DesigKnit

I learned quite a while ago that I don’t need to be excited about a project for progress to happen. I simply put the knitting by my chair, try to ignore it, and wait. Inevitably, the fingers twitch and it gets knit up.

I have known this for a long time, but lately I have failed to act on it. This is partly because we don’t have the right setup in the living room yet, and partly because I’ve been better at avoiding things lately.

A week and a half ago, I decided to try it again. I had no home knitting going except the shawl, and it’s hard to pull over a 125-stitch chart and just knock off a few rows while waiting for water to boil. I needed something simpler.

I didn’t have to look far. You may or may not remember that I have technically been “working on” a handspun sweater for over a year now. My guess is that you don’t remember, as it has only made one or two casual appearances on the blog, and I was hard put even to find a picture of it on my computer. I had finished both sleeves and cast on and knit about 6 inches of the body, at which point I stalled.

The sweater came to Germany with us, taking up a good half of a suitcase along the way. I figured I’d have plenty of time to work on it, and since it was one of the few large projects I brought, I thought it would be done in time for me to wear in the fall. I barely touched it. It took up the same half suitcase in all its unknit glory on the way home.

The problem was that there were too many options. There were two (or three. or maybe six, depending on how you count) different options vying for dominance. There was the open-front jacket, and the comfy raglan-type pullover. There was an indeterminate amount of colorwork, in an indeterminate pattern, to be placed in an indeterminate place that would depend entirely on the not-quite certain overall shaping. Oh, the dithering.

So, I knit to the point where I needed to make a decision, and I stopped. For about 9 months.

But then I had no knitting. And it was sitting right there.

My neighbor and I had a very serious and rather long conversation about the state of the colorwork about a week ago, during which conversation Branden was amused and perhaps a bit horrified to hear just how much thought can go into the amount, placement, character, and meaning of color in a knit garment. In the end, we decided that the colorwork had to come out.

Once that was out of the way, I cast on for the body, made a few major and not horribly overprocessed decisions, and ended up with an entire sweater body knit up in just a few days.

There are times that I love bulky yarn.

On Saturday, I looked at the sleeves that I knit a year ago. If I just grafted them on, I’d be done.

But they were sleeves knit to fit a different sweater. And there was still red colorwork in them, all the way at the beginning near the cast-on cuffs.

So, out they came, and I began again. I didn’t end up with a sweater finished in a week, but after a month of no knitting, I’ll take what I can get. It’s amazing what happens when you combine twitchy fingers and some bulky yarn.

So often, inspiration comes from something subtle. A mistake. A tiny speck of color. A path that must be followed, a pot of gold that must be chased.

When I made the samples for my dye set, I placed a blue and an orange next to each other.

When I wrapped them up, they touched, ever so slightly. The blue turned green, and brown.

Now that you can see where it is, here’s something closer to the real color:

I loved the reds and black. I was planning to dye the fiber in those colors. But this green caught my eye and held it. Blue and orange are two colors that I would never have thought to mix, but I was intrigued by the sample. Intrigued enough to take a risk.

I took some reds and blues, and mixed in some orange here and there. Threw in a little black to tone things down a bit, and steamed it to set the dye.

I washed the fiber out last night when I got home, and hung it up to dry. I could tell it wasn’t as saturated as I’d hoped. I think my fear of felting led me to leave too much of the soak water in the fiber, and that it diluted down my dyes. I liked the colors, but they were a pale version of what I’d had in mind. I was ok with them, but I wasn’t sure that I would love them. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. But then, a risk is a risk, and I was glad I’d taken it.

When I got home, I decided to blog. I needed to pull the fiber out into the light. The only light that had a prayer of working was the grow light over the workbench in the basement. It wasn’t the prettiest environment for a new roving, and they aren’t the best photos, but taking them helped me to really see it.

And the fiber isn’t quite the pale, dripping mess that I hung up last night. In fact, it has transformed into a rainbow.

(This last is an unflattering picture, but the colors are pretty accurate, and it gives you an idea of the magnitude of this roving. That’s an office chair under there.)

I finished taking photos, and sat down to try spinning it. As the fiber opens up, more and more colors keep coming, from bright oranges to soft shades of grey and mauve. I think I might be in love.

It’s hard to hold a grudge against a rainbow, even if it’s not the one you thought you were chasing.

Look! Spring!

I love it when green things pop up in the garden. It’s still a little cold overnight for these little ones, so we’ve been ferrying their pots in and out whenever it’s below 40. Well, to be fair, Branden has been ferrying them – I haven’t had to do much pot-slinging lately. But they’re up! And they’re happy! I did the first divide today, and we should have real leaves in no time. This never ceases to delight me.

I also finished some yarn.

This is the first real laceweight that I’ve managed to make. It’s a little closer to sock in a few places, but 8 oz gave me 950 yards, plenty for a good-sized lace project. And the color!

This might be as close to perfect as it is possible for a color to be. I love it. Completely.

Want a closer look?

I bought 2 lbs of Corriedale roving to dye for a sweater, and it’s been very, very hard not to decide that I have already achieved the pinnacle of perfection and to dye it the same colorway. I would be happy to wear nothing but this color, but I also think it’s important to have variety. It’s hard for me to choose to be creative in the face of perfection, and sometimes I need to remind myself to find the unexpected rather than simply resting in the safe choice that I know I love.

To help me remember that there are other beautiful colors, I dyed up some samples.

All of these colors came from 5 dye solutions; one red, one yellow, one green, one blue, and one black. Different dilutions, different combinations. So many colors. I only scratched the surface.

I also dyed some samples of roving to see what they would look like spun up.

And I surprised myself by loving them all.

And then I picked none of them.

Because the one sample that was perfect was the one where two strands touched accidentally during wrapping. Coincidence. Blind chance. Two colors that I never would have mixed came together and made something beautiful. Sometimes the magic of the process teaches you more than all the thinking and planning in the world.

The roving is in the dye pot now, steaming away. I hope it’s as perfect as I think it will be.

Thanks again to the resident photographer for making my yarns look much, much better than they otherwise would.

No knitting of much significance occurred in the month of March. I’m still working on the socks I started at the end of February, and other than that I’ve only knit about 4 rows on the shawl. This is very strange to me, but I’m going with it for now.

There may be light at the end of the tunnel, though. I have an urge to cast on a sweater, but no brain cells with which to design it (or even to pick out a yarn). I’ve decided that the urge itself is a good thing, and that the brain cells will come back online one of these fine days. (Probably when I stop feeding them endless amounts of other complicated stuff to deal with…)

In the meantime, I have been contentedly spinning away. It doesn’t look any different than the last picture I showed you, except that there are now two bobbins instead of one, and the second is well on its way to becoming full. I still love the colors, and I am excited to see the yarn.

My neighbor and I are going to have a dye day sometime in the next few weeks, and I have enough Coopworth top for a sweater. I am seriously tempted to dye it green and blue and black, just exactly the same as the laceweight I’m spinning now. Did I mention that I’m in love with these colors?

I’m also telling myself that it’s good to have variety rather than just sticking with one thing that I like.

It’s hard to argue with perfection, though.

Deep reds overdyed with black might also be nice. Dither. Dither. Where did I put those brain cells?

So, more yarn. Coming soon. Spinning wheels make stash enhancement far, far too easy.

Now, if only I could manage to wield some pointy sticks…