ravelry – Page 3 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Yarns I’m Dyeing To Knit With

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I am dyeing and dying to knit with the follow yarns:

A new sport weight 65% Cashmere/35% Merino blend yarn I happened upon and grabbed a pound of to experiment with. I am insanely crazy about the first two test skeins I dyed.

I am thinking that I will use one skein for Mary-Heather Cogar's Simple Things scarf.

I am seriously thinking about devoting the second skein to the Eleanor Cowl from Knitty. I am hoping this yarn will live up to my expectations when I knit with it. I love the blend. I'm also considering doing a larger version of Simple Things, alternating knitting with both skeins.

Elliebelly Merlin Merino — an experiment, since I don't often work with predominately orange colorways, but wanted one with just hints of green and purple mixed in with the hot colors. I'm exceedingly happy with this as-yet unnamed colorway.

I haven't made a final decision about what to use this yarn for, so I would welcome any ideas you might have for it! I am giving serious consideration to Regina Satta's Thanks Socks pattern, which would have the added benefit of letting me practice my rusty German, since it is written in both English and German. It's a free knitting pattern on Ravelry and although I would have to monkey with the sizing since my yarn is a slightly heavier weight, I think it would look great in this pattern.

What yarns are you dying (or dyeing) to knit with right now? It's summer, if you're in the south like I am, it's incredibly hot. Little, light weight projects like these are irresistable for this time of year. What do you have in the works?

[If you are looking for the Playsilk Blog Give Away, make sure you scroll down to the next post. And yes, all photos from others are used with their permission.]

Sunday Randomness

Posted on April 25, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

A little bit of random for a Sunday…..

Having spent the morning pulling out the scraggly remains of our 12 year old rosemary border, which runs along our driveway, and then replanting it with incredibly small, new plants, I stopped to enjoy the roses, which are in full bloom.

I'm getting ready to knit my wonderful friend Carina's Faraway-So-Close shawl pattern in yarn hand dyed by Morwenna of Mosaic Moon. I feel so lucky to have four skeins of this sought after yarn, and am hopeful I have enough to knit a hat to wear as well.

The reason I'm eyeing a new project is that Emmaline is close to being done. Fourteen more rows to be exact. I'm a little bit nervous about how the neck rolls at the top — I see one other Raveler who had to do a fix with a line of crochet around the edge, so I'm contemplating that I may have that same issue.

Knucks

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Joyce Makes Art

Knucks is a pattern written by a wonderful knitter, Pamela Grossman, for fingerless mittens. I remember when the pattern was first published, because my dear friend Elizabeth Thompson knitted and embellished a pair for the write up.

[Elizabeth once knit this absolutely incredible pair of baby pants for me, and I have to digress to show them to you…

Aren't they amazing?]

So, Knucks. I've been in search of just the right pattern for the fingerless mitts my six year old wants. He wanted partial fingers, rather than the style that just wraps around the hand. In the middle of searching Ravelry for a pattern, Knucks popped up. Why hadn't I thought of them earlier? And, predictably, Pamela had included a child's size in her pattern.

I was all set — ready to swatch them in some Alpaca I had dyed in Ollie's favorite colorway, Eco, a shading of greens.

I swatched on the way to a Labor Day picnic. It was a long drive so I swatched further than I normally would have.

When I was done, I realized it was a total disaster. This yarn was much bulkier than the yarn the pattern was written for, and taking it down to a needle size that would have made it close would result in a fabric so dense there would be no give in it.

Fortunately, we had a long drive home. I promised Ollie a pair of Knucks as soon as I could make it to the store toss my stash (really!) to get a more appropriate yarn. And, in the meantime, I knit a second swatch and apologized to him for making something that wasn't exactly what he wanted.

Not much too it — just two squares. I took a bit of extra care when doing mattress stitch to match up the edges to let the stockinette roll, and left about 3/4" unstitched for a nice little thumb hole. He seems quite taken with them — and fell asleep wearing them.

But, next on my list is a pair of knucks.