elliebelly – Page 20 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Inspiration & Knitting

Posted on June 16, 2016 by elliebelly

After an unexpected few days of early summer rain, our garden is beautiful. We have a small urban lot, full of shade from trees in the back, so our garden is a small strip of border in the front yard that I cut in by hand when we bought our house, almost 18 years ago. Yearly work on the clay soil has made it rich enough to support my plants. When we bought the house, there were some scraggy bushes and a very sad tree growing. Now, it brings me inspiration for knitting and dyeing, and a lot of smiles when I discover its secrets. I thought I would share some of it, beautified by the rain, this morning.

This surprise growth zucchini vine is causing me a lot of amusement and also, providing dinner for tonight.

Sweet woodruff, with it's tender whorls, is my favorite ground cover. I've been nursing some tiny cuttings I planted under our cherry tree, in hopes I'll end up with a big swath of it.

And because this is apparently the year of the ant in Alabama, I have Tansy, two large stands of it, growing on the path that leads to our front door. Not sure it deters the ants, but it's certainly pretty.

Every garden needs a lion-guardian. Harry is mine. And because Maine Coon Cats are curious critters, he's always very engaged in my knitting.

The rest of the week I'll be knitting on Drachenfels, my forever project (on the left). I'd like to finish it in the next few weeks, but since it's all garter stitch and I'm in the long stockinette portion of my Mithril sweater, I may have to cast on something a little bit more fancy — some brioche or some lace — for those times when you need to be all wrapped up in the knitting. I've just wound the yarn for Mithril's sleeves (on the right), but I'm enjoying the silk & linen yarn so much, that I think it will give Sleeve Island a good name for a change.

Knitting The Bulky Shawl: Big, Quick, Warm, & Comforting

Posted on June 12, 2016December 19, 2016 by elliebelly

Although I'm typically more comfortable knitting with lighter weight yarns, I'm drawn to bulky weights again and again because I like the finished items. And there is a certain satisfying feeling to a quick knit.

This pattern, Little Church Knit's Big Island Wrapper really fits that bill. First, full disclosure, it's a free pattern so you have to be willing to do some work on your own, but most everyone who has knit it has left behind pattern notes, and you won't have any trouble if you take a quick look through them and make some decisions before starting.

This is a great knit that you can easily pull off in a week, or even a more determined weekend. And although I had some concerns about the picot edging (the pointy bits) in a bulky weight yarn, even that part turned out just fine with a little gentle blocking. I laid the shawl out wet and smoothed it carefully, no pins. The result is really lovely.

Not Just Another Pretty Skein

Posted on June 11, 2016December 19, 2016 by elliebelly

I buy yarn because it looks pretty in the skein. I just do. I don't always have a project in mind. If it makes me happy, it's probably coming home with me. I'll worry about how it looks knit up later on. That's my personal approach.

But, as I've had time over the last couple of years, as a hobbyist dyer, to contemplate how color placement in the dyeing process works on a finished project, I've developed a lot of focus on how the pretty skeins I dye will look when they become sweaters and cowls and baby blankets and hats. And realizing that I can't knit fast enough to do all of the testing I want to do, I've been fortunate enough to find a dedicated group of knitters, whose testing work has really advanced my ability to tweak how colorways are dyed to produce both a pretty skein and a pretty finished project.

I was thinking about this as I put my Big Island Wrapper out for blocking (Thanks, family cats, for the lovely claw marks on my blocks. No, not a scratching post!) And I decided to go back and look at projects I've knit with my own yarn. I confess, I'm not as good about getting them into Ravelry as I should be, but when I went through them, I was able to create a group of 27 Elliebelly projects. Wow, were my early photos bad. I'm still not a master yarn photographer, but, just ouch! Were my kids ever really that small? It's fun looking back through the projects and seeing still-favorites like Steven West's Honegart Hat, which I wore last winter, although it was knit in 2011.

And, it was a good reminder that it's the time of year to pull out the Clapotis I knit in Elliebelly Chemise. It gets softer and softer every year and I love wearing it.

I'll always love the sweater I knit for Ollie out of Crayon when he was small. It's still a favorite.

I love looking at these older photos and examining the projects closely. The more you dye, the more you learn about dyeing and about knitting. And I hope I'm constantly evolving as a dyer. My goal is to create yarn that isn't just another pretty skein. Although I love the pretty skeins too!

Big Island Wrapper, Color #3

Posted on June 10, 2016 by elliebelly

Big Island Wrapper is a three color, bulky weight, shawl, that I'm knitting in Elliebelly Big Blue. I've added in the third color, Peacock.

The patterning in this third part of the shawl is predominately mesh, once past the transitional two color section. (It's important to note if you knit this pattern that although the section is labeled brioche, as written, it's slip stitch color work. There are directions in several sets of pattern notes for creating a brioche look.) Although these last few pictures are while the shawl was still on my needles, I enjoyed knitting this so much that I was unable to put it down last night until I finished.

Next up, it's going to need a good strong blocking. The cast off is a picot edge, and I need to see it blocked out before I decide whether I'm committed to it. Right now, it's a bit of a mess as you would expect with a bulky picot edge, pre-blocking, but I have high hopes for it.

Cables

Posted on June 9, 2016 by elliebelly

I'm loving the start of this cable.

Linen. Silk. Cables. Why have I never done this before? (Ignore the fuzzy yarn at the top-it's my provisional cast on.)

A Sweater & A Great New Tool

Posted on June 7, 2016 by elliebelly

I'm incredibly happy to have separated the sleeves for my Mithril sweater. That were a lot of tiny stitches there for awhile, and I was afraid I was going to run out of room on my needles with all of the increasing! But just at the moment where I really couldn't fit another round of increases on the needles, it was time to separate!

Linen and silk are genius together in a yarn. It's slightly rustic — are you knitting in some romantic setting in Ireland? But it's also a yarn I want to knit a sweatshirt out of to wear over yoga pants. And I bet I could wear the same sweater for a night out. I'm slightly obsessed with this yarn at the moment. It's this. Elliebelly Chemise.

And just in time, because you can bet all of those stitches did not want to stay on the needles when the sweater went back into my project bag at the end of knitting time, I discovered something called a "Needle Keeper Notions Tube." Essentially, it's a plastic tube with a solid cap on one end and a cap with a slit on the other. You can poke your needles down into it and the stitches can't escape. It's mad genius. I have no idea why I didn't find something like this earlier and spare myself considerable heartbreak with those projects that slipped off the needles at inopportune times! No affiliation, but I bought mine here on Etsy.

Problem solved.

Big Island Wrapper Progress

Posted on June 4, 2016 by elliebelly

This project is quick and it’s easy to memorize the four row repeat pattern. It’s a great project for knitting while talking with a friend. All in all, the perfect project for casual summer knitting.

I can’t wait to add the third color, the blue into the mix and see how it combines with the others, but I’m also having a really good time knitting on my Mithril sweater (the gray). It’s hard to choose which one to devote myself to, so I’m giving them both a little love this weekend.