - try to spin it fine for socks, and overdye?

Cats Day continues at a leisurely pace.

You can see the mesh pattern taking shape in the border.

Emily's shawl grows too, although more and more slowly as the rows get longer.

This is a scan of a pair of pants Emily has. I would love to try to knit this... but have no talent for such tasks.

Lilac, pale pink, spring green, tiny dots of pale blue, and charcoal. But - could it be done with only two colors per row??

Too early and too late

I hate this time change. Well, I hate all of them, but this one is the worst. I feel as though I was dragged out of bed before dawn but am very late at the same time. How can I be this late when I got up that early??

At least the knitting and spinning are moving forward. Here's the merino/tencel about 3/4ths spun.

It's almost impossible to capture the silvery sheen it has, especially in such a blurry photo... Maybe when it's a skein at last I can get a better shot in the sunlight. I am intending to ply it from a center pull ball - I hope that will work and not make me nuts.

I finished the Lupine Lace socks (Fibertrends, Evelyn Clark). Here are two bad photos. The color is better in the sunlit one, while you can see the details of the pattern better in the other one.

I made the smaller size in the pattern and it seems to fit quite well. I have already stomped all over creation this morning and they are not bunched around my ankles yet.

The yarn is Knitpicks Gloss. I like it a lot - I wish it came in more colors. Fortunately they are offering the undyed version so I can make my own colors.

With the socks off the needles I started a shawl for Emily. She has been asking for one for awhile. The yarn is Lisa Souza's Merino Sock in sapphire.

I am using the garter lace triangle pattern in Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls by Martha Waterman - it is an incredibly easy pattern whose repeat I can carry around with me on a scrap of paper, and it looks like lace.

The Cats' Day shawl still looks the same pretty much as it did last week. In an hour I can do one pattern row and one plain row of border so it does not grow fast. It's a very simple pattern, however, so while it is slow going it is not requiring great effort.

I did finish the back of the Swing Coat, and attached the shoulders. I changed the pattern so that I could do the shoulder shaping with short rows and join them with 3 needle bindoff. I think it is going to be very cool to wear.

The color shows up better in the first photo. I don't know why two photos of the same yarn taken in the same place at the same time should show up different colors, but that's the mystery of digital photography...

Well, that's all I have time for here... I'm late.

Embarrassment of riches

With Jan and Melanie posting so much the past few weeks we really have had some rich days here. I had my pictures all ready to post yesterday but wanted to give Melanie a day or two on the front page before cutting in line, but I just need to get them out there before I forget!

I had jury duty last Monday so I knitted 1 1/2 Dulaan hats. Here's the one whole one. I used Elann Peruvian Highland Wool from a stash swap I participate in.

I finished another one over the weekend and am getting ready to cast on a third. I committed to 5 hats this year. I used my favorite hat pattern from Frugal Knitting Haus (which used to be free but now costs a very cheap 99 cents), which I can now knit in my sleep. It gives a nice warm rollup cuff over the ears and is cushy too.

Cats Day still looks like a sack o' string but I have knitted maybe 1/3 of the vertical depth of the border.

It got put in timeout last night because I knitted halfway across the first side and realized I'd made an error on the row below and couldn't get my head around it, so I tinked back to the beginning of the row and set it aside to work on the swing coat which is coming along nicely. Here are the two fronts:

Here is the beginning of the back:

I think the back is brilliant. You would never know from looking at the photo on the pattern, because it shows the front, just how brilliant it is. It creates the semblance of a box pleat, by having a panel of reverse stockinette up the center, with a slipped knit stitch on either side of the panel to create a little pseudo-fold, and with the back shaping decreases done mostly inside that panel so it gets narrower as it goes up until, at the base of the yoke, it is down to 2 stiches. I am just delighted by the cleverness of this.

I made a mistake in reading the pattern, and did my outside-edge decreases every 16 rows instead of every 18 rows - and it's a good thing I did, because my row gauge is a tad larger than the pattern calls for and I ran out of length to the yoke only about 6 rows after completing the last side decrease. I have found a couple of teeny errors in the pattern, which I will post in our sidebar errata area once I finish - when you are doing a pattern in eleven(!) sizes, it's hard to imagine that one or two of those teeny numbers wouldn't end up wrong.

I am at the armholes now on the back, and just finished off half of my yarn yardage, so I think I will be fine with the yardage I've spun so far.

I couldn't wait any longer to spin something, so I started on 4 ounces of merino/tencel that I got from Mama E, who is a member of my spinning group.

Photos do not do justice to this - the sheen of the tencel, combined with the subtle coloring, gives the look of spun silver. It's very cool. When I saw this photo on Erin's blog I had to have some. I am trying to spin it fine so I can knit a shawl with it.

I also ordered yarn from WEBS, after much agonizing over what yarn I should use for the Cable Down Raglan in the spring issue of Interweave Knits. I swatched and it looks like it will be just right.

Something to look forward to when I finish my swing coat...

I got mine...

You can get yours here: Selbuvotter.

Go see Angela and Vanessa's beautiful glove and mitten samples knit for the book. I bet you can't resist buying it.

Comments from 2/21/07 post:

You people are way too kind. Your comments just blew me away.

The Perendale fleece weighed nearly 8 lbs. I sent 2 lbs. to a local processor to be pin drafted, and I washed and combed the rest of it myself. I wanted to see how the pin drafting would compare to hand combed fibre. Pin drafting is great, but combing is still a nicer prep. The yarn for Fern was all wheel spun. I don't know if it's the nature of Perendale fleece or if I was just very lucky with this one, but it was so nice to spin, very silky and lustrous. I enjoyed every moment of it.

About the i-cord short rows. To make attached i-cord, you knit the i-cord border stitches on the knit row, but slip them on the purl row, so there is only one row of stitches actually worked on the i-cord edge for every two rows worked on the body of the piece. Every few rows you need to work an extra row on the i-cord border without attaching it to the body to give it a bit of extra length. Knit the i-cord stitches, then slip them back to the left needle and knit them again, then knit the body stitches. If you don't give it a bit of extra length here and there, it will pull the edge up so that it will curl and not lie flat. I think I probably did an unattached row every six or eight rows.

After all that grey, I got myself a colour fix. This is Evelyn Clark's Shetland Triangle Shawl from the Wrap Style book. It's knit with one 500 yard skein of lace weight silk, hand dyed with lac by a local artisan. The lace is the fir cone pattern and it was a soothing knit. This would be a good pattern for a beginning lace knitter. The finished shawl is scarf sized at 56" wide by 24" deep.

I like the way the stitches flow around the cone motifs.

And the art shot. The colour is true in this one:

New socks, classic and conservative for work attire. I commute by bus, and warm socks are a necessity. The pattern is an old favourite from the 1983 Fall/Winter Vogue Knitting, and the yarn is Phidar Preface.

In the spinning department, there have been a few smaller wheel spun projects. The top skein is alpaca, about 8 oz, hand dyed by my friend Kerry. The colour makes me think of a frozen pond, frost covered and surrounded by snow. I think it will become a hat and scarf and maybe some wrist warmers.

The bottom skein is merino/silk that I thought was a tweedy green. It didn't bleed much when I washed it, but now it's more grey-blue than green. It might become more conservative socks for work.

This was spun from a braid of Fleece Artist Bluefaced Leicester. I wish I had a photo of it before spinning. It was a Christmas gift from my friend Fran, and it was so pretty that I put it in a bowl on th table to look at until it got the better of me. BFL has such beautiful loft, you just want to squeeze it every time you look at it.

Another new spindle (yes, I AM spoiled). This is a Spindlewood, 26g. in olivewood, purchased from Chamelelon Colorworks at the Madrona winter retreat. I love the wood grain and the detailing at the top and tip of the shaft. The fibre is silk from The Artful Ewe, also purchased at Madrona - gorgeous stuff.

And finally, on the wheel, superfine merino from Lisa Souza in the Deep Sea colourway. I'm trying to decide if I want to two or three ply it. Decisions, decisions.