Category: Dyeing

The boy and I are off and looking forward to seeing a few New England colleges.  I'm also really looking forward to seeing the child who has already flown the nest and is going to school up there and meeting with his teachers and caregivers.

Hopefully if you are reading this, I am happily knitting away while we fly.

I'm going to start with arm two of the Manos Silk Shrug.  Here is the first arm — the arm that would not end.

I am not making this up — the more I knit, the shorter it gone.  It was incredible.  And the full arm is actually bigger than the fronts of the shrug, combined.  Just miles of stockinette with not a lot of interest, even at the decreases and shaping, but it is really pretty.  So on to arm two.

In the meantime, I lost the last two balls of this yarn and ran out yesterday to replace them.  Then, I promptly found the time I thought were lost.  This yarn is so pretty that I'm hoping I will have enough left over to do a little shrug called Miho for Ellie to wear at ballet rehearsals. 

The Barn Raising knit quilt I mentioned in my last post really took over in my imagination, and I quickly skeined up some sock yarn I have been hoarding for some time — not quite enough for a pair of socks but perfect for this quilt — to take along.  This is my Nadia colorway.

I also dyed up a couple of ounces of another colorway I want to include in the quilt to take along and can't wait to see how the squares look.

Finally, I can't resist showing you how the mohair yarn from yesterday, the yarn I'm going to use with the handspun coiled yarn for my scarf, looks after winding.  It's so pretty.  It is all the colors in my little cottage garden right now.

It has been so hard deciding what to take along on this trip.  I'm anticipating lots of time to knit while in meetings and such.  Even walking out the door, it occurred to me that there was the cardigan I wanted to start for Ollie….  Patience is the lesson I continue to learn from knitting, but I still wish there was more time!

Can you believe this?

That blob, up there on the railing?  A moth.  MOTH!  The sworn enemy of all things wool.

It had the audacity to fly in the front door last night when we walked in.  I stopped to take its picture before eradicating it (ok, i really  made a fool of myself climbing up to get it so I could put it outside. It really was beautiful, as many enemies are).

Because of my fear of moths/stash yarn, based upon a scary blog post I read years ago, I have always been a sort of storage nazi.  I store my yarn in huge trash can sized ziploc bags, with lavender sachets in them for good measure.  Some of it is in air tight cedar lined storage.  And, the bulk of my undyed and hand-dyed yarn is in cedar lined cubbies in a tightly shut (think wine cellar, but for yarn) closet off of my studio.  Still, that unearthly fear of moths lingers.  It is the eggs that do the damage — adult moths lay their eggs in yarn and the larvae eat the fibers.  So swift removal of the adults from any area with yarn in it is necessary.  I've never been able to figure out who is male and who is female when it comes to moths, so I view any moth sighting with great terror.

With the moth out of the way, I can move on to over yarn news.

I'm leaving on a child away at school visit/college tour with other child trip this week, which of course requires careful yarn preparation.

Needless to say, I'm taking the Manos Silk Shrug.  One sleeve down, the last one to go.  Then all I have to do is put it together and knit the (rather extensive) edging.

I'm also planning on working up an eccentric little scarf.  I purchased this gorgeous coiled yarn a while back, and have been trying to decide what to do with it ever since.

It isn't enough to use on its own, so I have dyed up a skein of kid mohair to knit with it — using the thick coiled yarn on the ends and bits in the middle, with the kid knit up at a very loose gauge.  I have a sort of vague picture in my mind — something short to go right around the neck for a bit of mid-winter color.  (You can see the inspiration my garden provided if you look at the background, as I have carefully hung the yarn so you can see the early fall color)

I also have plans to work on Juliet, which I have forsaken because she is impossible to knit while talking with children or other ballet moms — I'm thinking the quiet of the airplane is just the right thing.  I've also tucked some sock yarn in my bag, because Donna, the evil owner of my local yarn store, seduced me into knitting a barn raising quilt.  That is more than enough for a week, but I will doubtless tuck in a few other things — just in case.  You know, what if you were on that jet blue flight that sat on the runway for 12 hours?  Running out of water is one thing, but OMG!  Can you imagine running out of knitting?

Leaving you with two other lovelies from my garden.  Have a wonderful week.  I'll be checking in to post with my IPhone, so expect some wonky pictures and off beat, short posts!

If you are looking for Elliebelly sock yarn, I just noticed that the lovely Brittany of Knitwitch has put up a new page on her site, offering the first batch of sock yarn I have sent her for sale.  You can see all the yarn, including Bee Balm, pictured above, by clicking here.

Brittany will also be at SAFF, the South Eastern Fiber Festival near Asheville, North Carolina next month.  She has beautiful yarns and pottery, so if you are going, make sure you visit her (and pet my yarn for me.)

September is a big birthday month in our family, so it's been a flurry of cakes and presents, not leaving much time for other pursuits.  I've also got a lot going on at work, so I decided to put Juliet aside in favor of some easier knitting.

First off, I finished up the lace panel for the Presto Chango baby sweater, which now just needs finishing.

After that, I returned to my Manos Silk Shrug, which I put aside after we got back from vacation.  The back is now finished, and I'm about halfway up the left front, which is so far, an easy and relaxing knit.  I'm sure disaster will strike at some point, but for now, all is well.

It was the beauty of the colorway that made me have to knit with this yarn, and it continues to be infinitely pleasing.

My own dyeing lately has been rainbow-inspired.  This is Crayon.

And this is Tuer Ceatha.

I'm looking forward to knitting with them both this fall — which means I'll have to start haunting Ravelry for the perfect patterns!

This is this month's Club Sock yarn from Elliebelly.

That is Dulcinea, and, if you're signed up for Club Sock, your yarn will be in the mail today or tomorrow!