knitting – Page 14

>Homecoming

September 10, 2009 | 1 Comment

It’s always wonderful to return home, but returning home after some hard sailing makes the pleasure even sweeter. I may be a seasoned sailor after 35 years (well, maybe not) but I will never be a a hardened sailor. Late summer often offers some big challenges. My husband doesn’t feel this way at all! You can check out a particularly hard day for me here by clicking on the video.

While sailing, I finished knitting (and partially sewing!) my kimono cardigan from Dovetail designs. I just tried it on and I love it! (I don’t say that often.) I might not add the shawl collar since I like it so much as is!

(After wearing this sweater on two chilly days last week I have decided to knit the shawl collar, which you can see in progress)

While knitting I listened to my audible copy of The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, read by John Lee. I’ve wanted to read this book for years and never got around to it. To listen while knitting was a delightfully guilty pleasure! It’s hard to imagine wanting to actually read anything ever again when I can listen to someone who was chosen to read for their lyrical voice while I continue to knit!

Although I listened to four books on audible this summer, I did manage to actually read two books: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows, and The Elegance of Hedgehogs by Muriel Barbery (translated from French by Alison Anderson). Both were delightful for the same reason! …a quirky look at a particular time period in a particular niche of society. Both were so well done that I regret finishing them! I particularly regret that Ms. Shaffer’s voice is gone from us now after such a lovely book.

I’ve just bought my ticket for the “Wild Fibers” annual dinner at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, which means I will definitely go the festival!…in spite of never needing another ounce of spinnable fiber! The weekend is October 17 and 18, and the dinner is Saturday evening. If you will be there please let me know! I want to meet you!

Goethe said, "One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." I’m off to do a little of that right now….

>Vacation Interrupted

August 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

All packed and nowhere to go! It’s raining buckets here, and we thought we’d be ahead of it in Maine, but even so, arriving before the rain hits Maine doesn’t really sound appealing when we are traveling with our dog. When we are on Pandora in rain we snuggle up down below and turn on the heat, bake some bread, or biscuits, or pie, and spend the day reading and knitting or spinning. Having a wet dog down below, who needs to go ashore three times a day, is much less appealing….

So today I’m using my newly found time to dye a second small skein (only 1 oz., 70 yds) in the Brazilwood pot. Yesterday’s 2 oz. skein is a wonderful color that I cannot describe well. It’s a medium/dark shade of something between rose and terracotta. Yes, it’s both a cool and warm shade of a complex reddish color! That’s what I love about natural dyes! The colors are so complex I can’t find the words to properly describe them! And monitors being what they are, I can’t even show you an accurate photo! Today’s skein will be lighter. I could keep going with this dye bath, but I think I will discard it after this second batch. Pack rat that I am, I have saved the sawdust…

I’m scouring my two large hanks of grey corriedale which seem to have a lot of lanolin in them. I washed that fleece before sending it off to be processed into bumps, but oh my! There is a lot of lanolin still in it! I may take a skein with me to Maine to sample some lace patterns…. I’m now imagining this yarn as a lace cardigan.

This little swatch of the corrie is 6 st/in…just what I wanted! (I love using my Signature needles! I now have size 1 through 6!)

And since it’s a dark, dreary day, I will take some time today to spin the Shetland which is now my first choice for the stranded, round yoke sweater I want to make with the handpainted yarn I spun earlier this summer (the Gale Evans “grapevine”).

Our ETD is now Sunday, very early. That means I can go to the local farmers’ market tomorrow morning. And perhaps this evening we’ll go to a movie….

>Finishing Projects

August 27, 2009 | 4 Comments

I have been home for a little over a week, in which I’ve spent a few days with my younger son (attending the all-John Adams concert at Alice Tully Hall, seeing the Julia movie and basically relaxing!), a little time catching up with friends, and perhaps even less time attempting to finish some projects before we head back up to Maine for another couple of weeks of sailing.

BRAZILWOOD DYE EXPERIMENT
Today I’m finally dyeing with the Brazilwood sawdust that I began soaking in February. I was advised to let the sawdust soak for 6 months so this is the right time to revisit my dyepot. I had the dye liquor covered with plastic film to prevent molding, and it seems to have worked!

My instructions (from Deb Bamford) called for heating the sawdust and soaking water together for about 30 minutes at 80C. Alas, I inadvertently let the mixture boil, which means the color will shift to into the brown range of reds. Frankly, the dye liquor already looked quite brown before I began heating it! After that initial boil, I turned the heat down to a simmer and let the dye continue simmering for about 30 minutes, after which I turned off the heat. When the dye liquor had cooled a bit I strained off the liquid into another dye pot and have saved the solids for a possible future dye. I then put in 2 oz. of my pre-mordanted yarn (Henry’s Attic ‘’Texas,’ wool/mohair blend previously mordanted with alum and cot) which had already been wetted. It immediately turned a medium value of dull orange. I have been reheating the mixture more carefully now, trying not to exceed 80C, and it is now simmering at about 75C for 1/2 hour. The color on the yarn has become a deep red/brown…more red than brown! I like it very much!

The flash washed out the color quite a bit….it’s a much deeper red. Who knows, it might be this color when rinsed, but I’m hoping for darker!

KNITTING
While dyeing I have also been finishing up a simple vest project that I’d like to wear in Maine on cool evenings. It’s a vest knit entirely in stockinette from yarn that I got from DBNY (Discontinued Brand Name Yarns). I have sewn on the zipper now and am now sewing a decorative ribbon (from LFN designs) over the zipper to add some visual interest when the vest is open.

SPINNING
My dark brown/grey corriedale which I washed and sent out to be processed into bumps, and which I was spinning during out last sailing trip, is not the right color for the stranded knit sweater I have in mind for the multi-colored roving, in a colorway called “Grapevine” which I got at MDS&W from Gale Evans. Earlier this morning I sat down to spin a little of the dark charcoal Shetland roving that I recently got from Hatchtown Farm, and it appears to be just right for the Grapevine. I am considering doing this sweater from the Twist Collective.

I think I will use the grey/brown Corrie to make a lace cardigan sometime in the future. It’s a dream to spin, but I will put that project aside in order to spin the Shetland for the the stranded sweater. Well, now! Aren’t I being mature?

And there was a very happy occurance in my inbox! Linda Lee has written to tell me that she will soon be dyeing my cotton sliver in her colorway “Phoenix Garden.” I can’t wait to get back to that project! Maybe the package will be waiting for me when I return home!

WEAVING

I’ve been thinking a lot about weaving, but not actually doing any since I returned from the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Conference in Gettysburgh, where I took a 3-day class with Jason Collingwood on 3-end block weave and shaft switching. While I am thinking about what sampling I’d like to do on the rest of the warp from that class, I have also been thinking about future tapestries. I have some ideas brewing….

I need to leave some time today for packing since we are leaving tomorrow morning! I hope this weekend’s storm is the only difficult weather we experience during this sailing trip!

>Bit by Bit

April 16, 2009 | 5 Comments

Cochineal Dyeing… I think if you click on the first photo you can just barely see the color of the dye with the little bugs in the pan. I used distilled water to simmer the bugs for releasing the dye, and according to Michelle Wipplinger’s recipe (which I got through Deb Bramford), after extracting the dye with distilled water I could use tap/well water for topping off the liquid. This did not work for me as I believe my well water is the source of what turned my bright red dye into plum/purple yarn. It’s a lovely color, but I wanted red!

Three dyebaths…not much change between #2 and #3.

My progress on Hudson River from last week to this week. I’m done with the boat (yea!) and can now focus on the trees/cliffs/water/sky. The trees are a bit fiddly but once I work out a system I hope I will at least be able to make steady progress.

Now I’m finally going to take a photo of the ‘Arwen Cardigan.’ I don’t know when I’ll get to frogging and fixing.

Some big collar, right? Anyway, the rest of the sweater fits well (better on me than my svelte dress form on which it hangs badly!), and I like the zipper! Of course, I have to take out the zipper and completely frog the collar since it was knitted sideways onto the neck opening. I picked up a stitch from the neck edge every other row, but when I re-do I will either:

A. Pick up a stitch from the neck edge every 4th row

OR

B. Knit the collar separately to a length I like and sew it to the neck edge, easing it in to make it fit.

I’m leaning toward “B.”

>‘Arwen Cardi’ gone awry, run amok….

March 23, 2009 | 7 Comments

I’m not going to talk about the ‘Arwen Cardi’ just yet…. First I want to talk about positive things!

My husband (Bob) and I just spent four days in Portland, Maine, which was a first for both of us. What a pretty city! We both thoroughly loved the Art Museum, and Bob enjoyed the Maine Boat Builders’ Show while I happily visited three yarn shops and a weaving shop! What a wonderful surprise for me to find that Tess’ Yarn has moved into a retail space in Portland. I was actually alone with owner and mother of Tess, Melinda, in the shop on Saturday afternoon after years of not being able to get anywhere near her wares in her booth at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival! And what did I do with that whole shop to myself??? I freaked….I completely shut down and could not choose a color. There was no way I was leaving that shop empty handed though, so I finally chose three skeins of neutral colored yarn as well as a pattern. In spite of my resolution not to buy any yarn or fiber this year, I felt I was contributing in the smallest way to keeping these wonderful local yarn shops in business by purchasing just a bit of yarn and some patterns and needles. Am I not a master of justification?

At Knitting Central I bought sock yarn, needles and a pattern for a moebius (“Omega Wrap” by Christina Bylsma). I actually left on this trip without a knitting project! I had just finished the most recent Swallowtail and the Arwen Cardi (more on that shortly) so I actually didn’t have anything quite handy, although I do have more UFOs than I can count in one lifetime…

I am already beginning the toe decreases on this sock, and it feels like this sock materialized out of thin air because I did all the knitting during times when I don’t normally knit! I started it while walking around the Boat Builders’ Show. I continued while having coffee in a coffee shop, and I continued through the whole ride home on Sunday. I wasn’t as fast as when I’m not walking around, but I still accomplished most of a sock during times when I normally do nothing at all!

At KnitWits I bought two skeins of sock yarn: Regia’s Design Line Kaffe Fassett in color 4454 and Louet’s ‘Gems’ in eggplant. I will use these yarns to make the cover socks from The Eclectic Sole by Jane Laidman.

I also bought two skeins of Louet sport weight linen in a lovely green that will someday become a shawl, probably the Icarus shawl by Miriam Felton.

Well, now I’ve shared all that good news, and I should begin to talk about my Arwen Cardi debacle. But I’m out of time! Until next time, suffice it to say that I wanted to wear it in Portland so I stayed up well after midnight into the wee hours of the day of departure to finish the collar I had designed and sew on the zipper. A quick trip to the large bathroom mirror at 2 am gave me a horrible shock! I need to photograph the Arwen nightmare in order for anyone to fully comprehend the problem, so I’ll do that shortly and report back!