Friday, May 22, 2015

The Oracles at Delphi


The Oracles at Delphi
Hand-dyed fingering-weight superwash merino
So I've been trying out this dyeing thing using some food colouring pastes (Wilton), and been getting some really lovely results! Mostly with the superwash merino yarns, but also with the BFL and Corriedale. I get the feeling BFL & Corriedale soak up the dye a little bit quicker than the superwash merino, so when this colour broke, the BFL & Corriedale got all the pink-purple hues and left all this lovely blue-turquoise-teal for the merinos to soak up.

Test-knitting a lace shawl
Test-knitting. Hush hush.
And of course, I've had to knit it up to see what it looks like used, so I've used my two skeins of fingering weight superwash merino dyed in this colourway for a test knit. I've already finished up and it's just blocking now - the colours dyed pretty evenly across both skeins (hurrah!) so there aren't any sudden changes in how it knit up, and while I wasn't too excited about it while it was on the needles (I'm more a fan of semi-solids rather than variegated), it looks pretty darn nice blocking, if I do say so myself. It's probably going to go to my friend as a graduation present, since I've been promising to knit her something for years now. Also, this colour is perfect for her love of space!

Friday, May 8, 2015

Zenith

It's actually in the 20s right now. Sweltering.
Third sweater complete! This was a pretty mindless knit, even into the cables part, which I really needed at the time. I'm ready to do a huge allover cable sweater or cardigan at this point, complete with buttons (read: Timberline), but Zenith was perfect for this semester. I really enjoyed the look of the original sweater, so just went ahead and copied it. A simple grey mock turtleneck complete with simple cable details at the yoke? I had a hole in my closet for that.

Look how happy I am!

The only thing I would change is probably to knit a couple more rounds - maybe 3 or 5 more rounds - for the yoke, so that there's a bit more breathing room in the underarm area. It's a perfect fit if I wasn't wearing much under it, but because I didn't get gauge, this might just be a gauge issue rather than a pattern issue. I love the short rows at the back of the neck - they make the mock turtleneck very comfy, since it doesn't feel like the back is slipping down.

I'm also pretty happy with this yarn! It feels pretty durable, yet soft enough that if I so chose, I could probably wear it next to my skin (it is a little itchy, but it's ok). I mean, my neck hasn't started complaining yet, so I think it's probably fine. Definitely wanting to work with this again.

As for the TCK sweater KAL, I'm kind of behind by a month or two at this point. My linen cardigan's coming along, but I haven't churned out anything for the month of April (going with the one sweater a month schedule here) and I don't really have anything I think I can finish for May. Maybe I'll have to pick up the sheep vest or the green Sherwood to help me along.

Will it Twill? (For Sale.)


Just added this scarf to my etsy shop.

It's 100% superwash merino, handwoven in a chevron pattern, and the dimensions are as follows: 12.5 x 64" (not including 7.5" fringe on either end). You can get this lovely scarf for yourself for just $110 + shipping! Click on the link above or visit my store here.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Will it twill? Will it twill?

What's this? Something other than plain weave? You mean you can do that?

Of course it'will. Of course it'will. It did. But it's a chevron. And I was aiming more for a herringbone pattern... it probably didn't help matters that I had chosen a chevron draft, but I was really hoping.

It's 134g of madtosh tosh lace, handwoven on my Ashford Knitter's Loom using two 12dpi rigid heddles.

You can see it a little better in this photo.

That being said, I am quite happy with the fact that I have now figured out how to read weaving drafts (kind of, I think, more or less?) and also that I've woven something other than plain weave (finally), so all's well. Now I'm really just more worried about how I'm going to do herringbone on my AKL. All the drafts I could find of it required 4 shafts, and I'm pretty sure that my rigid heddle loom can only do up to 3 shafts before requiring pick up sticks, which I'm really not looking forward to using. I'm wondering whether I can just do a 3-shaft herringbone pattern instead. It works in my head, but actually doing it is another issue altogether.

Either way, now that I've figured out how to kind of work out 3-shaft drafts on my AKL, that opens up a world of possibilities, which should keep me plenty busy over the summer. There's also a not-so-little side project that I'll be doing, which might surface (or not) depending on its success.