Balls

Years ago (probably seven or eight, and definitely Before Child) I did some dyeing. Because in the B.C. era I seemed to have a lot of that stuff called 'spare time', and I like to learn new stuff.

This was not complicated dyeing using plants, wood shavings, mordants and so on* but using food dye, and also 'Kool Aid' which is something you can safely ingest, but not to my taste, and heaven knows I have, due to my great age,  eaten icing coloured with actual cochineal - which is made of actual beetles.  I have to say I much prefer to boil yarn up in the Kool Aid than drink it (you can even get turquoise from one of them).

A packet of Kool Aid, this one would turn your yarn pink

Hmm...beetles. Anyway, during this dyeing phase I made a skein of really alarming self striping yarn in Bright Green and Bright Red (this was from Supercook food colouring):


The true horror of the green doesn't come over. Yes that's another Kate Davies going on there, and a glimpse of the chaos that reigns, constantly, over my coffee table.

 

So, like the good stasher that I am, I put this thing in a the cupboard because it would come in useful One Day. That Day, it turns out, is the day of the great Pom Pom Mania of 2012.

 

Pom poms are 'the thing' right now - why? I don't really know, but like to think it's more due to Radcliffe and Maconie's cheeky championing of the 'Hoxton Bonnet' (scroll down to the second story) and less with Alexander McQueen and Lady Gaga.  

And, some clever people have invented a doodah (Prym do one, so do Clover) for making pom poms which does away with the cardboard circles of infant school. Clever them, and thank you.

 

With this new device you wind round one half of the circle, then round the other, and then fasten them together: 

 

A pom pom in its embryonic stage

After that, you cut round the wound on yarn in the traditional manner, hoping all the while the thing doesn't ping apart before you get the yarn tied round its middle, as it will do if you have wound too much yarn round it and you finish with no pom pom but 100s of lengths of un-useful 4inch pieces of yarn as a result. You only do it once.





 



Once past this hiccup (it was a very shallow learning curve) I suddenly  - this is quick *and* addictive - had lots of balls. I have no idea what I will do with them though...:

 

Some balls, this morning.

 

* it's on my list, I have a vision of me, the washing machine brazier and a big cauldron, boiling stuff up of a summers eve. I could wear my goddess trousers and pixie coat. I might move to Glastonbury... 

 

 

 

Scarlet

I haven't knit anything for the boy since he was but a tot. So I asked him 'What would you like' and he answered  'A red thing', 'Cardigan or jumper?' I replied, 'Cardigan' said he.

Luckily I had bought Millamia's 'Wonderland' at the Knit and Stitch show, so an 'Alexander' Jacket it is (I am not doing the patches, I'm really not sure about them).

And why have 'red' when you can have SCARLET:

Redder than a red thing in a red paint factory

The Millamia yarn is amazing, beautifully soft merino, excellent stitch definition a joy to knit, and machine washable.  I just wish John Lewis hadn't seen fit to package each ball individually, and then in the big silver parcel:

Never knowingly underpackaged



Meanwhile, Wobember is underway here: http://wovember.com/ celebrating all things wool, and well worth a look at (there are pictures of Lincoln Longwools, what more could you want?)

Woolly Wormhead's Mystery Hat Knit Along

I like a mystery. It usually helps if it's Scandinavian and has knitwear in it. This project satisifes at least one of those criteria already - and maybe two, because none of us except Woolly Wormhead know what the hat design is...

I have been deep into the Stash and swatched some Rowanspun 4 ply, but don't think it's quite right.

Then discovered what I believe to be (the ball band is long gone since it was recycled from a top I made for the boy when he was still unborn) some kind of  DK weight merino blend in a smashing almost raspberry red. And it knits to gauge so it's a done deal.

I have never done a KAL before (I did once start a mystery scarf, however  the lace chart got the better of me in week two and it was abandoned) but this is a small project and should be achievable. I also know it'll be a well written pattern, as Woolly's always are.

Here's another 'mystery hat' for you (or gratuitous picture of Cumberbatch, possibly):




A mystery solving hat


P.S. Those socks are finished (!)

Sock of AGES

Socks are useful as knitting projects because they are small, portable and, in my case, fairly brainless knitting. I admire the many intricate sock patterns out there but can't understand why you would put in all that time and then stick them in shoes for no-one to see - for example look at these stunners from the Twist Collective . But then I am an habitual 'sensible' shoe person, and wearer of slightly too long trousers, so my feet are invisible. The heights of sock complex-ness for me is maybe a little 3 x 1 rib up the cuff, or a Jaywalker and/or self striping yarn. But - back to the portability, you can take them anywhere, and knit on them anywhere. In theory...:

I really don't have clown sized feet

This pair of socks has been on the needles for about two years, I am pretty sure they've been to Beautiful Days (twice), Cropredy (probably twice as well), and Musicport. It's hard to knit outside in the blazing sunshine (or, lets face it) pouring rain, and even harder when your diet mainly consists of cider, or they would have been finished by now.

They have definitely been to Heathrow,  Seattle, Battle Ground Washington and Bend and Portland Oregon. And yet still, here they sit, an inch away from being finished. If certain carriers would allow you to knit while in transit (what do they think knitters will do?) they would have been finished by now.

The needles of doom

If I hadn't become horribly distracted by the Madelaine Tosh in Knit Purl in Portland, and forced to swatch just to see how it knit up in the car on the way back to base, and yet again be beset by the booze too nice to turn down problem (I'm looking at you Deschutes Brewery),  they would have been finished by now.

But most af all, if I hadn't hidden them at the bottom of the knitting basket, only to have them surface again when searching for supplies for another project, they would have been finished by now (this more than one project thing probably isn't helping...)

I don't think I (or they) can take much more, so I have made a decision. I will finish them tonight. If no-one reminds me about that tune I'm supposed to be learning...

So VERY NEARLY finished...

Not Knitting but Sewing...

...last week was the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace.



Dazed crafters in front of the Ally Pally organ

I went with my friend Janey (a truly marvellous quilter and excellent accomplice in stash building). This meant I didn't only fondle wool and fleeces, but also had a good look at the beautiful fabrics on sale. I was quite dazed what with all the yarn fumes, early start and low caffeination levels, which I think is how I ended up with some sewing.

Euro Japan Links had Shonai Sashiko Samplers on sale. I thought, what's the harm? It can't possibly be as addictive as e.g. sock knitting. How wrong could I be. Two evenings later the sampler is finished and I Want More. Started on Saturday night, by Sunday morning I had this:

Two panels down, two to go...

 

By the end of the Freakzone on Sunday evening, this:

 

I am sure it shouldn't be this wobbly

 



These four stitches are from top left: Rice Stitch (my favourite), Persimmon Flower Stitch, Fish Scale Stitch, and Hemp Leaf Stitch.

It all went pretty well for the first three, but the Hemp Leaf panel is a bit skewed (maybe the strange music was to blame):

Wonky

The wonky Hemp Leaf panel is driving me a bit insane. I keep telling myself it's a sampler so it's practice. But it might have to be re-done all the same. I think I also need to stitch a bit less tightly as the sampler did become increasingly puckered as I filled it up.

I found the process of stitching Sashiko really calming and quite meditative. I can't say I've ever found the same with counted cross-stitch (usually, that makes me want to cry). So I am off now to buy the other two samplers.

There is more about Sashiko here: http://www.designbyaika.com/what-is-sashiko/

rams and yowes (multi-coloured)

This is a Kate Davies pattern, if that means nothing to you find out about her at http://katedaviesdesigns.com/ - she designs the most beautiful knitted items. They are, apart from the fantastic designs, a joy to knit as they are so well laid out and easy to follow. When I saw rams and yowes I knew I had to make it.

I'd already made 'sheep heid' in (for me) record time. I did this in the natural Shetland colours from Jamieson & Smith the pattern was written for. For 'rams and yowes' I decided to use those up, and a lot of the many, many 'left over from other projects' balls of colourful Rowan (Yorkshire Tweed, Rowanspun etc. etc.), Jamieson & Smith and Hanne Falkenberg wool I seem to have accumulated. All these are 100% wool and, I felt, were still appropriate for the pattern.

I spent a good few hours arranging balls of yarn together on the floor, and then a few more going cross-eyed in front of Excel spread sheets to get the colours to (sort of, I later discovered) work together, and came up with my plan.

This is the result:

I did all my rams in natural Shetland colours, my yowes decided they wanted to be colourful ladies, so how could I deny them.

 

 I tried to pick up the colours in the sheepy part of the blanket in the border, to tie it all together (however this meant I lost the gradual shading from dark to light in Kate's original design)...

 

...and picked up the pale purple again in the centre (some of my decisions were based on how much of which colour I had in my stash!). I'm not sure this grey/brown combo really shows off the second row of rams as much as I'd have liked.

 

It's also a bit crinkly round the border, which I believe I could fix by going down a needle size the next time I knit it - because I do think I need another one.

 

Here are the yowes again. All the time I was knitting it they reminded me of the 'Mo'hairs'* in Margaret Attwood's 'Year of the Flood'.

 

*multicoloured sheep used for growing replacement hair. You should read the book.



First Post

Who ever knows what to write in a first post? Not me.

I'll be posting things here mainly to remember what I've been making out of wool, though I expect other things might creep in here too (even cotton, you never know...).