Archive for April 2009

How to Fall in love with Spring via Yarn

In Handmade, Photography, knitting on 29 April 2009 with no comments

Spring has been pretty schizophrenic out here – icy cold one week, heat wave the next. I’m amazed that there are any flowers out at all.

But there are a few here and there and I can easily see how the fabulous dyer Tina (of Blue Moon Fiber Arts in case you didn’t know) gets so inspired by nature. And we get the rewards.

Knitting with Mermaid has been a bright spot of Spring in my day.

As CupcakeFaerie will tell, I grabbed this colorway out of IrishGirlie’s hands at first sight. Here’s a tip: if you’re ever on a yarn crawl with IrishGirlie get what ever she does. That gal has an amazing sense of color.

And what’s that? Another sock in the background?
Yup – and a super secret Cat Bordhi sock at that – all details to be revealed by Cat in late Summer. So far this is the best fitting sock I’ve ever knit and lives up to Cat’s tag line of “Simple & Mysterious”

I finished a pair – knitted Socks that Rawk

In Handmade, knitting on 18 April 2009 with no comments

“If we took a holiday…
Just one day out of life”

“It would be so nice.”

Pattern : Holidazed (StR Sock Club)
Yarn: Blue Moon Socks that Rock – Mediumweight
Colorway: Muddy Autumn Rainbow (Sock club color)
Needles: Knit Picks size 1 (2.5mm)

I loved working this pattern. The yarn itself was magical.
When I first received it I thought, “oh that’s pretty.”
Then I wound it and thought, “wow, it is gorgeous.”
I cast it on and fell madly in love as the colors began to shimmer and shine.

And look how much I have left!

The rib is stretchy and the yarn is cushy – what more could you ask for in a sock except dreamy color.

Adventures in yarn dying : some photos of the process pt.2

In Handmade, knitting on 2 April 2009 with no comments

One of the assignments in dye class was to work with your discomfort color. Here are my 3 skeins drying on the bottom rack this morning.

My discomfort color is orange, so the first skein on the left was (and still is) my least favorite. Here’s a close up fully dried – I’m showing the green here because I like that part best.

The dye color is a lot less saturated than it started out. My second favorite, the blue and green below started out with much deeper blues. But I like the faded look of these colors and they remind me of worn comfortable denim.

My very favorite is the blackberry. I thought it would be black black but I still love the result.

So here they are – all happy together. I got a much deeper appreciation of independent dyers and their process. Especially when they have to try to replicate a colorway hundreds of times.

Thanks again Tina for this look into the dying world.