ProjectArt

My socks are done! These are my best ever socks; they fit perfectly, and the colors are so beautiful! Thanks again to my Dye-O-Rama pal Isabella!

Ember wanted to be in the picture also; was she jealous that she had no socks of her own? No, she likes socks all right, but not on her feet! She just came to see what was going on.

Socks out of the way; I am back to my longest running project; my spindle-spun Fair Isle sweater. I ran out of the darkest shade of Black Welsh carded with purple Merino, and am using some that I spun on the wheel.

We went for a rainy hike this weekend; 14 miles, so today my loyal hiking buddy, Ember, and I are resting a bit. Here she is posing with the India sock. I am ready to turn the heel.

I didn’t think she would wake up, but she did, curious as to what was going on, but too well mannered to eat the sock.

My Dye-O-Rama secret pal sent me some very excellent sock yarn that she dyed with Koolaid. Of course, this meant I needed to start a new project; my second set of socks! Because the last pair - my Opal sock yarn purple and orange pair are finally done! I started these way back when in the middle of the winter. It was that beautiful yarn that tempted me into dipping a cautious toe into the world of sock knitting. My first socks have many small imperfections and are a little too big. My pal’s wonderful yarn is what is giving me the courage to try a second pair!

After a couple of false starts here we are:

It seems it would be easy to use the same size 2 needles and cast on fewer stitches and get the perfect sock; but not so fast! Counting the stitches on my Opal socks for a quick double check I see that I cast on a different number for each sock. Since I started them in a K2P2 rib I am 4 stitches off! Somewhere along the way I ended up with the “correct” or at least the same number of stitches, at least temporarily.

Also the India yarn is fingering and therefore thinner than the Opal. I cast on 72 stitches for my mermaid gloves on size 1 needles with Baby Ull and that was perfect for gloves. After much confusion and several false starts (casting on an uneven number of stitches, and then losing many stitches irretrievably off the tiny size 1 needles), and considering a toe up approach, dithering with Magic Loop, I am off on my size 2 DPNs.

At last, a little sunshine. I spent a little while in the yard enjoying it, and working on this:

Pomotomus gloves in my overdyed Baby Ull. My first attempt at a ”fancy” stitch pattern; it was slow going at first, but I am getting the hang of it now. There are quite a few mistakes that I just left, and some rows that I had to rip back when I totally lost track.  

While I knit; the sun took care of these; 75 tie dyed shirts. A little behind schedule as it was so cold this weekend. I will wash them up tomorrow.

These are Kona superwash (red-orange) and overdyed Baby Ull. The Baby Ull was left over from the Baby Max squid hat. Baby Ull comes in pretty enough colors, but a little bland I think. I reskeined the green and overdyed it with green and turquoise Procion. I left two balls of light blue in their original skeins and overdyed them to a very dark color and a very pale color (above with purple also).

I am going to continue experimenting with Procion as I have a tie-dye project with 5th graders this week and will no doubt have some more leftovers.

Here is the sock yarn I dyed with the leftover Easter egg dye knitted up. I started the second sock with the other end of the ball and then knitted them both up together. This worked out very well; I didn’t have to guess at the half way point of the yarn. Obviously I need more yarn to finish this project; I think I will dye it the dark purple and finish in a solid color.

 I tried dyeing some sock yarn with left over Procion and yellow food color left over from the Easter eggs. The purple Procion resulted in a dull blue on the wool yarn, but when I added some fuchsia I got a lovely dark purple. The fuchsia and yellow produced a bright orange; traffic cone orange in fact. Not the color I wanted in my socks, but I did enjoy its brilliance. I overdyed with a little blue and got a lovely tangy color that I am afraid this photo does not do justice to. The other skein has the original orange and blue, but then ovedyed with fuchsia in one part and then a mix of blue and orange to mute the overall color. The result was a nice autumn foliage blend; again this photo does it no credit.

I wound the yarn into long skeins - clear across the room so that I would get broad stripes and not a blotchy look in the final sock.

Then, because its not over til its knitted; I immediately started a sock. The stripes were about the width I wanted, but the colors are a little dark. Also there is not enough yarn for a complete sock; not even one I think.

My LYS did not have size 1 metal double points so I purchased this needle and tried Magic Loop; easy to do as it turns out, but I do like double points and the little tent shape they make as you knit!

It is so much fun to dye, but it takes so long to knit! 

Drop spindles with Grades 5 to 7 at the Monroe Art Day. We didn’t have any trouble making the spindles (last year this was more difficult). Doweling must have gotten a little smaller. All of the kids made plyed commercial yarn successfully and quite a few made yarn from prepared fleece. A bit lumpy and thick, but that is more authentically Salish after all. I had an excellent teen volunteer helper!

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This is the project that the primary students completed. Northwest Coast Art made from construction paper.

Well, this was as far as I got with my second hat (I did finish my squid hat during the Olympics time frame, but I had already started it). I did work hard on knitting, but I still jumped from project to project a bit as I started spinning for the armwarmers, but then abandoned that project and took up with the hat. On Saturday I had to spin more yarn for it, which I ended up knitting right from the bobbin on the wheel. (the sky did not fall in) and that portion of my knitting is a little more “rustic”. But it still looks nice and has the texture I was aiming for. It has a nice stripe.

I did some more spinning today; another over-twisted skein of Navajo ply mohair yarn.

Why is the skein of yarn so much more beautiful than the knitted object?  This quandary has driven my knitting, my yarn purchases and my recent adventures in spinning. A beautiful hank of yarn does not a beautiful garment make.

Today’s spinning; merino carded with Black Welsh and gray Coopworth. I used colored merino, primarily red. My goal: to make a yarn that would pair nicely with the green yarn I had made previously. The two yarns have the Welsh, Coopworth, and Navy merino in common. The green yarn was two-ply; this red yarn is Navajo plied. I started knitting the green two-ply yarn; this will be the ultimate test. It has the speckled look typical of plied yarn. Too speckled for color work? Tomorrow I will add the red and we will see.

Eunny addresses the problem of variegated yarn in her blog. Small variations of color, imperfections if you will, often enhance the finished product and make the color seem all the brighter. Too much variation, though, gives a chaotic final result. I choose my colors very carefully, and find that they often fall right into a formulaic color scheme; it works, but is too often lifeless. I go right up to the edge of a perfect color system; value, hue and intensity perfect, warm to cool, 10% accent color and so forth, but if I find myself too close I add one thing that doesn’t seem to fit at first glance. One imperfection or unexpected addition will bring the whole thing alive.

I guess I am one of those unfortunate people that “are not cut out for self-improvement” What am I talking about? The Knitting Olympics of course! I hadn’t even started. But all is not lost; today I DID start. My original goal was to spin the yarn on my drop spindle (I need to get up to speed on the hand spindle as I am teaching a Salish spinning residency next month) and then knit some arm warmers of my own design in two or three colors. I am using colored merino, soy silk, and baby camel. No sooner did I break out my trusty spindle than I remembered how hard it is to spin soy silk on a drop spindle (beyond hard, actually). I knew this, but had forgotten in my Olympic enthusiasm. I spun the yarn on my wheel. Tomorrow I will ply it (two-ply or Navajo?) and drop spindle some ramie and Coopworth for my class.

 of course! I hadn’t even started. But all is not lost; today I DID start. My original goal was to spin the yarn on my drop spindle (I need to get up to speed on the hand spindle as I am teaching a Salish spinning residency next month) and then knit some arm warmers of my own design in two or three colors. I am using colored merino, soy silk, and baby camel. No sooner did I break out my trusty spindle than I remembered how hard it is to spin soy silk on a drop spindle (beyond hard, actually). I knew this, but had forgotten in my Olympic enthusiasm. I spun the yarn on my wheel. Tomorrow I will ply it (two-ply or Navajo?) and drop spindle some ramie and Coopworth for my class. of course! I hadn’t even started. But all is not lost; today I DID start. My original goal was to spin the yarn on my drop spindle (I need to get up to speed on the hand spindle as I am teaching a Salish spinning residency next month) and then knit some arm warmers of my own design in two or three colors. I am using colored merino, soy silk, and baby camel. No sooner did I break out my trusty spindle than I remembered how hard it is to spin soy silk on a drop spindle (beyond hard, actually). I knew this, but had forgotten in my Olympic enthusiasm. I spun the yarn on my wheel. Tomorrow I will ply it (two-ply or Navajo?) and drop spindle some ramie and Coopworth for my class. of course! I hadn’t even started. But all is not lost; today I DID start. My original goal was to spin the yarn on my drop spindle (I need to get up to speed on the hand spindle as I am teaching a Salish spinning residency next month) and then knit some arm warmers of my own design in two or three colors. I am using colored merino, soy silk, and baby camel. No sooner did I break out my trusty spindle than I remembered how hard it is to spin soy silk on a drop spindle (beyond hard, actually). I knew this, but had forgotten in my Olympic enthusiasm. I spun the yarn on my wheel. Tomorrow I will ply it (two-ply or Navajo?) and drop spindle some ramie and Coopworth for my class. of course! I hadn’t even started. But all is not lost; today I DID start. My original goal was to spin the yarn on my drop spindle (I need to get up to speed on the hand spindle as I am teaching a Salish spinning residency next month) and then knit some arm warmers of my own design in two or three colors. I am using colored merino, soy silk, and baby camel. No sooner did I break out my trusty spindle than I remembered how hard it is to spin soy silk on a drop spindle (beyond hard, actually). I knew this, but had forgotten in my Olympic enthusiasm. I spun the yarn on my wheel. Tomorrow I will ply it (two-ply or Navajo?) and drop spindle some ramie and Coopworth for my class.