elliebelly – Page 27 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Knitting and Knitting Along

Posted on February 20, 2016 by elliebelly

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!

Test Hat

Posted on February 19, 2016 by elliebelly

I am excited to be testing a new hat pattern for Faiza, whose patterns, HandSoOn Knits, are really extraordinary. If you've missed them, she's the designer of Rumors of Snow, the amazingly textured and colored BIG shawl and some hats with lovely architecture to them. So I was incredibly flattered when she asked me to test her upcoming hat pattern.

It's written at a DK weight, so I'm knitting it with the Plucky Knitter's Sweater (in the Antiqued colorway). It is a very pleasant knit, and without giving away the surprise, it has a very clever construction that makes it one of those patterns where you want to knit just one more row before putting it down and find out you've knit several more inches quite without realizing it. I'm about halfway done here and hope to snatch a little bit of time away from regularly scheduled activities this weekend to finish it. Or at least come close.

Birmingham is surprisingly springlike today, but I have an end of the month trip planned with the baby girl to look at New England colleges. I am going to take this hat along and give it quite the work out. I think it's going to be warm and pretty and I strongly encourage you to stalk Faiza for its release!

Oh Look! A Sleeve (in progress)

Posted on February 10, 2016 by elliebelly

I'm exceptionally pleased with the start of this sleeve!

First off, it is no longer huge. I have a nice, slim fit. I am not usually magic with numbers, but I seem to have succeeded here. As written the sleeves were enormous gaping maws a little bit big. I would have known that if I had read the comments from other knitters, but, um, no. I did not do that. But we are started up again, this time one at a time instead of two and the fit is nice and tidy. Please keep your fingers crossed that my math holds up at the armholes.

Second, the sleeve is a set of pretty complex cables. I'm not sure if I can fully explain, but you can see it best in this picture of the body.

The body consists of five "bands" of a nine stitch cable and it's border. The cable is a sort of convoluted one that crosses over and back and makes a cool interlocking chain. On the sleeve, there are only three cable bands. But, you increase every few rows, and are told to work the increased stitches into the cables when possible. I'm not experienced enough for that to make a lot of sense, but after doing a lot of research, I realized that I had to make up the "outsides" of each side of the sleeve and add the proper stitches in. It's really not as easy as it sounds until you get the right pictures in your mind — what you have to do is oppositional to what you see on the charts. But it seems to have finally clicked, and so far so good.

It's slow going, but I would really like to get this sleeve finished by the end of the month. Along with this hat, which I had to cast on for yesterday.

The pattern is a very clever new hat that Faiza asked me to test. If you've not seen her patterns before, she is the designer of the delectable Rumors of Snow. You won't want to miss the hat when it's released! I'm knitting it in Plucky sweater, in the Antiqued colorway.

Progress On My Habitat

Posted on February 6, 2016 by elliebelly

There is progress being made. Not progress on a sweater (although there is that), but progress on my tree house knitting room. The rest of the family only thinks it's a sun porch that everyone can enjoy. It's actually going to be my knitting nook, complete with a comfy chair and really good lighting.

I live with one (adorable) husband, four children, two dogs, and five cats. I like the fun and frenzy of family, but the clutter, not so much. And as every knitter knows, some (or perhaps most) of the clutter is mine: leftover balls of yarn, a project bag that needs sorting out, swatches, and other remnants of a knitter's life. But, I have a plan.

When my (adorable) husband announced last year that our back deck was beyond its useful life and I had to do something about it, I dutifully went to work. Well, not me personally, but we live in one of those neighborhoods where people are very helpful, and before you know it, I was connected with just the right people. Our backyard has been in the sort of carnage you see in the top left photo for the last few months, but under the watchful eye of Harry the Maine Coon Cat, the plan is coming together. I'll be able to cook outside, which should give me lots of extra knitting time due to the ease of grilling and the proximity of knitting in the fabulous empty room with no clutter at the moment, just a few steps away from the grill. I guess it's because it's still being built, but it looks so calm and peaceful and I love the view of the trees. Hopefully in the next few months, I'll get to show you pictures of knitting in my clutter free zone treehouse room. I can't really imagine a quiet, private space after 25 1/2 years of raising children, but every time I look at this space, it feels like my own private retreat!

And it couldn't come at a better time! I'm on sleeve island with the Glacier sweater that I've been knitting for Millennia since last fall. Just at the start of sleeve island, the second time around on this project, so I could use some peace and quiet to get through all those cables with increases and decreases. I may just pull a folding chair out there and knit away!

Weekend Knitting News

Posted on February 6, 2016 by elliebelly

I've take a few moments away from my regularly scheduled knitting to become completely obsessed with dyeing. Again. That means there is very little knitting progress to share with you this weekend, but there is some pretty yarn.

There were a couple of purple days. Purple is always a challenge on yarns that are non-superwash or good, old fashioned, wool. Getting saturated color is difficult, but worth the effort. You can also see a skein of the Tree Frog colorway variation I've been working on, the green yarn. I used it to play around with an idea I had for a sleeve (I am not and likely never will be a sweater designer, but I had this idea that wouldn't leave me alone so I had to play with it for a bit). The photo on the left has accurate color, on the right is my idea, which still needs a little bit of refining.

I really love yarn with silk content, and as much as I love Chemise, the Elliebelly linen-silk silk blend that is going to be my next sweater, I took some time to dye Elliebelly Panda, a silk bamboo blend, for an Ishbel scarf. And, of course, purple.

This is some Juniper Moon Farms worsted merino that I purchased as a farm share one of the first years they were up and running. It has been in my "too precious to use" stash, but I decided to dye it for the beautiful new shawl by Lisa Hannes, The Colourist, which is intended for richly variegated yarns. This one certainly fits that parameter, and I'm a little bit nervous that I went to high contrast, but I decided against toning it in hopes we'll see lots of pretty color variation in the finished knit.

There is also a little bit of roving being dyed so it can be spun into yarn. I adore handspun yarn, and this is the softest, fluffiest roving I've gotten my hands on in some time. It's merino, with a very low micron count. I can't wait to see what this looks like when it becomes yarn.

I'm going to have to use the weekend to get caught up on sleep, because this is mostly late night dyeing. Late night dyeing is not something that is conducive to good photography or quality blogging, so I apologize for the limited pictures I have to share. But there are lots of exciting photos of yarn and projects knit from it coming in the next few weeks. I've got some wonderful test knitters doing amazing things with some of my yarn this month, and I can't wait to show you the results, along with my own knitting.

Swatching With Linen

Posted on February 2, 2016 by elliebelly

It may still be the middle of winter, but I've held off for as long as I can on swatching with this linen & silk blend yarn.

I've been dreaming about a sweater. Something with a loose gauge and a simple stockinette pattern. So I'm swatching to see what kind of gauge I get, before I get my heart set on a specific pattern (my heart is secretly set on Mithril, but I'm trying to keep an open mind here). Unblocked, there is very little difference in stitch gauge between size 2 and size 4 needles, 5 stitches an inch, with a slight variation in row gauge. This isn't too surprising — linen creates a loose, drapey fabric and it's important to keep this in mind if you're going to knit with it. It doesn't sprong back into shape like a nice merino wool will.

The color, Castle Stone (the yarn is Elliebelly Chemise) is a bit of a chameleon, here it is out of doors after swatching.

Here it is blocking, indoors. You can see it picks up the light because of the silk content. I adore this yarn. No matter where it is, it makes me very happy. (In case you're wondering, the two holes near the top of the swatch are how I mark which half was knit on the smaller needles — two pair of yarn overs)

I'm hoping the blocked shape holds up because my informal measurement is that it's spot on for the gauge I need to knit Mithril. Fingers Crossed.

An Elliebelly Roadtrip

Posted on January 30, 2016 by elliebelly

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!