knitting – Page 8 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Outlander. Late & Grudgingly. (But Happy About The Knitting!)

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

My Mom has been a huge fan of the Outlander books for at least a decade. I have to confess that I've feigned polite interest, but the plot has never grabbed me enough to convince me to read it.

One word suddenly changed that: Handknit.

Or rather, it didn't convince me to read the books, but instead, to watch the show, because I was told the knitting was beautiful. And it really is! Claire's ubiquitous and stunning cowl is something I had to knit for my Mom, also named Claire, right away. After searching through the available patterns (clearly, it's just a big ring of garter stitch, but I wanted ideas — should it be a mobius, should there be shaping, etc. etc.) I settled upon The Gathering as a good place to start and cast on.

The lovely purple edge is this provisional cast on, which I prefer to the one the pattern suggests. The yarn is Elliebelly Bulky Merino, held triple stranded to give it the necessary bulk. Although the pattern calls for size 50 needles, I didn't have any on hand, so I'm trying it with my size 35 needles, the largest I own. I'm not sure it will give the loose drapey knit of Claire's cowl on the show, but it seemed worth a try.

My plan is to knit until I am just about out of yarn and then use a three needle bind off, rather than Kitchnering, because I'm lazy like that.

This pattern is the easiest possible knit, and seeing how nice it looks now, part way done, I'm pretty sure the biggest challenge will be giving it over to my Mom when it's done.

Knitting Nae, Continued.

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

Diane, whose beautiful photoblog is well-worth checking out, commented that she wanted to knit a Nae, but was confused by the pattern. It can be hard to visualize before you get about one-quarter of the way into it, so here are some thoughts and pictures to help.

The start is the point on the left in this photo, with the cast on of a few stitches. At this point, you begin work on what will be a 3" band of moss stitch, and it will run across the top of your shawl. To orient yourself, visualize the start of the shawl as the top left-hand corner point of a triangle, where the base edge will be along the top of your knitting, and the point will be bottom center as your knitting grows. This is surprisingly hard to explain — I'm not so sure that helps, so here's a bit more.

The starting point of the project is still on the left. As you continue to knit the moss stitch border, on the top here, you also begin to knit the stockinette stitch triangle below it. You do this, starting on the right side of the project, with what at first is just a couple of the stockinette stitches. See how few stitches are on the row over on the left side? You grow the triangle with one increase, after the first knit stitch on every right side row (every other row). I followed the advice of some knitters who suggested increasing every fourth row, to get a less steep line. You can see my big blue marker, reminding me to increase. From that point on, you continue, doing the stockinette portion first, followed by the moss stitch border, and then you turn your work for the wrong side row.

You get a better idea of it once you see it in progress. This is about one-third of the way in.

And here, you can see the start of the project on the left, with the moss stitch border first increasing to its full 3" width, and then the stockinette portion beginning to increase once the border is in place.

Diane, I hope this makes it all clear. It's a lovely pattern, and although summer trips have cut into my knitting time, I want to finish this up before cooler weather hits.

What is Your Favorite One Skein Pattern? (Blog Give Away)

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

Last week, I wrote about knitting small projects and enjoying the meditative value of simple knitting. So, now I'm curious: what is your favorite one skein knitting pattern? If you tell me about your favorite pattern in the comments, you will be entered in a drawing to win yarn for your pattern choice!

One skein patterns can be quick and satisfying. (Pictured above, Ellie, knitting a Cherry Branch Hat out of Elliebelly Basilisk). Especially during the hottest part of summer, one skein knits are great projects.

In the comments below, tell me about your favorite one skein pattern. It doesn't matter if it's written for Elliebelly yarn or not, because, patterns can be adapted to different yarns as long as the weight and drape is a good fit. On July 1, we'll have a drawing to pick one lucky winner from the entrants.

Here are some of my other favorites one-skein projects from Ravelry knitters to get you started:

ShellBelle76 knit Malabrigo Hand Thingies in a skein of Elliebelly Coventry Cashmere.

Angelicasays did a Rainbow Wave from Elliebelly Angel Sock.

Squeakybeans knit some Toast armwarmers from a skein of Elliebelly Ellie-Blue Blue Faced Leicester.

What beautiful projects by a group of amazing knitters! Post your comment below to enter the give away. I'm looking forward to seeing what your favorite patterns are!

Dyeing Yarn with Natural Dyes. Part Two.

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

This is Part Two of my tutorial on dyeing yarn with black beans. Take a look at the preceding post to see the steps involved in preparation of the dyepot and the mordanting the yarn.

We're at the stage where we are reading to dye the yarn. Remove the beans from the liquid and skim any foam that has accumulated of the top of the liquid, the pour it into your dyeing vat.

Here is our bean bath, all ready to go. You'll notice that it is pinkish — dripping some of the color onto paper towels gives you an even better idea of what you can expect from the dyepot.

Since this looked a bit on the pinkish side, and I wanted to bring out the blue-green tones in the dye, I mixed a solution of soda ash and water to use in the dyebath.

First, I gently immersed the yarn in the dyepot. If you want even color, you could gently move the liquid through the skeins for even coverage. But because I wanted some light variegation, I carefully placed the skeins in the pot and ensured they were covered, but made no effort to distribute the dye. I've got all three skeins of yarn in this one pot.

In a bit of dyeing magic, I poured the soda ash solution over the top of the pot and there was an instant color transition. That process continued as the yarn soaked over the next 12 hours.

Here we are at the end of the dye bath, ready for removal and rinsing.

I very gently rinse the yarn, and then soak it in successive baths until the liquid is completely clear. Three baths did it for this yarn, but I did a final soak in synthrapol, a dyers' soap that removes any loose dye molecules at the end of the process, before reconditioning the yarn.

Here are my three skeins, hanging for a final bit of sun after resekeining.

The skein on the left is the Malabrigo. It's a pale green, the yarn has more color than the photo. The middle skein is the Panda silk/bamboo blend and the skein on the right is the Pixie superwash wool. Dyeing is always a subjective process, influenced by a lot of external conditions like temperature, water ph, and concentration of dye. But in natural dyeing, the results seem to be even more variable and very exciting. I can't wait to knit with these skeins!

Natural dyes are notoriously migrant, meaning that the dye can fade with exposure to light and washing over time. These skeins were well mordanted, but I'm going to do a little bit of experimentation with their light and color-fast properties to see how they do. I hope you'll try some natural dyeing too. Please let me know if you try it and what your results are like. You really can't go wrong.

Dyeing Yarn with Natural Dyes. Part One.

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

You will never guess. What natural dyestuff do you think I dyed these yarns with? It's definitely not an obvious choice, unless you've done this before, but all three of these skeins were dyed in a vat prepared from black beans.

Here they are, soaking in the kitchen. I use a pot with a strainer so I don't have to fish all of the beans out after the "juice" is ready, and since this is nothing but black beans, I have none of the usual worries about working in the kitchen.

I'll include tutorial notes on the steps I took, in case you want to dye along with me. I eye-balled the amount of water I would need to cover my skeins, and after rinsing the dust off of the beans, covered them in water, stirred them up, and left them to soak. This batch soaked for about two and one-half days.

The day before I wanted to dye my yarn, I pulled it out to mordant. The mordanting process makes it possible for the dye molecules to stick to the yarn molecules, much as in commercial wool dyeing where citric acid is used in the process. There are a number of mordants available for use with natural dyes. Here, I'm using aluminum sulfate, which, although considered safe, means we're back to using designated dye pots and a mask for mixing.

We're using skeins of three different yarn bases here, because natural dyeing produces fascinating and often unpredictable results on different fibers. On the left is a skein of Elliebelly Pixie Superwash Merino. The middle skein is Elliebelly Panda, a 50/50 silk bamboo mix. The final skein is undyed Malabrigo Mecha, which is a single-ply Merino, that is not superwash.

Here they are in the mordanting bath, with 5 tablespoons of Alum and a tablespoon of kitchen grade Cream of Tartar, which acts as a mordant/brightener. I take close to an hour to bring the submerged yarn to a temperature where the yarn is not quite simmering. Then, lid on but off the stove, the pot sits until the yarn is completely cool before going into the dyepot. This is particularly important in this case, as dyeing with black beans is a cold process, and the colors gray out if heat is applied.

Remember to use your stove fan if dyeing in the kitchen. (With thanks to my husband for the lovely magnet that graces the hood of our stove).

Tomorrow, we'll walk through the dye bath and admire the finished yarn in Part Two.

In Defense of Single Skein Projects — Why We Knit

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

We can't all be the girl who knits incredibly intricate Estonian lace in her spare time, producing immaculate shawls of haunting beauty. And we shouldn't feel bad about it.

I love knitters who are accomplished and precise, and I enjoy celebrating their work. But that doesn't, and shouldn't, in any sense take away from the accomplishments of new knitters, intermittent knitters, or knitters without time for larger projects. There is virtue and integrity too in smaller, simpler, single skein projects.

My Redeux hat, pictured above, was a relentlessly simple knit that any beginner could finish in a day or two since it calls for a single skein of bulky yarn. It has given me an enormous amount of pleasure, to say nothing of the warmth it leant my husband during our trip to Iceland. It was easy, it was simple and it is red and beautiful. I value this hat as much as any project I've ever knit.

Similarly, this Rainbow Twist Cowl is easy enough to be the perfect first attempt at cables for a knitter who has never done them before. Plus, it has the advantage of color. Anything knit with Malabrigo's beautiful Arco Iris colorway is guaranteed to become a cherished favorite. Again, a quick simple knit that was infinitely satisfying and produced a remarkable result. I know this to be true because my teenage daughter stole it away as soon as it came off of my needles and will not return it. This must mean it is a thing of grace and beauty.

This is a basic ribbed knit hat, Rib-a-Roni, knit from a single skein with the addition of a few leftover scraps to form the stripes. This hat brought me such a feeling of accomplishment. I googled and mastered jogless stripes so that the joins look even. The ribbing was meditative. The recipient was ecstatic. He is still wearing it in summer.

We all know that as knitters, there is a tremedous amount of pressure to constantly innovate our craft. And I like that. Last year I picked up lacework for the first time and enjoyed the results. But there is a special virtue, and no shame in working with these easier, baby-bite sized kind of one-skein projects. They take skill too. We sometimes forget that to non-knitters, we all look like rocket scientists. Don't be afraid to turn off the pressure and enjoy a simple knit.

Nangou: What To Knit Next?

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

Before I start this post, I need to say: I have too many works in progress (WIPs). I know this. But it doesn't change my desire, at a certain point every summer, to start casting on new projects. I get one started and then suddenly, like June lightening, a new pattern calls me with an irresistable pull and I'm off again. Fortunately, I tend to have a fall spate of finishing up all those projects, but still, I view this riotous approach to knitting as something of a character flaw and envy those who are more restrained.

That said, I have fallen in love with Nangou.

Nangou is a simple garter stitch with simple eyelet lace patterning rows scarf that was written for a fingering weight silk-merino blend yarn, so think light and delicate but gently warm.

This version, by German knitter Blauregan, is knit in the pattern yarn, with the clever twist of using an undyed skein for the lace eyelet rows. It's one of my favorites.

Lismete's gold on gold variation is really eye catching as well, and I like the looser gauge she used for her project.

And AniaBKnits' version in a rich purple with darker eyelets looks like something I could toss around my shoulders every day.

Since I'm trying to knit from stash these days, I took a look on Ravelry, which let me know I had a number of possibilities already in my stash.

My Tosh Dandelion has a lot in common, color-wise, with several of the projects I like and the addition of 10% linen to the merino woud give it a nice drape. Plus, I've been dying to find something to knit with this yarn.

A lot of knitters have used Tosh Merino Light, and it just so happens that I've got three skeins of Spruce tucked away.

And then, I could always dye some yarn just for this project. I've been impressed with the BFL/Silk sock yarn I've been dyeing for the last month, so I may dye some in a brown-gray colorway just for Nangou.

Currently, Ravelry includes 333 projects and Nangou has a rating of 4.7 stars out of 5, so it looks like it has made a lot of knitters happy. I'm looking forward to joining them!