DesigKnit

Well, almost a sweater. Look at this:

That would be a sweater that now has two cuffs and two attached sleeves!

(Never mind that I don’t really like the sleeve cap shaping and am probably going to snip some stitches and rework it, or that the neck opening hasn’t been picked up and knit yet…at least it looks like a sweater today!)

This unlikely burst of almost-finishing was brought on by a very strict rule that there would be no winding of silk and tencel until the sweater was put together. Amazing how one little rule can completely change the game, isn’t it? With that one little decision, our underdog has pulled out ahead after all.

And now, I think I am off to wind some very soft yarn before heading out to spinning guild for the rest of the evening. We wouldn’t want too much discipline, now would we?

Well, it’s the end of February and that means that it’s time for the Warm Hats not Hot Heads sendoff. I have to admit that we jumped the gun a little and sent my hat on Friday, because today’s schedule was all up in the air and we wanted to send it out on time. So it is off and running, wending its way through the postal system to deliver its message and to find a new home (maybe) with Rep. Hannabusa in Hawaii. I don’t imagine they have much use for wool hats there, but not being used to the cold must make meetings in Washington D.C. all the harder to bear.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, there is a bit of a ruckus going on in Madison about the latest budget amendments being pushed through by our new governor. All the surrounding political discourse has given me plenty of opportunities to reflect on just why WHNHH is so important.

I’m pleased to say that the protests have (so far) remained peaceful, but tension is high and tempers are growing palpably shorter by the day. I was snapped at in the grocery store just yesterday by a disgruntled protester annoyed at having been closed out of the Capitol building, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. It certainly didn’t further his cause in my mind, even though I was predisposed to agree with him.

I have been disappointed by the level of “discussion” that filters out to me from the crowds that surround the capitol building every day. There have been lots of jabs about Gov. Walker’s (lack of) college education, many statements designed to impugn his character and minimize him as a person, but not a lot of intelligent discourse about the right way to do things. I don’t know about you, but a large group of people chanting about how I’m so dumb I never made it through college would be unlikely to change my mind about much of anything, much less inspire me to engage in open public discussion about contentious issues.

And so, I knit, and think of the ideals embodied in the WHNHH campaign. I hope that they find their way out into the world, not only to our politicians and our public figures, but into our own lives and attitudes as well.

My knitted hat is on its way to Hawaii, but my (metaphorical) hat is off to Ellen and to Allison for beginning what looks to be a truly central part of this ongoing political debate.

It started as a fairly innocent swatching project. Mundane, even. I had some yarn for Branden’s scarf, and I wanted to figure out what to do with it. We’d bought three colors, and I wanted them to work together in interesting ways (not just stripes). I’d been through lots of stitch dictionaries, and hadn’t seen what I wanted, but Branden has always been fond of geometric patterns, so I thought that a mosaic might do quite nicely.

Thing is, I’d never knit a mosaic before, and had no idea if they were nicely reversible (they’re not). So, I needed to swatch.

As you can see, I didn’t get very far before realizing that it wasn’t what I was looking for. So I started playing aimlessly, just fiddling around to see where the yarn took me.

I’ve always loved linen stitch, so I tried a little bit of that.

I liked two-color linen stitch even better. That morning, we’d put a sample on the loom for my latest project (the Tosh yarn…it’s beautiful!).

I’m not sure how well you can see the pattern in that photo, but it’s coming out great. In terms of this story, it is only relevant because it meant that I had weaving on the brain.

And so, I started thinking. Linen stitch looks like plain weave, the foundation for many, many woven patterns.

And then I started wondering what a knitted twill would look like. (Your jeans are made of a twill fabric…all those diagonal lines are characteristic of a twill pattern.)

And so I played some more.

Interesting, but a little sloppy and not quite what I was looking for. Seemed like it needed a little more contrast.

And so, a twill was born.

Now, this might not seem like much if you’re not a weaver. It’s a pretty pattern, sure, but it might be a little hard to see why this is exciting beyond that. Twill is to plain weave what purl is to knit. Those two patterns are the basis for a huge majority of woven fabrics. Put together in the right ways, they can do amazing things.

And so I have begun to swatch. I’m not sure exactly where this will lead, and for now I am just focusing on learning the basic grammar of this technique. A simple twill.

A simple twill that changes direction every few rows to create a herringbone.

And now, something just a tiny bit more complicated, but still using only the basic twill structure.

The possibilities are endless, and I am very intrigued. I have a thousand ideas for ways to play with these basic patterns, and when I run out, there’s always this:

I have a sneaky suspicion that there will be a lot more of this on the blog in the months to come. I’ve never seen anyone else knit this way, and I am fascinated by all the things a knitter could do with this simple, simple idea. I bought a notebook. I’m swatching as fast as my fingers will let me. This could be very, very cool.

Look what came in the mail today:

(Picture a kind of sing-song rhythm to that line. Yes, I’m excited.)

Suddenly the swatching project has some stiff competition.

I also just put 30 brand new Hanes t-shirts in the washer for printing this weekend.

I don’t think the poor sweater has a chance.

Well, I had hoped that I’d broken back into regular blogging with that last little burst of posts, but it appears that it is not to be. Life and work have conspired against me this week, and here it is, already week since I’ve posted.

I am getting the feeling that this will be a random sort of post. That’s just how things feel at the moment…random. Fortunately, knitting continues despite the hectic, and I’m almost to the cuff on my second sweater sleeve! There are no pictures, but I’m hoping to have a finished sweater to show very soon. I’m not sure why this one has dragged on for so long; it isn’t a particularly fine yarn, and it’s not a complicated pattern. It just keeps getting put aside and forgotten, somehow. But it’s almost there!

I am actually in very grave danger of being distracted from it again, but I’m trying to stay on track. I have this wonderful little swatching project that I’ll tell you all about when I have pictures, and it’s threatening to turn into an obsession that eats up all my knitting time.

Unfortunately, it has already taken over the place of the project that inspired it. I began swatching when I was trying to pick a pattern for Branden’s scarf, and now suddenly the swatches have taken on a life of their own and run away with another yarn. Maybe I’ll get to the scarf once the sweater is finished?

In other distracting news, I got notification that my Blue Moon tencel shipped today! Very excited to cast on for the next Namaste. Sometimes there are just too many projects to choose from…

We’ve almost finished posting the painted top on Etsy. Turns out there are a couple more photos to take this weekend, but I should be able to get most of it posted tonight or tomorrow – most of the listings are now just down to writing descriptions and coming up with names, so it’s getting there!

I guess that pretty much sums it all up…feels chaotic, but it’s getting somewhere. Lots of things are up in the air and partially unfinished at the moment, but I think it will all come together somehow in the end. There is so much more to say, lots of things to catch up on, but that will have to wait for another day. Hope you’re having a happy Tuesday!

(Edited to add: the first spinning fiber is up now.)

We’ve been busy, busy behind the scenes setting up shop on Etsy. It takes more steps than you’d think to get everything sorted and ready to go. Branden has pioneered most of the shop setup for me, so I have only to show up and write the descriptions, but there has been a lot going on. Luckily, some of that also involves dyeing. Yarns are officially posted now, and we’ll soon be adding this weekend’s rovings to the mix.

I decided to play with semisolids this week. One of the things that I love the most about dyeing is watching all the endless variations that you can get from just a single color.

Chestnut brown, for example, becomes a beautiful shade of mahogany-bordering-on-rose. This is just one dye, with 4 different dilutions to really show off its variety.

The green is a bit more complex; I mixed teal and pumpkin to get my colors, and then painted them on in varying strengths across the roving. Do you see all that depth?

I was really surprised how much the yellow came out in this one. Most of the dye was a 1:1 mixture in different dilutions, but I also threw in a little 3:1 (pumpkin to teal), and it really pops out at you.

This one is quite possibly my favorite of the day, simply because it surprised me so much. I love the intensity of the pumpkin orange. Orange is not a color that I normally gravitate toward, but when I love it, I really love it.

This time I love it.

Of course, teal (and green) will always have a special place in my heart. These are my base colors, the ones that I live by. Accents are wonderful, but when I want a color that I know will work for me, these are where I turn.

This color walks the line between blue and green, and it’s impossible to tell where exactly it falls. It was almost impossible to photograph, and only gets close to the actual color after some serious playing around with color levels in software. (The photo above is the same roving that was in the first picture and looked absolutely, undeniably blue. Go figure.)

Fortunately, Branden is a very patient man who doesn’t mind poking around with the camera for literally hours to get just the right color of yarn in a photo. Nor does he (apparently, at least) get sick of his wife, who is very, very picky about getting the color perfect, and then wants it posed prettily to boot.

We didn’t get around to taking photos before the sun went down, so all of these are “formal” shots taken in our little lightbox setup. I usually prefer to use “artsier” photos for the blog, but I’m afraid this week we’re going for documentarian. But the color is right, gosh darn it.*

There hasn’t been much knitting while we’ve been busy bustling around behind the scenes, but I’m hoping to get some in tonight, perhaps while I listen to an edition of On Point, which Branden called to tell me about tonight. They apparently mention Ellen’s Warm Hats not Heads campaign at about 15 minutes in, so it’s bound to be good. Off to listen and knit!

*At least until you go looking at it with a different monitor – then it goes all wonky again. The perfectionist in me cringes at the thought.

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. The same thing happens every year, but it always comes at a different time. It’s that subtle, undefinable moment where winter gives way to spring. Things shift somehow, ever so slightly, and winter’s grip loosens. It’s like the moment when the tide turns; hard to mark exactly, but all of a sudden things change and the water recedes instead of rising. Low tide is a long time coming, but it is inevitable.

It’s still a long way toward spring, but this week I can feel it coming. I can feel it in the sunshine, hear it in the birdsong, see it in the puddles forming from all the melting snow. The buds are swelling, and the world is awakening again. Granted, the puddles re-freeze every night and the black ice makes walking anywhere an exercise in balance, but the fact that the puddles are there in the first place means that the end is in sight.

I love living in a place with a real winter. There is nothing quite so magical as watching spring come creeping back into a frozen landscape. It makes the cold and the wind and the dark of winter so worthwhile; it’s simply a backdrop for the brightness of spring. These periods of transition are beautiful to behold, and I have missed them living in places with gentler seasons.

This year, it’s been a particularly dramatic changeover. Last Thursday, it was -11 degrees outside. This Thursday, it’s supposed to be 45. That’s a 56 degree change in temperature in a week! I’m not sure that we’ve had a day above freezing since before Christmas, and now we suddenly have grass poking out from beneath the snow. Granted, it’s last years’ grass and it’s looking rather sad today, but all this slushy snowmelt is feeding the green of springtime. I know winter will be back again before we’re done, but it won’t stay for long; its days are numbered.

If I were gardening this year, I’d be starting tomato plants indoors in a few weeks to be ready for planting out in May. Somehow that really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? This last month of winter can feel so long, and yet already the tide has changed. This week, it became spring.

Happy springtime!

When I posted about needing a new yarn for the next Namaste scarf , Amanda chimed in and reminded me of tencel (thank you!).

Tencel is a fiber that I have often admired but that somehow never stays on my radar long enough for me to use it. Every time I see it, I fall in love with the shiny and the soft and the almost metallic gleam.  I long to spin it someday. And then I walk away, musing on what I might do with such a fiber. And then, I forget. Honestly, I just don’t do a lot of “shiny” in my knitting. I usually stick with simple, unassuming fibers that are beautiful but not necessarily showy.

But the Namaste series demands shine, and drape, and flow. It wants a yarn that can manage a little effortless showing off. The Namaste projects are all accent pieces, defining and centering, structured and bold. Utterly simple, and yet with a presence.

In this, I may finally have found my reason to use Tencel.

A ravelry search didn’t find a whole lot of yarn with a high Tencel content and also a bit of wool (must have wool to help it hold its shape and keep things light in a worsted-weight yarn). Amanda mentioned that Blue Moon had a nice blend. I went and looked. It was very nice.

And so, I am currently waiting (a little less than patiently, I must admit) for a couple of skeins of Blue Moon Marine Silk, in the colorway Copperfine (it’s the one listed as their sample skein, and after seeing it I could have no other).

I’m trying to be patient, but I am so very excited to begin. I wonder what theme this piece will take on?

Riots and rainbows notwithstanding, I often feel that the appropriate name for a group of colors is a celebration. There is really nothing else I feel like doing when confronted with beautiful shades of color.

I began yesterday’s dyeing as I always do; I sat down with my color sampler cards and matched colors. Since I was dyeing for friends, I pulled colors that fit one person, and then colors that fit the other. Then I threw in a few more that I wanted to play with for a project that’s percolating in the back of my mind.

That might seem like a lot of colors, but since many of them are shades of the same dye (gotten by using different dilutions) or mixtures of a set of base dyes, I ended up with only 5 main colors, plus black to work from. I think I did end up throwing in two other accent colors, but I usually try to stick to 3-5 dyes per session. It keeps things manageable, and it allows me to fully explore the possibilities contained in those little jars of magic.

I began with the roving, since it’s a little more finicky and it was the star of the day. Despite my worries about that silly scarlet dye, the roving turned out to be the perfect pink, somewhere between salmon and sunset.

To my surprise, the greens gave me a little more trouble. I’ve gotten used to adding extra dye, or increasing the concentration to match the colors on my sample cards, but apparently yesterday I had no need of extra. I was aiming for something lighter, with a stronger presence of gray, but if I put my expectations aside I am deeply in love with the greens that came out.

The blues were also much darker than I was aiming for, but darker blue is hardly ever something you’ll hear me complain about. Next time I will cut down on the saturation for both of these colors, but today I am glorying in their depth.

My absolute favorite of the day was a long shot (it often is). I took a bunch of strong colors in heavy saturations, and I laid them in stripes of varying width all along a skein of yarn. It has a little of everything, from reds and orange to blues and even a little yellow.

And I absolutely love it. Do you see that fire?

The next skein was much closer to what I’d expected for the roving. A paler, more subdued blue shot through with gray.

My favorite reason for working with a small number of similar colors is that it often creates unexpected synergies between the yarns. I wouldn’t have thought to pair those first two skeins with one another, but look how perfectly they flow into one another:

It’s like they were made to go together, when really that was the farthest thing from my mind when dyeing.

The same thing happened with the last two skeins.

The one on the right is dyed very much like the first roving; a combination of different saturations of scarlet and fire red, this time mixed with just a little gray to tone it down.

The skein on the left is my “serendipity” skein. At the end of the day, when the dye jars are getting close to empty and my wash jar (where I rinse the spoons as I measure) is getting to be a deep, saturated color, I mix whatever is left over and not enough to be worth saving and use that to dye the last skein. It’s funny: every time I encourage people to mix colors on their yarn, they say they’re afraid of creating mud. Every time I dye, I mix everything randomly, and usually get something beautiful.

This particular serendipity skein is a mixture of two reds, a teal, an orange, and a yellow dye, plus liberal sprinklings of black. There may also be some brown and a little pure blue thrown in. To me, it looks like the sunset.

And again, all of these very different skeins fall into harmony with one another in unexpected ways.

Yes, I think color should be called a celebration.

The more I dye, the more I realize how much pleasure it brings me to put color on fiber. I love to see how it develops, how it takes these strange and often unexpected turns to become so much more than I could have expected from looking at my samples alone.

The problem is, I don’t need any more yarn. I have enough, and though I love each and every one of these skeins, it’s the creation that I enjoy, and not the possession.

And so, today, we began another project. One that Branden has been suggesting for a long, long time, and one that I am finally becoming ready to embrace.

We took photos.

Well, really Branden took photos and I mostly kept myself occupied elsewhere so I wouldn’t interfere. (There are different ways to enable, and sometimes the best way is to simply get out of the way…)

We printed ball bands. (!)

And we’re beginning the process of setting up a small shop over on Etsy. It’s not ready yet, but it’s coming. We’re busy creating a place for all these colors, so that I have room to make more.

This week, I’ve taken a brief pause in my regularly scheduled knitting, in the name of sanity. As many of you already know, Ellen is hosting a “Warm hats not heads” campaign to remind our elected representatives (and perhaps ourselves as well) of the value of civil discourse and mutual respect in public debate. And so, I am knitting a hat.

This may look familiar to you, as it’s the second iteration of the hat I tried to knit for myself and ended up giving to my sister.  Knitting it a second time through is giving me a chance to work out all the kinks, and who knows? It may end up being a pattern someday soon. As with all good collaborations, Ellen’s challenge is helping me finish this project now; without the extra push, it would probably have been shelved as a partially finished chart for months to come.

And though I have been pausing  just a bit, other things are making progress, too. I finally plied some singles that have been waiting patiently on their bobbins for a couple of weeks now. This brings me up to seven skeins of medium worsted weight wool from the fiber I bought this fall at the sheep and wool festival. I’m about half way through the fiber, so I should have plenty for a sweater in the end. It’s spinning up beautifully soft and fluffy, as only a lightly processed roving can. There’s just no way to get this much loft from a commercially prepared fiber (or no way that I’ve found, anyway).

I’ve been off of spinning for a couple of months now, for no apparent reason. But it is good to be back again, and it will be even better when I get to knit with this yarn.

Not one but two of my friends are taking their first drop spindling classes this month. That seemed like good cause for celebration, so I’ve been playing around in the basement with this today:

(Hint: It’s not white anymore.)

I’m hoping that everything comes out well; some of the dyes were acting a little funny today. I’m not sure if it’s just because the basement is cold and it’s hard to keep the solution water warm, or what. They’re steaming away in the kitchen now, and I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll come out of their wrappers in good shape.

And finally, my sweater may actually get a finished first sleeve soon.

The sleeve itself knit quickly, but the cuff is a little difficult to work, and so I’ve stalled out again there. But I am hoping that I will get that done this afternoon, and possibly even begin the second sleeve. There may be hope after all!

Funny how much gets done when I try to “pause”…