Yes, I've been knitting...

and felting. This just hasn't been exciting in the sense of drama. No horrible mistakes discovered deep into the project. No pending deadline of doom. No nothing.

First up, The Road Not Taken Scarf from A Fine Fleece knit from A Verb For Keeping Warm merino colorway cosmos, which I handspun.



This is two ounces is about six feet long. It is currently on loan to Kristine as a sample for her shop.

I just finished the Lace Ribbon Scarf last night. It is currently soaking in preparation of blocking it. I knit this from some cormo/soy silk I spun up last summer. It's not as long as the pattern called for; I knit until I ran out of yarn.



I've also been felting. I am exploring the idea of selling felted knitting needle cases, business card cases, etc. and these are prototypes for DPN cases. They were still wet when I took the pictures so are very unfinished at this stage.

Experimenting

I've been busy experimenting with natural dyes. Last weekend I dyed up the last of my white BFL with cochineal and marigold. Here's what it looked like before I overdyed it.


I'd been inspired by some lavender growing in my neighborhood. So I overdyed it with logwood grey and got this.
I like the soft colors a lot.

I also experimented with an improvised wool hackle made from a hair pick and a table vise.

It works and is a lot less expense than buying a hackle. I'm going to keep playing with this set up until I decide whether or not I really like blending on a hackle enough to sink some money into a better set up, which will probably be homemade as well. Here's the first roving I pull off of the hackle.


Right now Ada is blocking. I used my Knitter's Blocks and steam blocked the top. I'll have to block the garter portion separately. I'm half through knitting the first sleeve and so far, so good.

Architectural Rib Pullover revisited

Remember this? It is going to live with Kristine. I know that Kristine will give it a good home. I loved knitting it. It just isn't flattering on me. I got a really good idea for using the angled ribbing as a kick pleat in a skirt. I used up some of my stash yarn that I couldn't bring myself to give away as yarn and I've still got just under 3 skeins left to make something special for myself. For me, the best part is always in the making rather than the wearing. I thought about unraveling it and making something else. But this sweater is such a beautiful thing that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I finished the body of Ada and started the sleeves, which I am knitting one at a time in case I encounter any problems. I really love the look of this sweater. Yet, man oh man, interpretation of the pattern has been a bit of a trial for me. Have I learned anything in the process? Yeah, I love knitting with my handspun!

A little progress

I've made a bit of progress on Ada, not much really. There are a lot of stitches on the needle--you start with 260 and decrease 2 stitches every three rows plus it's garter stitch, which eats up yarn but doesn't add a lot of inches. I've probably got about 5" more to go before switching to stockinette and shaping the bodice. This really doesn't make for good blog fodder, but it is what it is.

On Sunday, I started spinning up some carbonized bamboo that I bought from Tactile Fiber Arts. It wasn't smooth spinning at all. I predrafted thin strips of fiber and was getting lumpy yarn. I fluffed it even more and tried spinning over the fold--still getting lumpy yarn. On top of all of that I wasn't enjoying the hand of this fiber at all. The last time I spun bamboo I had the same reaction about the hand. On Monday, I inspected my results and hated, hated, hated them. So the spun fiber came off the bobbin. I gathered up the unspun fiber as well and trotted off to the garbage shoot and gleefully dumped it. I just needed it out of my life. This is no reflection on the quality of Tactile's fiber. I've spun other fibers from them and they were quite nice. In fact, I'm spinning up a lovely merino silk blend that was dyed with logwood gray I bought from them at Lambtown last summer. I just think that bamboo and I don't get along!

Overdyed and repurposed

The weather here has been rainy and gloomy. To cheer myself up, I unraveled (I do a lot of that here, but usually it's not a knit item that is unraveling) a beanie I knit out of some orange handspun merino/tencel. For about a year I had a beanie, which I never wore, and a pair of matching socks, which I do wear. After unraveling, I had about 3 oz. of yarn, enough to knit a beret which I would undoubtly wear. Only I didn't want orange; I wanted red. So I hauled out the dyepot and my trusty dyes and mixed up a red that was pleasing to me. The orange yarn went for a little R&R in the red dye bath. It is now the red yarn cake in the picture.

I cast on and started knitting my red beret as soon as the yarn had dried. Only thing is I didn't like it as a red beret--a project that went straight to the frog pond.