Category: Knitting

 [If you are looking for this week's yarn giveaway for the Adventurous April Knitalong, the post is here.  Sign ups for the KAL are here.  Come knit with us!]

There is something very special about handspun yarn.  I can't do it nicely myself, but I love how it looks.  So you can imagine how happy I was when I sent some roving off and got this incredibly beautiful yarn back. 

It's hard to believe that this beautiful yarn started life as roving that I was worried about.  I thought it looked better in my head than on the actual roving after dyeing.  But spinning is one of those amazing processes that turns something a bit awkward and uneven into something extraordinary.  It's that whole spinning wheat into gold thing.

I'm searching for just the right project — not at all sure of what this yarn wants to become.  Any suggestions?

If you're knitting along with us for the annual Elliebelly Adventurous April Knit Along (info and sign ups here — if you miss out on knitting with us, you will definitely regret it), you know we're spending March clearing our needles and preparing for the KAL.  Part of that prep is stash acquisition.  Last week's giveaways were two skeins inspired by commenters choice of colorways.  I picked two to dye, Retro Kitchen and Alphabet Block.  The yarn is on it's way to the recipients and I hope they has as much fun knitting with it as I had dyeing it!

This week, the giveaway is all about Elliebelly's BFL Constant sock.  This is a relatively new yarn that has proven its worth for everything from socks to sweaters.  It's a blend of British Blue Faced Leicester wool and nylon. And it's very pretty.  I've got two skeins to give away this week, and it will be a random drawing.  To be eligible, all you need to do is sign up for the KAL and comment below on what you're doing to get ready.  Are you finishing projects to free up your needles, swatching, or just day dreaming?  Share what you're doing and win a skein of Elliebelly BFL Constant.

The Variegated yarn is Secour and the blue — much to my disgust I seem to be unable to get decent photos of any dye mixed with turquoise — is one of the old time, classic Elliebelly colorways, blue eggs.  It's a rich, translucent, variegated blue.  Bonus points to whoever wins it if they can get a good photo!  If you have a preference for one yarn or the other, let me know that too in your comment and I'll try to accommodate.

[If you are looking for the Adventurous April KAL/Yarn giveaway post, click here.]

It seemed like forever but it was really just a couple of weeks, knit on and off with other projects.

 

And now I have a sleeve.  But just one.  We all know how that goes.  The second sleeve is always fraught with peril: will it match, will you run out of yarn, will you succumb to the boredom of knitting exactly the same thing a second time?  I don't find second sleeve syndrome to be quite as much of a thing as second sock syndrome, but I know all the risks.

I am a slow knitter, but I am optimistic.  I have a hat I want to finish, but then I'm going to focus all of my energy on this second sleeve.  I'm going to knit it in planes, trains and automobiles. It's going to match — I hope.  And I'm not going to run out, because a kind friend sent me a couple of extra skeins of yarn, the cables in this thing positively eat yarn.  (but see, will it match). I hope to be in position to swear under my breath while I seam this whole thing together in just a couple of weeks.  We've got a cold weather trip to look at colleges with our delightful children planned, and I want to wear Glacier all along the way.  Fingers crossed!

 

I've been lucky enough to come across a group of knitters who are willing to do some test knitting in exchange for yarn.  As you might expect, this has been a bit of a gift to me as I tend to be a little bit anal compulsive particular about how the color placement in the yarn I dye works out when knit in the wild.  As soon as I can convince my children, including the photographer one, to be cooperative, I'm going to get photos of everything and throw a ~*~KnItTiNg FiEsTa~*~ on the blog, but until then, I did want to share this one quick shot from breakfast this morning.

This is Lurlene (the orange scarf around my neck; the knitting is progress is the hat from yesterday's post), knit by Raveler Midnghtdolphin in Elliebelly BFL Cash-Silk Sock in the Phoenix colorway. I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw it, and even though it had only been knit a few times, decided to take a chance.  It is a beautiful piece of knitting and a perfect pattern if you have any of the Elliebelly sock yarns on hand, although I particularly like it for Angel and BFL Cash-Silk Sock, because of the shine and softness.  You should knit yourself one!

On to the KAL part of this post.  The annual Adventurous April KAL on the Elliebelly group on Ravelry is on again this year and planning is under way.  We are sock knitters this year — simple socks for first timers, a more piquant project for the brave, and a heavier weight sock as well.  A number of you have voted in the polls, which will be closing tomorrow, Sunday, night.  So if you haven't voted yet, make sure you get in there today.  It's a close vote in a couple of places.

If you don't have any Elliebelly on hand to knit with in the KAL, now is your chance to get some.  We welcome knitters who knit with any yarn in our KAL, but since you can't purchase Elliebelly at the moment, I'll be having some giveaways over the next few weeks to help out anyone who is new to my yarn or has plowed through their stash already. Make sure you check in on the blog every day, as I'll be randomly offering some chances to snag sock yarn.  I'm looking forward to knitting along with everyone, come April!

In between knitting row after row of sleeves, I've been doing a little dyeing.  Want a quick peek at what I've been up to?

January and February seem to be the months where I'm the most focused on dyeing new colors, as I'm planning what I want to knit in the year ahead.  My first priority this year has been working on a linen silk blend, so that in addition to the sweater plans you've already seen, I can have some pretty colors for a lightweight shawl and a simple cowl to wear this summer.  Lady Mary, on the left, isn't a new color, but it's new on this base yarn.  Chateau, on the right, is completely new, and intended to take advantage of the blend of silk and linen.

I've also had blue on my mind.  This soft blue with lavender-gray undertones is called Frostbite.  It's dyed here on an aran weight Blue Faced Leicester, and is intended for a pair of cabled mittens.

I love gray.  And I love dyeing gray.  I wanted a dark gray that looked like a solid, but with the light hitting it in places, rather than flat and solid.  That proved to be a little bit of a challenge.  After a number of attempts that didn't work, I set the problem aside to think about.  I finally mixed up this new color, which I'm very happy with, this is Anthracite on Elliebelly's BFL Constant, a new sock yarn.

I love the Castlestone Gray I'm knitting my summer sweater in, but I also wanted something that was a little bit deeper, something like the gentle patina your grandmother's silver flatware gets over time with love and use.  This color, Vintage Silver, is show here on Sea Silk, but I like it so much, I've been dyeing it up on all sorts of bases and it's a strong contender for the color I'm going to choose for this year's knitalong.  (Quick note: we do a KAL every April on the Elliebelly group on Ravelry.  This year, there will be several different sock patterns to choose from.  There are polls up now and we welcome everyone to knit along with us, whether you plan on using Elliebelly yarn or something else.  There will be a few chances to win some Elliebelly in March as we all clear our needles for the KAL.  Please join us for the fun of the no-deadlines, no stress knitting adventure we have planned).

This new color is called Berlin Flea Market.  I have a beautiful hand embroidered wool shawl I purchased years ago.  I love the background color and wanted to see if I could get close on Wool.  This is my final version, dyed on Blue Faced Leicester.  I have plans for a fall sweater in this color.

I hope you enjoy this quick look at some of the dyeing that has been occupying my free time for the last few months.  Now that we are closer to the start of the Adventurous April KAL, I'll be dyeing some old favorite sock colors, and experimenting with a couple of new ones.

This is how we road trip around here. I’ve got a beautiful Lurlene scarf in Elliebelly BFL Cash-Silk Sock.

And I’m playing with some farm yarn I dyed while working out an updated version of the Tree Frog colorway that is glazed instead of variegated. I like both the original and this version.

This is my first go at blogging in the car — obviously I’m not the driver. I hope you enjoy this quick snippet and are having a nice, yarnie weekend of your own!

Elliebelly Angel Sock is one of my favorite yarns.  It's a lightly twisted blend of silk, alpaca, and cashmere and it makes colors sing.  There is something at once indescribable and luxuriously colorful about it.  Although I typically have dyed Angel Sock in multi-colored patternings for soft, cozy socks made for lazy days, with the long weekend upon us, I decided to do some up in solid colorways for scarves and shawls.

The yarn is more muted with this application.  Mystic Tangerine isn't quite as flashy, and that's Glacier on the bottom, one of the colors I dyed after coming home from Iceland.  They look perfect for a sweet piece of lace to wrap around your neck in cold weather or fling across your shoulders over a sun dress on a summer night.  I'm very excited about seeing these knit up!

One pattern that has been haunting me for quite some time is Lori Law's Evenings in Provence shawl.  It is so ethereal and beautiful — I love her version of it, but I've been struggling with finding just the right yarn to knit one for myself.

© oceanwind knits

I think I've finally found the right yarn with Angel Sock.  I've been working with a new colorway — a soft, almost not there brown, that I want to dye some yarn in for our new sun porch — sort of the opposite of a man cave — so I can have a Big Cabled Afghan and some pillows for the couch.  The room is stained wood and it needs a neural with hints of brown.  After fussing around, I thought this color looked good in testing and decided to play with it on Angel Sock.  I'm going to use it for a Provence shawl, as a test to see how I like the color in a project.

I think it will be just perfect and a nice contrast with my long dark hair.  I'm excited about this one.  It's all I can do not to put everything I'm working on aside and cast on immediately.

This year, I'm trying not to be THAT knitter.  The cast-on-all-the-things girl.  I'm trying to show a little restraint and finish projects in a reasonable period of time.  But the allure of casting on always calls to me, and I know at some point I'll give into it.  I suppose I already have a bit with Adama, my impulse cast on last weekend, which is now making good progress after my angsty little post yesterday about the trauma of not making color changes in the right place and all of that tinking!  I'm going to work on a few things that are already on my needles, while finishing up Adama, before casting on for Provence.  I will not indulge myself in a knit all the things frenzy.  Or maybe, I will.