yarn – Page 7 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

How I Learned To Love To Swatch

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

I'm not a swatcher, at least not until recently. I always wanted to be. And, sometimes, I would swatch, at least sort of, in a small way. But I had never blocked a swatch. That turned out to be fatal a couple of times, like when I knit Tiny Owl's Fairy Lights Hat in Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere, and the yarn bloomed and grew to half again it's original size when I blocked my beautiful, but now very large, hat.

Sometimes, I even pretended to myself that I was knitting a swatch, when my process wasn't sufficient and my count was haphazard. Recently, this resulted in an Agnes Sweater, which, although intended for me, didn't fit my 15 year old or even my 11 year old. A friend's 6 year old became the profoundly happy recipient of a gorgeous, but very small, sweater knit in Malabrigo Mecha.

My historical approach to swatching can only be called denial. It was obvious from pretty far out that no amount of blocking would make that teeny-tiny sweater fit my body!

Going forward, I'm committing to being a better swatcher. I recently discovered knitting podcasts, and one of the first ones I listened to was Kelley Petkun on the Knit Picks' Podcast. She made a compelling case for swatching. And, she made it sound fun. I'm glad I listened.

For example, one of the patterns in my queue is Gathered Pullover by Hanna Jason.

Her photo is gorgeous and I've wanted to knit this for a long time. If you look at the photo you can see you need a soft drapey yarn knit at a loose gauge. I swatched two different yarns I thought I wanted to use and I'm glad I did because even before I blocked them, it was apparent they were not going to be winners. Although I got gauge, neither was drapey or loose enough. Swatching here has caused me to pull out several finer yarns and saved me a lot of unhappiness.

This week, I've spent my time swatching for several new projects. I'm knitting generous swatches and carefully blocking them. I don't cut the yarn off of the skein — instead I wash the swatch and block it still attached in case I need the yarn for the project. And, I've gone to knitting full swatches in the round because I know my gauge changes when I knit flat.

For a project in Malabrigo Rasta, I needed gauge in both stockinette and 2×2 rib. I turned my swatch into a pair of mittens.

I hope swatching will make me a much happier and more successful knitter. I feel like I'm finally on the way with swatching, although I may have gotten a little bit carried away with this one.

2014 Fresh Start!

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Joyce Makes Art

It has been a long time since I was able to blog. Many of you know me in real life, and know I've had commitments elsewhere and although those still exist, I'd like to find time to share some of my knitting with you once again. I've been knitting in hyperdrive since the first of the year — lots of airplane time and doctor's office waits lately — so I thought I would try to share a few pictures.

In no particular order, here is what has come off of my needles recently:

1-This pattern is called 198 yards of heaven. I tried it a couple of years back and the lace defeated me. So I started over and this time, I learned that the secret was to knit it after small children had gone to bed, so I could count correctly. It was a zip to knit. This photo is before it was blocked. I need to get another picture of it post-blocking. It opened up beautifully and has been around my neck ever since.

2-This Chunky Cowl was knit from Malabrigo Mecha. I love this yarn. I could build a whole stash around it and, in fact, I seem to have done that in the last few months.

3-Gloves in Malabrigo Rasta. This yarn is incredible. No wind, no cold, not even the polar vortex permeates their dense fabric. I'm going to try to do a pair of these for everyone in our family.

4-This Agnes Sweater was more like agony to knit. Yes, it was my fault. I didn't use the bulky Quince yarn the this charming pattern called for. But I did swatch and it was good, or so I thought. It was going to keep me warm all winter. In the end, it didn't fit me or my 15 year old or even my 11 year old, but I was able to gift it to a charming 7 year old who seemed most pleased with it. (Pictured here on the 11 year old).

5-Moths Around My Neck is knit from some silk handerchiefs I dyed ages ago. This was mostly finished. I only had to pick it up a few days ago and add on a couple more inches for it to be perfect for a bit of color mid-winter.

6-Tundra is another project I started ages ago, but left to languish. I don't know why. I can't rave enough about this pattern. I opted to leave off the buttons the pattern calls for and use a few big kilt pins to fasten it in the front so I can wear it as either a wrap or a scarf.

7-Grandma's Hug is a wrap I knit from a new favorite yarn, Quince, for my Mom. It's meant to be snuggly for sitting around the house drinking tea or, in my Mom's case, staying up late at night watching football and basketball games. Although it is off my needles and blocking as I type, the selfie I took of it is dreadful, so for now, we'll stick with this in progress photo.

As I look all this over, it seems like a lot of knitting for the first 21 days of the year! But I've had a few days off and lots of cold weather that supported the urge to knit. Still on my needles is a turquoise blue cabled cowl that I am in love with (pictures to come) and I've got a line up of projects to knit for a cold weather family trip in a few weeks.

My knitting goal this year is to learn how to do color work. I'm going to start with a pair of mittens. I'm not sure it's going to go very well, but I do have a secret weapon, as I have a knitting friend around the corner who produces some of the most beautiful stranded knitting I have ever seen. I'm hoping she will give me lots of advice.

I'm happy to be back to blogging, and although I may not be posting every day, I'm going to try and check in at least once a week. It looks like it's going to be a big year for knitting and I've done a little bit of dyeing and have more planned. So stay tuned!

Recent Dyeing

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I've done some dyeing over the last few weeks and thought I would give you all a peek.

This is a wonderful Superwash Merino/Mulberry Silk blend from a new undyed yarn supplier (or rather, new to me) called Polika. I like this yarn a lot; not as much as Moth & Goat which is a Cashmere/Silk blend at about the same weight, but this is a slightly more economical version that is still very pretty.

The colorway, Perseid, is actually the result of some experimenting with dyeing and overdyeing that gave me results I was looking for with some more somber colorways. This picture is a lot brighter than the actual dyeing, but the picture below, which is Perseid on Blue Faced Leicester, is a bit truer.

I've also been experimenting with a yarn that has a bit of silver sparkle in it — I'm tentatively calling this Silver Sock, but if you have any ideas, I would love to hear them. Several skeins of this yarn have gone out to friends for their opinion and I'm searching for a project to devote my skeins to.

I've got two skeins in the colorway on the bottom, Wendy. Although socks seem like the right choice for a yarn with so many colors in it, I'm also going to look around for some other ideas since I've got two full skeins.

This Week’s Knitting

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I always seem to wrap up my knitting for the weekend at some point on Sunday. This week has been a busy one, and I don't have a lot of progress to report. But I do have this:

I wove in what seemed like a million ends (I switched skeins every couple of inches on both the body and the sleeves) and Ollie's Crayon Ragman Cardigan is now happily blocking in the first cool fall day we've seen.

In case you can't tell, it's very colorful.

That's Elliebelly's Crayon colorway, and I'm more than pleased with how it knit up for this sweater.

I'm continuing to make progress on my Storm Cloud Shawlette, which I'm calling Mermaid's Tail, since a good friend said that's exactly what it looks like. It's still an amorphous blob on the emails, but when you gently straighten it out you get some sense of how it will fan out after blocking. I'm looking forward to wearing this one — it's all mine, baby.

I've acknowledged before that I have a bit of an ADHD tendency as a knitter. It's really more of a "so many patterns, so little time" syndrome, and as I do tend to finish most of them sooner or later, I don't worry about it much. So, when I got an email Friday night from Knit Purl with a great looking ribbed scarf knit in Noro yarn, I immediately tossed my stash and started knitting. I couldn't wait. I'm knitting it as a K3P3 rib (with three knit stitches on each outer edge) and because of its simplicity, it is my "car knitting" project-I like to have something on hand for carpool lines and traffic jams.

I already know two things about this scarf: (1) I am deathly allergic to mohair, and this yarn has a small mohair content. It makes me sneeze and make my nose and eyes itch. I nonetheless like this yarn enough that I will finish this scarf despite all of that. (2) Two skeins is not enough yarn to knit this scarf as long as I would like, so I am going to have to start hunting a third skein. If anyone happens to have Noro Silk Garden in colorway 276, Dye lot A, please give me a shout!

Ollie’s Crayon Sweater: Trying Out Trim

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

When last we left our story, I had run out of yarn for Ollie's Ragman, knit in Elliebelly Talia in the Crayon colorway, and was obsessing over how to deal with the trauma. I settled upon a solid color trim, and dyed two: one blue and one gray.

Ollie favored the blue, so I knit it up into cuffs. The 1×1 rib looks oversized to me, knit on the same size needles as the body of the sweater (size 9) and although the color has much to recommend it, I wondered it the gray wouldn't be a better match. So I'm trying out the gray on the bottom of the body, going down one needle size to get a neater fabric.

I think the gray is the winner, so once I finish the body, I'll rip off the sleeve cuffs and reknit them.

The inside of the sweater looks great to me too. At some point, I'm going to have to come up with a reverse stockinette project for the Crayon colorway!

Progress Knitting The Honegart Hat

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

I'm knitting Steven West's Honegart Hat for my oldest child, who goes to school up north. He asked for a new hat a while back, and I had been rather obsessively stalking Ravelry for a basic hat he would like when I stumbled across this pattern.

I'm into the second repeat of the honey comb cable pattern. After one more set of cable patterns, I'll be ready to start on the decreases. It's a simple knit with enough variation to keep you interested throughout.

The yarn is Elliebelly Alpaca & Merino. I opted for a blue and a green, rather than the gray and yellow high contrast hat in the sample. I loved the sample hat, but thought the boy might be more prone to actually wearing the hat knit in these softer colors.

Dye Yarn. Dye.

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Joyce Makes Art

Sometimes a girl just has to dye yarn. Nothing else will do.

I dyed some Blue Faced Leicester for a very sweet girl.

I dyed two skeins of Elliebelly's Eco Alpaca — I guess that makes this an Eco Duo — to use together in a hat for my oldest. The skeins were dyed together and then the skein on the bottom was overdyed. I'm hoping this means I get complimentary skeins that work well together. It's an experiment I've been wanting to try for a while. You can see the richness of the colors a bit better in the close up photo below.

There is a bit more yarn steeping and you would think I would be tired of dyeing, but of course, that never happens.