slow going

I feel like I was a knitting speed demon a couple of weeks ago, and it’s all come grinding to a halt. I’ve (yet again!) fallen behind in the mystery sock KAL. I’ve only just started Clue 3, which is the heel, and I’m really enjoying knitting a heel flap again after all the short row heels I’ve been doing lately! I’m a little disappointed in my yarn choice though. It’s not the yarn itself that bothers me, the Zettl Valbella is a fairly decent workhorse yarn, but the colour. Even though the designer said that the pattern might work better in a lighter colour, I chose an inky navy blue, and the more I knit the more I’m disappointed in how the dark colour obscures the pattern detail, and there’s a lot of detail in these socks! More than once I’ve been tempted to frog and restart them in another colour, but the fact that I have no idea what other colour I’d like to see this in, and that it’s taken me a month to get this far stops me every time. I’m hoping that they’ll improve after blocking and wearing them…

There hasn’t been a whole lot of progress on the self patterning socks either. I knit the heel and a couple of inches past it sometime last week, and I’ve only managed a couple of rows here and there since then.

There’s a rather strange ridge on one side of the toe of these, which I think was caused by my provisional cast on being much too loose. These were cast on for cinema knitting, and I didn’t notice the ridge until enjoying a coffee about half an hour before the film (The Descendants) by which time I was in no mood to frog and restart, so I forged on thinking that it might come out after a bit of blocking.

I did a little bit of a test block when I got home and the ridge doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, but I love seeing how much of a difference blocking can make. The stitches on the foot of the sock were really quite uneven looking because I was using frogged yarn that was still all kinked up, and you can really see how the stitches have smoothed out after a quick block. The sock that I’d frogged only got as far the heel, so the post heel stitches on this sock are nice and smooth again, but I didn’t think that such a small detail could make such a big difference! I have absolutely no intention of frogging this sock again, so I’ll just have chalk it up as a character ridge and hope that a multitude of wears, washes and blocks will even it out over time.

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a little bit more

I haven’t only been busy with silk, I’ve also been having a whale of a time playing around with dyeing wool.

I’ve been thinking of resurrecting my little etsy shop. I’ve been dabbling with etsy on and off since 2006 or 2007, and I had a little go at selling handdyed yarn a couple of years ago but was never entirely happy with the colours I was producing. I think I’ve learned a lot about dyeing since my last effort, and I enjoy the dyeing process so much that I don’t think I’m ever going to get a chance to knit up everything that I dye. Some of it might as well go to a good home!

  

Straight out of the dye pot on the left, reskeined on the right. I’m not sure how repeatable this colourway is as I was just experimenting, but I think I remembered what I used so I’ll have to try and recreate it sometime.

This skein is a glorious 2ply British Blue Faced Leicester in a fingering weight. BFL is hands down one of my favourite fibres. It’s so delightfully soft and has the most beautiful silk like sheen. I was a little bit unsure of ordering this 2ply base yarn, but I’ve completely fallen in love with it. It’s wonderfully poufy and lustrous, and I’m not sure how hardwearing 2ply socks would be, this yarn would certainly make a lovely shawl.

I also dyed a wonderful tonal grey which I love and which is definitely repeatable, or as repeatable as handdyed yarn can be.

There’s more, but I think I’ll stop there. This post is far too pic heavy as it is!

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colours

I’ve been dyeing up a storm over the past few weeks. This is a selection of of mawata silk squares which are fast becoming one of my favourite things to play with. I thought I was doing quite well at varying my colours, but a quick glance above tells me that that’s not really the case! I seem to gravitate towards blue most of the time, but it is my favourite colour!

I had a go an ombre/gradient dyeing one of my squares, and although I do love the resulting effect I think I’m going to have to experiment with different methods as the straight forward dunk in and pull out has messed up the neatness of the layers a little.

 

I think I’ve become more than a little obsessed with mawata. I’ve no idea what any of these are going to become, or even if I’m going to keep them all, but I’m definitely having lots of fun playing around with all these colours.

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not so ugly after all

The other day I thought I’d try a different way of dyeing roving. Things didn’t exactly go to plan. The first time I pulled it out of the dyebath I wasn’t thrilled with the results. The colours were off and it looked like it had fulled. I let it dry for a while, but hated it a little bit more every time I looked at it. I panicked and threw it back in the dyebath with more dye, but the light was fading by this point and I couldn’t actually tell what I was doing properly, our indoor lights are terrible for colours. When I looked at the roving the next day I was sure that I’d dyed the ugliest roving ever.

A few nights ago I was fighting the urge to cast on for a new project when I already have so much on the needles, so I decided the start spinning this ugly little bundle of wool. Turns out I don’t think it’s quite so ugly after all. It’s spinning up into a pale silvery purple which I’m finding quite pretty. It’s also nowhere near as fulled as I thought it was and is quite a joy to spin!

I finished spinning half of it in only a few hours whilst starting to watch Game of Thones (I heart Sean Bean, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so much rutting and boobies!), and I’m looking forward to spinning the rest up. I was aiming for a thicker single than I usually spin, but it’s proving a bit of a challenge because if my concentration wanders and I don’t actively concentrate on spinning a thicker single then my fingers naturally fall back to drafting for a thinner single. I often hear that spinners reach a point where spinning thick yarn becomes an effort, and it’s certainly true in my case. This single is probably quite uneven as a result of all my concentration wavering, especially towards the end where I started to rush to finish my spinning before the end of the episode I was watching so that I wouldn’t be tempted to start another!

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almost

I finished knitting these socks 5 days ago in a record (for me!) 11 days. I debated posting them in yesterday’s FO post, but I thought that that might be a bit of cheat as they’re only almost finished - I still have so.many.ends to weave in.

I counted them, there are eighty in total. Eighty! Sewing in ends is one of my Most Hated Things so it might take me a while to sew in all eighty. Funny, I don’t remember experiencing this much reticence with the ends of my Stripey Socks, but then again, they weren’t for size 11 man feet. In the 5 days since I bound off the second toe I’ve woven in exactly 3 ends. At the rate I’m putting this off it’s going to be at least another 11 days before I can finally block them and the Boy can pad about in his new socks.

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