Weaving & Variegated yarns

Recently I found a couple of balls of Rio de la Plata Worsted Multicolor in my stash diving. I also found a green semi solid that may also have been Rio de la Plata in one of the grab bags I got recently during the anniversary sale at Ewe Count. So I set out to weave a scarf and ended up making two.

The first one I made using the Rio de la Plata for the warp and the semi solid grey green for the weft. I think it turned out very lovely but I wondered what it would look like if I used the multicolor for the weft and a solid for the warp. Only problem was I had used up all the green...

I went stash diving again and came up with a some purple Galway. That became my warp and the second ball of multicolor became my weft.



Both scarves were made using the exact same multicolor but different colored solids. It really made a difference in the overall appearance. Pity I did not have a couple more balls of the multicolor so I could see how it looked woven up as both warp and weft.




This little scarf for Atheena was made using the same variegated yarn in warp and weft. I think it is turning out to have an interesting pattern in it.
I have lots more of the yarn in Atheena's scarf so I will probably end up trying the same experiment with some of it and hopefully the same solid color.

Swap Scarf

my scarf for swap
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

I signed up for the scarf swap in one of my weaving groups in Ravelry. This has been my main project since then. I did dither back and forth about the kind of scarf I wanted to make. Fancy dressy or maybe just a plain warm scarf for winter. Since it was going to New Hampshire I finally settled on picking out colors for a simple woolen scarf.
My first batch of colors actually never made it onto the loom. On a second trip to Nanytutu in Wellington Co I found a deep rich teal that I fell in love with and paired it with a light grey for a bit of a color-and-weave design. The checks only occur on the ends and to be honest my secret pal took a much better photo of the scarf when she received it which showed both ends :)


I received a beautiful multicolor wool scarf also.Please excuse my poor photography as I am getting used to a new camera but as you can see my new scarf is absoutly beautiful. Grin everyone at work now knows what it looks like as I have been wearing it just about every night since it arrived.

Weaving corner

There is the new to me Beka RL all warped up and with weaving on it. It is pure pleasure to weave on. I never realized how nice it would be to have a loom ready to weave on any time I wanted without having to haul it out and/or something to set it on. I am really doing more weaving now that Beka is so accessible. Alas my poor abandoned Ashford is hanging forlornly on the wall waiting for my attention. Since I have discovered how nice stands are I am scrimping for one for the Ashford in hopes that it will get me weaving on him again.

The basket is holding shuttles and yarns for my next projects. In front of the light box is room for my scissors, heddle hooks, etc. What you can't see is the tote bag that I am dropping empty bobbins into to keep track of them. Grin that also keeps them in one place and ready to haul off to a store to get them rewound.

And of course my supervisor has her own place to sit out of the way and watch me work.

New look to my "craft" room

Beka RL 32 inches
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

I got a new to me loom recently and have been very busy cleaning and rearranging my "craft" room so I have room to work on her. I am really enjoying my rigid heddle looms. The 24" Ashford rigid heddle has a sampler on it that I have been trying various pick up stick and weaver manipulated patterns on.
This new loom is a 32" Beka RL. It is actually about 30 years old and is a model that is no longer made. This beauty came with 2 sets of sides one that is shorter and will only hold one back beam the second set is longer and holds double back beams. It also came with multiple heddles so I can now explore the options those give me. While cleaning and rearranging have been a lot of work it will be well worth it once I get this beauty warped up and weaving on it.

weaving helper

weaving helper
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

I have been attempting to learn to weave on my Rigid Heddle loom. As I posted before Ms Violet has come to think that the loom and its cloth is her own special bed. I thought I would share a photo of her on "her bed" Grin yall can see why I have problems weaving around her. If I can get her to move I will post some photos of the Brooks Bouquet and the pick up patterns I have been working on.

Leno samples

leno samples
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

And some "huck lace" attempts. This was going to be a warm winter shawl woven on my Rigid Heddle but I got a bit sidetracked. Ms Violet loves sleeping on it so this piece will probably turn into a bed for her.

Grin it was certainly interesting when she plopped down on top of "HER" cloth when I had the loom in weaving position. UFF! A 12 pound cat dropping on you lap is bad enough but when she is dropping down and driving the edge of the loom into your belly that is a bit too much. I chased her off once I got some air back in my lungs much to her annoyance. After all it was HER bed I was messing with right?

 
SMILE this chair was one of the best things I found at our local fair. I was also lucky that my winnings covered about half the cost of it or Toli would never have agreed to it. It is the perfect height for my wheels and for his loom and looks nice enough we would not be ashamed to offer it to company. Also comfortable enough with that thick cushion and the back support. I only wish I could have afforded a second one in red for Toli so we would not have to share.

My pretty chair has a secret too. Turns out the seat lifts up from the back and reveals a nice storage area. Grin mine has puni, orf hooks, and a bit of this and that in it already.

Busy summer

June 24th I stepped in a small depression in a parking lot sigh. Such a small thing to do the damage it caused. A fractured ankle and wrist and 6 weeks of lost wages. The timing was of course horrid. I had 16 more rounds on the Wedding Shawl to go and could not knit with my wrist in a splint...

Since the wedding was 2 DAYS after my wrist would come out of the splint I asked my LYSO if she knew of anyone that might be willing to finish the shawl for me. :-) Penny volunteered herself and it got finished in time for Leesa to wear.

Here is the shawl blocking:


And the radiant bride and her new husband.


It was a lovely wedding and I was so happy she had her silk shawl finished to wear to it there. The best part was when her father had them stopped by him and in front of every one gave them and their union a blessing! (he and the pastor doing the service had planned it) This was a HUGE surprise to them as up until that moment he had done nothing but talk bad about Micheal, how they met and the horrible mistake her wedding was. They truly glowed when he had finished the blessing.

After the wedding came County Fair. Whew what a whirlwind. Because of the wedding shawl and then my injuries I only had a few entries mostly in Fiber Arts made with handspun from Juliespins on Etsy. I met her through a Ravelry destash and ended up buying a lot of her high quality handspun.

My pride and joy of the fair was a little outfit for my granddaughter Alex. Have I mentioned her before? She is about 12 weeks old now and is so adorable in her pinafore, hat and booties ;-)




The set is made from some luscious Cormo handspun by Julie into a soft lofty yarn. In fact the judge said she wanted a pair of slippers in her size from yarn that soft. Julie you done good. The judge LOVED that Cormo yarn.

Besides the baby set I managed to finish a yarn holder and a stuffed octopus also made from some of Julies yarns and a lovely crocheted hat which Angie fell in love with.

That hat was made with yarn from my friend Shelly of Rose Garden Fibers. I have been using yarn from Shelly for a few years now as somehow I never seem to have enough time to both spin and knit/crochet items from my own yarn. The yarn I used this year was actually bought a couple of years ago and those skeins have been made into socks, booties, and finally this year the lovely crocheted Divine Hat . While checking out this hat pattern look over her other patterns as she has some nice ones.

Of course the kids and many adults LOVED the octopus whom I call Yorick. His pattern came from hansigurumi who makes some of the neatest knitted animal patterns. I have more then the octopus already and just have to get her newest pattern. GRIN it is a Jackalope. I live in Wyoming (think wild west a few hours north of Denver,Colorado) so I have to make one, right?

QAL keeps growing

And yesterday Leesa finally got to see it for the first time in real life. She fell in LOVE. The color, the drape, the softness, the pattern, etc etc. Good thing since it is far too late to start another shawl and have it done in time for her wedding. The photo is what Leesa got to see and handle.


I will have to knuckle down and really concentrate on her shawl as her wedding is getting rather close and I still have 50 rounds to go. But that is 50 round for the large version :) I can always stop early just make the small version but I honestly think I can finish the large version which is the one that she and I both fell in love with.

Of course don't ask what I am doing today. Grin I am cheating. I set aside the shawl to work on a gauge swatch for a sweater I want to make. I have this lovely denim blue yarn and I found a pattern that it will suit so well. I bought it from Carodan Farm and it is called the Cabled Oregon Sweater It looks like just the thing for our winter that refuses to end. Today we are supposed to get up to 59F sigh my poor garden doesn't know if it should grow or curl up and sleep.

Queen Anne's Lace and other knitting

The shawl is slowly growing. I am now up to row 87. YIPPIE only 73 more to go groan... I am wondering if this shawl will get finished in time for the wedding in July. But I will keep working on it as time permits. The picture is how the shawl looked at row 77. SMILE that is TEN rows ago.

I did finally sit down and figure out that I have about 45 minutes of knitting time I can almost count on at work with another 1 or 2 hours at home if I am lucky and Ms Violet behaves and I don't come home exhausted and simply fall into bed.

I have also been sidetracked by other projects. Hats for the kids and me, socks for me and DH, other simple little but time consuming things.

The current hats are for Hunter and one for his little sister Isis who is my new grandbaby. Ya know you can't simply give one child a present both have to get one. Actually I stared Hunters hat first so I could learn the pattern. It is a variation of the Entrelac Hat by Lorraine Major I picked a blue camouflage yarn made by Bernat thinking it had nice long color runs. OOPS nope they are short ones and are making stripes! I think it is rather odd looking entrelac.

Back to the wedding shawl.

I am a bad blogger again (warning heavy on photos)

But I do have a bit of an excuse...

In March they started to paint the store I work at. I am allergic to paint fumes. Needless to say most of March passed in a drugged haze. Sometime in the middle of the month a large box was delivered to the store for me. To give an idea just how bad I felt I did not run out immediately and pick it up even knowing it was there and that it was my brand new spinning wheel! I waited until I had to go into work and picked it up then. The box was huge thank goodness I have a nice station wagon type car.

Of course I was not sick enough to hold off once I got the box home. I did have to stay up and put the wheel together with a bit of help from Ms Violet. She also had to inspect the finial product.



Grin isn't it lovely? Her name is Josephine and she is a Jensen Ashley with a 30 inch wheel made in black walnut. She spins like a dream! Now to save funds and get her a house mate in cherry grin I am still sorta yearning for a Tina II like I learned to spin on..

So that was March. April just as I was starting to feel better DH had a stroke, a mild one thankfully but still enough to mess life up for a while. And this was his second on in just over a year which has all of us a bit worried. While he was home waiting for the okay to return to work I took him to a yarn store where I was getting weaving lessons. HE TOOK OVER MY LESSONS!

He loves weaving! He is also good at it. This is that very first weaving project. I had made the warp but had not finished warping the loom. He did that, chose the weft, and did all the weaving. Nancy our instructor says he shows real talent. His birthday was May 11th and he got weaving items and was tickled pink.

However the real present did not come home until last week. Nancy found a used Baby Wolf loom I could make payments on. The look on his face when he found out he had his own loom was priceless. Grin I figured the loom was probably the cheapest physical therapy I could get. Needless to say I was thrilled when I was told that weaving was also one of the best therapies he could have to recover from his stroke!

I did manage to get some knitting done on the wedding shawl and a few other projects while DH was busy weaving. I have been learning Entrelac! I have a pair of socks started in it and as soon as I can find my dpns will have a baby hat started for OUR NEW GRANDDAUGHTER! She was born yesterday more information will be posted later including photos.

See it really is silver silk

I finally managed to get a good photo of this shawl. The others have shown the pattern well but this one actually shows you what the silk looks like. I am really loving this pattern. In this photo I am nearly finished with chart 1 of the 5 charts in the pattern. This chart has the most rows but it is merely the prelude to the rest of the pattern.


On the sock front I have gotten one of the boring socks up to the heel and the second one is now at the increase triangle. Hopefully by this time next week I will be working on the cuffs of both of them.

boring socks ie my husbands socks

boring sock 2
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

DH is diabetic so when I started to make these socks using information from book "New Pathways for Sock Knitters" I was a bit concerned about how rough they might be on the inside. So I had him try them on so we could see how the increases felt. The good news is that even with me rubbing right on the increases he could not feel them.

Grin the bad news is he asked how many socks I was going to knit for him. I thought he meant if I was making the second one for the pair NOPE he meant how many PAIRS was I going to knit for him! I was nice I told him I would knit them until I ran out of sock yarn. ROFL he went out and bought me four clear storage bins for the sock yarn. Considering I only have enough to fill ONE bin I guess he is going to be buying more for me ;)



In other news the Queen Anne's Lace is coming along nicely after a trip to the frog pond after I discovered I was missing a section. Sigh that was disheartening. The best part is that now it is past that point and looking better then the original version on the US 6 needles. I really, really like these Harmony needles. Grin I have added the complete set to my wish list.

More on Queen Anne's Lace

I got a comment on my first post on this shawl from the designer. :) Since he posted the address to his yahoo group I now feel free to post it here. The pattern for Queen Anne's Lace as well as other fabulous patterns from him can be found at the Yahoo group MMarioKKnits. You can also find some of his patterns listed on Ravelry. Just use MMario for the designer name to find them.

Grin I have already added at least one of them to my queue. The beautiful Spanish Armada is now third on my list of shawls for this year.

Queen Anne's Lace size 6 row 18

QAL size 6 row 18
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

As you can see the Queen Anne's Lace shawl looks much better on the size 6 then the size 8 needles. I will continue with this shawl and frog the one on the size 8 needles.

Queen Anne's Lace

I have had a number of friends ask where they can get the pattern for the shawl I linked to in my last post. For them and others that may be interested the pattern is here



I originally started this in 8/56 silk on the called for US size 8 but I think that was a bit too open. I left that shawl where it was and opened the second cone of silk to try it on smaller needles.


Here it is on US size 6 needles and I do think it is much much nicer looking but I have a long way to go.

Look Ma no needles

finished 2-12-2008 2-40-11 PM
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

My socks by gosh are done and already have spent a whole day at work on my feet. They fit very very well and were nice and comfortable. As you can see even Ms Violet approves of the fit.

Now back to my regularly scheduled projects the sweater for me and most important the wedding shawl for my heart sister. The was going to be the Unst square shawl from the book Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller. I have had lots of problems with the pattern so have been looking for alternatives and I think I found one.

It is called Queen Anne's Lace. I saw the pattern mentioned on Ravelry but when I first looked all I saw was the picture on the pattern which does NOT do the shawl justice. Then saw it mentioned again and this time clicked on the projects link and saw TomH's Queen Anne's Lace shawls WOW is all I could think. Grin this pretty shawl is already cast on and doing well for me. It is ONLY 160 rows giggle I might be finished by the wedding.

Boring socks

Well the knitting is rather boring. My husband has declared his socks should be plain stockinette. He means the WHOLE sock not just the foot. He even wanted me to leave out the ribbing at the top! Now this is a LOVELY yarn and I have managed to get the first sock up to the expansion triangle. Yes these will use one of the architectures from the book New Pathways for Sock Knitters.

I will be using the Ridgeline Master Pattern for this pair. At least that part should be interesting on the first sock. I am also using a single short circular for the first time when knitting a sock. So far I am loving it. We will see how I feel about it once I get the expansion triangle and heel done.

For a quick review my first pair of socks posted used the Upstream architecture. If you look at some of the photos of the top of the sock you can see the triangle formed by that expansion triangle.

Pretty socks

Pretty socks 1-21-2008 11-59-54 AM
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

Grin we have a pair of sock! Yes they are a pair complete with some cuff. I could actually stop anytime now and they would count as a completed pair of socks, however I want the cuffs a bit longer.



I have also cast on a pair for my DH using a wool/bamboo blend yarn from karenc2658 on eBay. I love the colors of this yarn and the handle is so nice and silky. Of course once I got my hands on this yarn and started knitting with it I HAD to have more ;-)

This is a record for me TWO pairs of socks on the needles at one time!

I have managed to work a bit on my friends wedding shawl. I am actually working on the central lace panel for it. My sweater however is still languishing in the UFO pile as I play with socks.

a sock by gosh!

a sock by gosh
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

Well almost grin I still need to knit the leg and cuff but I finally got that blasted heel done. I really should not try something new when I am half asleep. After 3 tries I finally understood what the book was saying and I now have my first sock in thin yarn waiting for its mate to catch up.

A matter of toes

Yall have read and seen photos of my Socks by Gosh as I have been calling them. The fit is wonderful! I am busy with the heel right now and totally frustrated. Grin I messed them up and have to tink a few rows but that is for another day.

Which explains why I fell for the Siren call of another of the sock yarns. I grabbed that beautiful blue multi color I got off eBay and figured I would give the toe in the book a try or at least her numbers...
Queen Kahuna cast on of 12 stitches. Increase every other row. Pretty yarn, wonderful to work with and sigh this pair will go to a friend. Why? The toes. And since a picture is worth a thousand words.



And this yarn is making such a fascinating coloring in the sock toe so far. I really love the colors but well not in a frogging mood ;-)

Edited to add a photo of the sock toes both at 72 stitches around notice the extreme difference in the shape of the toes.

FLAK progress

 

LOOK! I am actually doing the back of the FLAK sweater! Boy there were times when I never thought this would happen. But all the hard work is now paying off. I am realy pleased with how this is looking so far.

Remember that bright sock yarn...

Well combine it with the new Cat Bordhi book "New Pathways for Sock Knitters" and a new friend who is an avid sock knitter. What you get is sore fingers and a half done sock grin.

Needless to say my sweater has been on hold for the past two weeks as I chugged away on this little oddity. It uses the Upstream Architecture from the book and I am now trying to figure out the heel.

Notice how short and blunt that toe is?

That is where Linda helped. I have rather short toes and most socks I have seen have toes that are way too long. So we started on 14, yes 14, stitches and increased every row for most of the increases. It may look blunt to some of yall but it fits wonderfully.
The diamond running up the leg is the result of the Sockitecture I am using.
Much as I normally hate knitting socks I am really looking forward to wearing this pair.