Dyeing – Page 8 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Random Saturday Musings

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

This morning started with a trip to the farmers' market, with plenty of time for knitting and coffee while we sat out a sudden burst of rain.

In the meantime, I'm happy to report that Harry, our Maine Coon Cat, is most appreciative of the window seat I had built to his custom specifications and is always happy to protectively snooze on any baskets of yarn that intrude into his space.

Despite it having nothing to do with knitting, we enjoyed seeing our ballerina perform last night. Her Pas de Deux was a thing of beauty and wonder. Whatever form your art takes, knitting, ballet, or something completely different, I hope you have a fabulous early spring weekend!

What Would You Knit With It?

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

I've been doing some dyeing for myself, as well as some for prizes at the close of the Adventurous April Knitalong. I thought it would be fun — and helpful too — to show off the yarn and ask what you would knit with it if it came to live with you. You can respond in the comments here or in this thread on the Elliebelly Group on Ravelry.

The first yarn is BFL Silk Sock — It’s a 55% superwash Blue Faced Leicester/45% Silk yarn with 438 yards to the skein. It’s a fingering weight, and I’ve dyed two skeins of it.

The colorway is Strawberry Roan — inspired by our trip to Iceland and the “Little Horses” (we were told it’s an insult to call them ponies) that populate the island. The Strawberry Roan horses were so pretty and particularly sweet.

Also inspired by our Iceland trip, this is the Gullfoss colorway on aran weight Blue Faced Leicester. There are 183 yards in a 100 gram skein, and again, I've dyed two skeins.

Panda is a silk and bamboo blend, roughly 50/50 that has 150 meters to a 100 gram skein. This is a new-to-Elliebelly yarn that I'm testing out for the first time. I am very fond of the sheen so far — the yarn seems to glow from within. There are two skeins of this and I wish I had dyed more as it would make a lovely large summer weight Clapotis for wrapping up on the beach at night or for movies in the park!

Pink Loves Brown is a classic Elliebelly colorway that I've dyed here on 8-Ply Coventry Cashmere. Each two ounce skein has 130 yards, and I've dyed two in this colorway.

As yet unnamed, this new colorway was my effort to replicate some of the rich blues and greens we saw on our Iceland trip. The three dye bath process was definitely worth it. I've dyed four skeins of this colorway on 8-ply Coventry Cashmere, again with 130 yarns per skein.

Finally, another classic Elliebelly colorway, Lakehouse. This is on aran weight BFL, with two skeins of 183 yards each. It's been a long time since I dyed this colorway, and it took all the strength I could muster to avoid casting on with it immediately. I love how the golden strands peak out from between the variety of blues and greens in this colorway.

So, friends and knitters, what would you knit with this yarn? What patterns have you been dreaming over? Inspire me. Motivate us all. It's so much fun to see different knitters' take on the same yarn!

Dyeing Yarn and Seeing it Knit into Socks

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

Over the holidays I found a little time to dye some yarn. Two of the skeins looked like this:

I sent them off to Silviaol, who offers her knitting services on etsy and I promptly received back two lovely pairs of socks. Unable to contain myself, I had to snap pictures and share them before even taking time to wash and block them properly. It's so much fun to see new colorways knitted up.

Mermaid’s Tail

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I finished my Mermaid's Tail shawl (also known as the Storm Cloud Shawlette) today. And I'm in love.

It's loveliness incarnate. A fabulous pattern and an easy, but altogether fun knit because of all of the intentionally dropped stitches that form the elongated garter stitch.

I love its little ruffle and its graceful drape. I think this one is going to be my constant companion!

Recent Dyeing

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I've done some dyeing over the last few weeks and thought I would give you all a peek.

This is a wonderful Superwash Merino/Mulberry Silk blend from a new undyed yarn supplier (or rather, new to me) called Polika. I like this yarn a lot; not as much as Moth & Goat which is a Cashmere/Silk blend at about the same weight, but this is a slightly more economical version that is still very pretty.

The colorway, Perseid, is actually the result of some experimenting with dyeing and overdyeing that gave me results I was looking for with some more somber colorways. This picture is a lot brighter than the actual dyeing, but the picture below, which is Perseid on Blue Faced Leicester, is a bit truer.

I've also been experimenting with a yarn that has a bit of silver sparkle in it — I'm tentatively calling this Silver Sock, but if you have any ideas, I would love to hear them. Several skeins of this yarn have gone out to friends for their opinion and I'm searching for a project to devote my skeins to.

I've got two skeins in the colorway on the bottom, Wendy. Although socks seem like the right choice for a yarn with so many colors in it, I'm also going to look around for some other ideas since I've got two full skeins.

Ollie’s Crayon Sweater: Trying Out Trim

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

When last we left our story, I had run out of yarn for Ollie's Ragman, knit in Elliebelly Talia in the Crayon colorway, and was obsessing over how to deal with the trauma. I settled upon a solid color trim, and dyed two: one blue and one gray.

Ollie favored the blue, so I knit it up into cuffs. The 1×1 rib looks oversized to me, knit on the same size needles as the body of the sweater (size 9) and although the color has much to recommend it, I wondered it the gray wouldn't be a better match. So I'm trying out the gray on the bottom of the body, going down one needle size to get a neater fabric.

I think the gray is the winner, so once I finish the body, I'll rip off the sleeve cuffs and reknit them.

The inside of the sweater looks great to me too. At some point, I'm going to have to come up with a reverse stockinette project for the Crayon colorway!

This Week’s Knitting Round Up

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I spent this week out of town, which was both good (flight delays and hotel insomnia = extra knitting time) and bad (Iphone camera photos of my knitting are very unsatisfactory). Here's the round up:

(1) Before I left I put in a little time dyeing which yielded both this fabulous dye pot

And this choice of trim for finishing off Ollie's Crayon Ragman.

Any thoughts on which color you think will look more like a design choice and less like a screaming "I ran out of yarn" advert?

(2) On the road I got through the better part of two (of four) repeats on the Orchids and Fairy Lights Hat.

This pattern is SO much fun to knit and have I told you I'm knitting it in a thick, soft, buttery cashmere? This hat feels incredible. And the bobbles are fun, the cables are a challenge to keep straight, and all in all, this hat makes me feel good about myself — a pretty big pay off for a little bit of careful pattern reading. Stephanie Dosen is the designer behind Tiny Owl Knits. She is a fabulous designer and articulates a great, clear pattern. I can't wait to knit her Amy March Slippers and her Catching Butterflies Mitts as well. You should really look at every single pattern she has, but if you look at only one thing, check out the incredible Bee Keeper's Quilt. I definitely have a crush on Stephanie and her beautiful patterns!

(3) I've finished (except for a line of crochet trim on the bottom edge I need to teach myself to do this weekend) the Honegart Hat.

I love the pattern. The details are clever and it is a very satisfying knit. Several members of my household are vying to keep this, but it's a birthday present for the oldest child (who doesn't read my blog), so I suspect I may knit a few more. I like the way the skeins of yarn play together — as I mentioned, two skeins were originally dyed together and then I overdyed one of them, so that some of the original color shows through. It's hard to display in a picture, but if you look closely below, you'll see some of the green from the band showing through in the blue "honeycomb" top.

(4) I also got in some time working on the body of Ellie's Tiny Tea Leaves Cardigan. I'm well into the "miles and miles of stockinette" part of the body which, while not the most exciting knitting is possible to do while carrying on a conversation or catching up on the news.

I'm hoping to finish up the body this weekend so I can get to work on the sleeves and button bands. I'm knitting this sweater in Madeline Tosh, Tosh Vintage Merino, which is a wonderful yarn. I'm wondering if it would be possible to consider this yarn a collectible item so I could justify buying some in every one of her amazing colorways. It's great to work with and the softly dyed colors are very pretty.

That's the wrap on this week's knitting, and a satisfying collection it is! Usually I'm in varying degrees of frustration, but all of these projects seem to just want to go well. The knitting gods seem to be smiling on me at the moment, which I'm going to try to enjoy, because I'm sure it will be fleeting.