Never before have I used one, but I found a nice palette generator to help me begin my first weaving project, and I must say, these tools are awesome! I have needed to go to the source of my inspiration, … Continue reading
Another couple of yarn cakes of super light-weight lace, bound for Ontario Canada! As in previous posts, Wool of The Andes Sport was the original yarn, and in the cheerful color ” Sprinkle “. Knit Picks describes their color . . .
Sprinkle is a blue violet color. The heathered strands show the beautiful color variations from a soft robin’s egg blue to a medium red violet giving it the overall look of dusty lavender.
The camera is so color selective, so I must describe what I see. I’ll add that I see flecks of gold which seem to give the color a tiny influence of beige… thus the ‘dusty’ appearance. I also think un-plying 4 strands lessens the homogeneous affect of the carded mix of ‘heathered’ colors, so the colors are just a little bit more striking. Photographing while looking down from on the attic ladder, my slippered feet, lavender shirt, and light brown pants ended up in the photo, and rather than crop that out, I am again surprised to find myself dressing for the occasion!
Absolutely gorgeous complex colorway, I am smitten. ” UnSpun 1100 ” I have named this transformation, as it is 1100 yards & 100 grams of singly ply very luscious lace-making stuff.
Already sent off and heading to Canada, and finished with two in the series of four. Two more of these UnSpun gifts to make, and then its back to the serious lace knitting for the upcoming pattern, but I am having a good break while making some nice yarn, so feeling really good about that!
You can see all four of this series in Unspun For Friends.
Wee Hearts in nine different Fair Isle Hebridean 2ply colors! Actually this hat is a study on one of Alice*Starmore’s colorways , a colorway from her design “Mary Tudor” from her 2013 second edition of Tudor Roses , using her own yarn, as sequenced in the chart. You could say this hat was a colorway test for Mary Tudor Cardigan, although I did change some colors around from the chart, because of a mistake I made. I really came out of the study with a better understanding of how the blending of foreground color changes against background color changes can be in modern Fair Isle.
Now I am wondering, do I have time for one more? Not really, I must be on to Autumnal Sweaters!
I just picked this up from the duff of the forest floor. I nearly stepped on it while knitting along my woods path. In the woods we have a lot of robins , year round, so occasionally one finds a little shell cast aside, just like this, a stark contrast of blue shade against brownish tones of the leaves on the ground. Had I a camera with me I would have done well to photograph it against its natural setting, but I didn’t, and so I collected my little prize into my knitting bag and brought it home to photograph on some white linen.
This color blue, a greenish blue, is such a beautiful color, and I have it now here as reference when examining hues, if I may be forgetting what it looks like. Let it etch into my color memory, for I want to find a way to knit this color!
My latest yarn play. I dyed a ton of yarn ( details in previous post ) with a mind to knit them into an autumney-equinoxey sort of thing, but now I think not. I’m calling this colorway ‘curry blend’, or maybe ‘marigolds’ . Anyway, I think it fitting for my recent post-pattern-writing crash, to continue to chill out with a clean slate for a while. Just knit socks, socks, and more socks, and not have anything big brewing beyond re-writing Penny Candy Socks pattern for the remainder of Spring. Oh, just look at these cheerful balls of yarn perched , happily waiting for whatever comes. I am very pleased with the dye this time !
I’m up to something again. Here, winding off skeins of Shibui & Madelinetosh sock yarns. I’m drowning myself in skinny yarn. I did mention something about knitting socks with it however, a few posts back . . .
Which I am doing.
My nieces are coming in a few days, and I am going to rewrite my original Penny Candy Socks pattern completely different ~~ very soon~~ so , I’m madly knitting the above pair (in Malabrigo Sock) for another fun photo session with them !
Then there’s this madness , heaps of skinny Knit Picks Stroll sock yarn (which by the way, like Shibui and Malabrigo, is from Peru) and very fine Lana Grossa (from Italy) . . . over-dyed and drying still . . .
I nearly spent a mint on some fancy hand-dyed superwash Malabrigo Arroyo (I sooo wanted to) , which is a sport weight, for I am erupting with ideas already for Autumnal Equinox sweaters, but decided instead to over-dye a mess o’ sock yarn I had on hand which was bound for nowhere. Was 4 balls of light blue Stroll — now cayenne red, 4 balls of light grey Stroll –now mustard yellow, 1 ball of hot pink Lana Grossa, — now deep garnet. All now a very lovely array of Autumn tones, achieved with Dharma Trading acid dyes in colors “cayenne” , “mustard” , & “maroon” .
I had spent hours going color crazy at the kitchen last night ~ while cooking dinner (a habit I always seem to get into ). Today all is calm, and quiet, winding off like a busy bee hive, immersed in this lovely yarn-scape.
Red sky at night; shepherds delight !
This photo was taken from the same spot as the photo in previous post ‘blue dawn’. In one day, the sky went from an awe-inspiring blue dawn to a rather surreal orange-red & blue sunset, making it quite a lucky day with the camera ! Usually I’m not so lucky. These clouds were like fresh blended fluffy bats of wool just off of the carder, hanging there for a long time into twilight. So, what about a blue dawn and an orange-red dusk? I am finding that the very thing I’m knitting is expressed so well by an Autumn sky photographed a few days ago…
Though the red is definitely subdued in the photo, it is at least suggestive of a ‘red sky at night ‘, knitted in Malabrigo sock yarn which I bought at my local yarn shop Yarns On First while browsing their beautiful yarns recently, in colors ” Botticelli Red ” and ” Impressionist Sky ” . Wouldn’t you say the sky in above photo is perfect model for an impressionist painting?
What pattern you see here actually, is Pretty Little Things gloves in the works, yes, sisters of Pretty Little Things (PLT) socks . These little charmers are taking their sweet time, and I’m giving them all the time they need, though I did want to show you what I’m working on at least. Happy, fun, and challenging are gloves !
This morning early, as dawn approached, less than an hour ago, I was looking at shades of blue Malabrigo on their website, studying & sleuthing for that complete natural deep indigo blue, the color of a brewing storm.
I noticed as I looked up from the place I was sitting, in front of the wood stove, next to Emma snoozing in her chair, that the dawn sky with another rain storm on it’s way, showed me the very colors I am hunting for ! I kid you not. At about 6:20 a.m. I grabbed the camera, and captured it ~~ only moments ago! Here it is folks, ‘Storm Mountain Dawn Sky’. Such a color ! Now that I’ve taken this photo, I can hopefully replicate the blue.
By the way, I am totally into blue lately, absolutely yearning for it, and the sea of unknown possibility is sure to cast me out to drift in it !
A welcome sign to me is the first Big Leaf Maple leaves just beginning to fall, and I believe I saw a few on the road-side today, while driving up the mountain ! And it appears as though Autumn Cardigans are well on their way too ! I thought I’d be really thrifty and frugal (and prudent) to use up a pile of about six skeins of light turquoisey tweed left over from a project last October, and well, it only got me this far ! Blast.. that’s the last ball of that, right there on top, with only the body and one sleeve finished (minus yoke & second sleeve and button bands). So no problem, I’ve ordered more, 3 more skeins for Niece Of Thirteen’s cardigan.
Here is the yarn for Niece Of Ten’s cardigan will be this deep coral pink with mossy green peeries… won’t that be fun?
Thank you everybody for your test-knitting contributions, I couldn’t have done it without you !
Your mitts are just all so lovely!!!
Lupinus Albifrons. Known as just ‘ lupine ‘, it is one of the more populated native wildflowers of Northern California, and in April fills the mountain meadows, between grape vines in the rows, and trail-sides with deep blue & purple variegation. A small woody shrub when mature, however, where grass is mowed annually (as in the vineyard rows here on the mountain) and where seed is planted from the wind, you’ll see it popping up everywhere as young single stemmed flowers . . .
I luckily had just the perfect yarn handy when I became inspired from my walk of last week. I had a bunch of green which I over-dyed from grey wool which perfectly illustrates the ‘silvery’ grey-green leaves of the plant. The rich deep blue and purple played illusive games however with the camera, which wasn’t able to distinguish the two, and both came out as blue tones in most of the photos. But here it is , un chullo, for my brother’s birthday tomorrow!
I absolutely go wild photographing still-life knitteds ~~ its just one of the things I love doing, in every light possible , which enables me to make an assemblage of photos that catches different tones and characteristics of the yarns and knitted shapes . . .
The detail with which I experimented for the first time on this chullo hat, was to add a running crocheted chain just inside the typically chullo-esque double-crocheted edge, to neaten up the edge.
I love to make my chullo hats a bit of a hybrid with gnome hats by decreasing into a point, then finishing with a braid extending off of the top . . .
They blossom into a hat with a lot of character and playful whimsy . . .
The crocheted edges tame the curling tendency of the stockinette stitch. . .
Braid finishes being made on both ear flaps . . .
(the purple really pops in this photo below !)
Un chullo, inspired from the lupine flowers in the fields of Northern California. To be given to my brother tomorrow, and there could be nobody more appreciative than he, who wears them everyday , and who is also a botanical wizard !
NOTE : I have taken notes as I knit this one, so if anybody is interested, I could assemble a pattern of sorts from it.
Details on Ravelry HERE
Well, I’m off to walk the mountain with Emma, but I will leave you with a little slide show of the early morning walk of last weekend, from which this chullo’s lupine photos were taken . . .
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 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)…
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 !
I am very delighted to share with you a little project which designed itself as I knitted it up just last night and this morning, using three shades of grey…
A little something for my Old Pioneer Jar Method of brewing tea…
And so, I made a cozy little Tea Cozy for my Jar Brewing method. It’s so adorable , I’m over the moon about it ! It reminds me a little of a Nepali or Tibeten Headress. I call it “Earl Grey”, as it speaks of it’s delicious namesake…
Earl Grey Tea Cozy. Whimsical. Playful. Silly! Do you suppose a standard 6-cup English teapot version is inevitable? Maybe, but for now, I am quite pleased to be presenting my own pioneer tea-brewing method and the cozy”Earl Grey” Tea ‘Jar’ Cozy!
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…