Category Archives: Nieces Autumn Sweaters 2012

Autumn Sweater Success !!!

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(  Autumn Sweaters 2011 in same location click here  )

My nieces in their new Autumn Sweaters.  We photographed in the same colorful Calistoga nooks we seek out each time we do the Equinox Sweaters.  In front of Calistoga Coffee Roastery, in front of the mint-green building on the corner of Lincoln and Washington streets, against the terra-cotta painted wall outside Brannon’s restaurant, and the best, the most amazing painted mural in the alley across  Lincoln from the coffee roastery ! These places just never get old, and they will be the back drop every time we photograph the Equinox Sweaters.

” Happiness is a new sweater knit especially for me ! “

Sweater success !

Luckily they fit, and luckily the yarn which I over-dyed became colors they both approved of !  Oh, and can you believe we were having a major heat wave of the Indian Summer?  I wanted to get the pictures taken before it got too hot,  and the unrelenting sun was bleaching bright, and nipping at our heels the whole way. . .

Autumn Sweaters 2012

(( Compare with two years ago ~ click for  Autumn Sweaters 2010 ))

And now, for a slideshow of the fun sweater frolick we had in Calistoga . . .

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 You may see all posts on the progress of the Autumn 2012 sweaters by clicking  here

Knitting details about sweaters are posted over on Ravelry here.

Berry Smoothie & Woodsy

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After the finishing touches ,

and sewing on the label . . .

I am done with the Nieces’ Autumn Sweaters !

I always like to give a sneak preview before lifting of the veil so to speak,

which is scheduled in Calistoga this Sunday morning , photographing my nieces modelling them.

( I can’t wait ! )

Let me introduce to you

 “Berry Smoothie” and  “Woodsy”.

Knit with  c r a z y  hand-dyed yarns by me !

( here and here )

Woods Knitting

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I took my knitting outside, one of the sleeves. I walked about, holding it up to the woods, against Madrone trees, against Bays, against the span of the woods, to see if it is indeed a woodsy colorway. I think that it most definitely is! So it is decided, this sweater will be named ‘Woodsy’.  The camera’s eye isn’t detecting the third color very well, there are three distinct colors here.

Woodsy on the bench…

Woodsy with Emma…

Woodsy down the road…

Catching up today with things In The Woods. I think I will be doing a knit-and-walk a little later (down that very road).  I am thinking it’s highly possible, that if I don’t put my knitting down for any significant time,  I could finish the nieces Autumn sweaters easily by the Autumnal Equinox. Easy peasy.

A blurry glimpse of my Emma & me (in the woods)…DSCN7209

Woodsy

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Over-dye madness.  Insanely intriguing varigations.

Here I have heaped the over-dyed green yarns for my Nine Year Old Niece’s sweater on top of the finished and waiting sweater for my Twelve Year Old Niece.

 The ‘bug-guts’ yellowy green has over-dyed

ever-so-nicely into a color

which reminds me of golden green tips of bright moss !

All the colors of the foliage in the forest are running through these four yarns in a very earthy woodsy colorway.

 I have roughly 200 grams each of four different greens, each with many varigations in their various journeys from dye bath to dye bath.


I’m not exactly sure what I am going to do with all of the crazy varigation.  Yesterday was all about dominating the yarn, now that I’ve had my way with the colors, not exactly sure.  I think I’ll let them dominate me for a while. At least until I get the sweater cast-on.  I actually love the challenge of listening to my instincts , and the yarn.  Sometimes this whole business of dying, knitting, and improvising is just  downright delicious  & fabulously exciting !

What I Want It To Be

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(The original sale yarn ready for dying.)

Here I go again . Ripped out what I had started on my second niece’s sweater, I just couldn’t handle the ‘bug guts green’ color any more. (see over there, in the sidebar, under the text entitled “On My Needles”)   The yellowy bug-gutsy green which was so neon that it scared me,  from overdying ‘bright yellow’ over ‘sky blue’ in a very saturated dye bath. What was I thinking? One Autumn Sweater named “Berry Smoothie” for it’s likeness, the other I couldn’t not call  “Bug Guts” .  Also, the deep grey overdyed with spruce is a little too sophisticated for the colorway “Nine Year Old Kid” that I had in mind.

Changing course is good.  It just has just got to be work sometimes.  And that work not always accepting It being what It Wants To Be, nay, sometimes, this year, this lesson learned, the work will be in making it right,  of it being what I want it to be. A mountain of work to save a few dollars from some sale yarn. Risk factor high. I may have to go buy new yarn , in the end, but, I’m giving it my best shot.  Oh, and in the process of taking dye out of some yarn the first time around,  the bleach bath absolutely ruined the yarn, and it seized up… like melted chocolate getting cold water poured into it. After rinsing all that mess out,  the yarn was hopelessly tangled, and I threw it in the waste basket.  However, after a short talk with myself I realized that Waste Not Makes Want Not, and I took it out of the waste basket, dried it out on the line, and then promptly hid it somewhere not to be seen,  in order to avoid embarrassment of my bad impulses.

So here I am now,  untangling that whole mess of yarn.  I will soon be winding into new skeins on the niddy noddy and dipping into a fresh bath of dye, on a Saturday morning, while watching the fog rise from the valley and drinking really good coffee.

My Favorite Mistake

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Now this is my favorite mistake .

I ask myself , how many times can I do the ol’  “accidentally grab the wrong needle end and knit backwards into the row the other direction” mistake ??? Obviously more times than I can count.  Yet each time it happens,  I’m a little dumbstruck that I just did it again. Then I laugh, and think to grab the camera and let you laugh too.  I’m glad *somebody* is getting entertained.

This sweater I’m naming “Berry Smoothie” for my eldest niece who asked for ‘light purple, and maybe also pink’.   The overdyed purply pink and pinkish purple,  I achieved on the yarns was by a very light dip in the dyebath.  No saturation what-so-ever.  The story reads this way:

For Purple : Woman dips grey heathered wool into dye, then yells  ” Oh blast !… this is waaaaaay too dark… quick, out with it ….. fast …. and rinse it out  !!!! ”

For Plum :  “Hmm… I wonder if this little bit of Jacquard Pink left in the container is enough for these five 50g skeins?”  Woman dips light blue yarn in dye bath… exhausts the dye-bath to clear in less than one minute.  Oops, not enough. Hence uneven dyeing and ~luckily~ interesting variegation.

Well, at least I did look at the colors on the dye packets, and I did pre-saturate the yarn in a diluted vinegar rinse before the dye bath dip.  Result was delightedly ‘unsaturated’ variegation of color. I normally prefer the ultra saturated dying, because protein fibers do that so well, and so well attain a depth of richness which exudes such sensuality (I think) and is unmatched by non-protein fibers.  A skein of wool (or silk) yarn only needs to look at a packet of dye to change color. Who said I am an Intentional Dyer?  Not me, the intention is never there.  At best I am a Hopeful Dyer.  I think I’ll write a book ” How to spin, dye, and knit completely by accident “.  Best-seller ?  Not.

But really,  I do love the color variegation !

A quick thanks to friends for  the comments of previous post, for setting me straight. I do think I’m going to do work on taking more thorough paper notes, and swatching, in the way of scrapbooking for a project, and maybe virtually too in some capacity ~ incorporating the old-fashioned and modern.  And, I think I will really work hard at learning to write the text for what I just knit (call it a pattern if you will)…. but…. I’m not going to lay down any rules !

Just doesn’t seem that important. I’m over myself today. Thanks friends !

Autumn Approaches

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Beautiful cascades of yarn I’ve over-dyed  plum and purple, to Eldest Niece’s specifications, for Autumn sweaters.  Jacquard acid dyes : pink dyed over light blue yarn, and then lavendar over heathered grey.   The over-dye and the original colors will make a lovely subtle  varigation in the stockinette fabric that I just can’t wait to see, and since there are two nieces, there will be Autumn Sweaters  (x 2) .  Take a look at the  other colorway  overdyed from the same yarns which I bought a boat load of in a closeout sale.   Superwash 100% Merino wool.  Drinks in the dye, and exhausts the dyebath so nicely ! But committing to overdyed colors , I have found,  is strenuous at times, because there’s no “I’ll just exchange these 5 skeins for another color” sort of thinking. Nooo… I have to make it work, in a sort of determined marriage to the yarn.  So far I’ve casted on after switching needle sizes and swatching four times !

*    *    *

Meanwhile,  Classic Socks pair number two continues to grow.

(Yes… more purple.)

Sneak Preview

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Unlikely colorway?

Yes, but of course ! I want to think that somehow these colors are destined to match up, perhaps something more like disagreeable neighbors, but I have faith that it will finish harmoniously.   A stretch of my imagination, maybe, but to be an Intentional Dyer is beyond my ability, and ‘I’m okay with that’.   I often settle with leaving colorways up to the Sisters of Fate, and to just let the sweaters be what they want to be.

I managed to find some one-hundred-percent superwash merino wool yarn in DK (double knitting) weight, on close-out discount, and bought a lot of it.  Light blue and a heathered medium grey.  Over-dyed dramatically,  to create one-of-a-kind colorways in my nieces’  favorite colors, for what will in a couple of months’ time ~ my nieces Autumn Sweaters.  There’s actually really nice and subtle varigation from the original colors and the over-dyed colors… exciting !

What you see draped over the chair is for one of the sweaters, the younger of my two nieces. The other will make an appearance later, in a second colorway, in a second sneak preview. So here I go, winding off a gazillion yards into balls…