Green Silk Noil

This is the happy mistake silk oblong I got last summer. I think I finally found a good way to spin it. The yarn is spun with all the tuffs of silk noil for lots of texture. It was hard trying to take a decent picture because of the way the silk was reflecting the light. I really like the pink and mauve noils in it. The silk dyed really nicely.

Just under an ounce (24.7gm) at 93m, 2-plyed. Not enough for a whole scarf on its own, though. Combined with another yarn, this would make a nice accent for a scarf.

Or, there should be more than enough to knit a little silk bag. Add some beads and shells to embellish and it would be perfect! It would have to be something loosely knitted...something with 3.5mm or 4mm needles, in the round.

What's Next?

Not a lot of knitting was accomplished this weekend. In fact, just the opposite.

The Pink Pomatomus is not going well. The foot was too long so I wanted to rip out the heel again to re-knit. (Knitting rule #1 - Never rip out knitting at 1am!) I lost track of what row I was on and went too far. Instead of taking the time to count up the rows, I had decided it would be best to rip it right down and start over again. It seemed like a good idea at the time. (Knitting rule #2 - Nothing is a good idea if you thought of it at 1am!) I had ripped back the heel previously and started it at 3" instead of 2" from the heel. I may have to start the heel right after the toe, the way this is going!! I think I may just change back to a short row heel.

The Elfine socks was another frog casualty this weekend. There's a good reason why I like to knit both socks at the same time...especailly if I leave the second sock for a few weeks. The second sock was just not matching to the first sock. I don't care if the colours are not lined up but I really hate having the technicals not match up. (Knitting rule #3 - Write things down...especially if you deviate from the pattern!!)

What I did accomplished this weekend...

I finished spinning my hand-dyed silk noil. It was really difficult to spin. My fingers are covered with little cuts from pulling the silk. It needed a LOT of predrafting! The resulting yarn is a thick/thin yarn with lots of texture. Spinning this stuff is very interesting - you have to pretend the dried brown bits are really leaves and twigs. (Don't worry - I sat out on the deck and picked out all the non-silk bits.)

Colourful Chevrons

Presenting the Chevron Socks! This is the merino wool that I handpainted during our Sock Yarn painting day. My son suggested I call these Clown Socks. Haha!

The wool was wound into two joining centre pull balls so each sock was knitted from the opposite ends of the skein. It was a happy chance that the stripes lined up. It was not the exact effect I wanted but it was close. The pattern was supposed be a fairisle look but the repeats were too big. We didn't use any thickeners so the dyes ran as we were taking the wool off the jigs.

The sock blocker is a wire coat hanger, bent into a sock shape. Cost: Free

This pair of socks will go in the "special" sock drawer. While we painted our own skeins, the whole project was a collaboration of the Group. We had a great time doing this. It was a long day but it was fun. We started knitting our socks as soon as the yarn was dried. I can't wait to see all the finished socks when they're done!

Sunny Fridays are EVIL

Some days it's really hard to concentrate at work when the weather is gorgeous and sunny.

(Weathercam from the Jericho Yacht Club as of 9:30 am today)

Bah!

Celebration of Earth Day

This is a Calendula officinalis, Erfurter Orangefarbigen variety. Commonly known as Marigold but I like to refer to it by the latin name, Calendula, so not to be confused with the French Marigold of the Target family. Very different.

This plant is special because it's two years old. In this zone, calendulas are usually considered annuals. They should die each fall and have to be replanted each spring. This guy have managed to live through his second winter. A common plant that's easily grown.

The flowers usually range from pale yellow to brilliant orange. I've also seen varieties with reddish orange as well. This particular variety is usually grown commercially because of it's high medicial value.

The young leaves can be eaten in salads, the petals are plucked and dried and used in all sorts of skin washes. Infused in oil, it will make a great face lotion. Very soothing for chapped skin. Another great reason to keep it in the garden is the flower can be rubbed on bee and wasp stings to relieve the pain and swelling. And lastly, the flowers can be boiled to extract a yellow dye. I haven't tried this yet as it would take too much of my precious flowers that I use for other purposes.



Calendula Oil
1/4 cup dried calendula petals
~1/4 cup jojoba oil

Place the calendula petals in a clean dry container (I like canning jars) and fill with jojoba oil until the oil covers the petals with just a bit over. Let sit for 1/2 hour and check to see if you need to add more oil. As the petals absorb the oil, the level may go down. Put the lid on tight and let it sit in a sunny window for 2 weeks. Gently swirl the jar twice a day but make sure all the petals are still covered.

After 2 weeks, strain out the petals and save the oil. The oil can be used directly on your skin as a soothing skin oil or used to make a salve or lip balm.

Merino/Silk Orenburg-like swatch

Orenburg shawls are traditionally knitted with fine gossamer yarn, handspun with the down from the Orenburg goats and plyed with a fine silk thread. This yarn was spun with a merino and silk blend and would be considered much too thick. Needle sizes range from 1.5mm (000 to 2.0mm (0) and my swatch was done with 2.75mm needles.

I started at the lower left border, cast on 7 stitches loosely, knit a simple border pattern. Originally, I had planned on doing 4 sets of teeth but was not sure if I would have enough to get a decent size swatch. I did 3 repeats of the border, turned the corner, knit back, did the other corner and worked up. The centre pattern is a simple fish eye pattern. It's worked on both sides.

One thing I learned is that you need to keep careful count of your rows if you're going to doing several patterns. I need to rework the charts so that the number of rows line up with each other better.

Traditionlly, the yarn is spun cleaned but greasy to make it easier to spin fine. The yarn is not washed until after the shawl is knitted up. This will help to see the stitch definition and make the pattern easier to follow.


Hmm....looks like I got a yarnover in the wrong spot in the border. Not much to look at - knitted lace is so ugly until it's properly blocked. I think I'll re-knit this with a different needle size.

A good day

Compared to rest of the weekend, today was a beautiful day. The sun came out and warmed everything up so nicely. I dyed some silk last night and was able to put them out to dry. Drying silk is very ugly. But once everything is dried and you snap them into shape, the silk is the most luxurious thing ever! So soft and shiny!

From left to right: Tussah silk roving, silk noil, and silk oblong. I wanted the uneven dyeing so I scrunched everything into mesh bags. I love the way it spins up with the colour variations.

I did get a bit of knitting done (in between spinning and eating and lounging) but not as much as I hoped. I got sidetracked by the merino/silk. It's 70% merino and 30% silk. Although the percentage of merino is higher, it spun up more like silk than wool. Silk is so light that for 30% silk, that's a LOT of silk fibres! It's spun fine with lots of twist. I'm knitting the sample skein into a swatch for my Orenburg lace shawl. Once again, I have to say how ugly lace looks before blocking.

Cherry Tomatoes

The little tomato seedlings are getting big. This variety are cherry tomatoes that you can grown in hanging baskets. We planted 8 pots and every one of them have sprouted. The first year, we planted the whole package of seeds (not sure how many would survive) and got over 30 pots of plants. We gave away so many plants that people ran screaming from us! We're getting much better at this now.

A little bit of everything!

I had good intentions. I wanted to finish a few of my socks-in-progress but I got a bit sidetracked.

I really don't think it's humanly possible to buy all that luscious fibre and not spin any of it! This little bit here translate to this...


8 grams, 2 plyed, 64m. I didn't think there was that much on the bobbin. I plied it from a centre pull ball and the colours ended up darker than what was on the bobbin. I'm spinning another sample to see how it will look Navajo plied. It's a 4-day long weekend...I still have plenty of knitting time.


Not Jaywalker Socks

We all knew that I was going to start the Jaywalker socks, right? I got about 5" done when I realized it was way too wide for my feet. And the pattern was not as nice going toe up. It made funny little points (don't laugh, TBC!) I thought the Cheveron socks from Elann would look much better...


The one thing I changed was to add an extra stitch at the end of the top to make 34 stitches instead of 33 in the pattern. This way, I don't have to end with a YO and this kept my stitches nice and neat. There's 3 sets of chevron plus 1 stitch.

After the rain...

Toe Up Pomatomus - Part II

Heels for the Toe-Up Pomatomus

The toe-up Pomatomus has been waiting for the heels for a few days now. I have been carefully considering all options. I usually like the short row heel for toe up socks but part of the charm of the Pom socks is the rib-look heel. I'm going with the heel flap and gusset. It's a bit more work for toe up socks because you have to figure out what goes where.

Work the foot and pattern until 3" from the heel. (The reason I went with 3" instead of 2" is that the foot ended up being way too long for me. I had to frog back and started my heel earlier.) On the sole side, knit 1, increase 1 and knit to 1 stitch before the end, increase 1, knit 1. Next round, knit plain. Alternate the two rows until there's 36 stitches for the sole and there should already be 36 stitche on the top (pattern).

For the last plain round, place marker 1 stitch from the end at both ends. Next round, increase 1 on the outstide of the markers for both ends. At the same time, knit in pattern for the top of the foot. Increase until there's 15 stitches on each sides (outside marker).

For this part, it was easier doing one sock at a time. I took the heel section off my circular and used DPNs. Next round, knit to 1 stitch before marker, knit 2together taking 1 stitch before marker and 1 after marker, place marker back. Turn work and slip the last stitch. Purl to 1 before end of marker and purl 2 together - 1 before and 1 after marker. Do the same thing until all the stitches on the outside of marker is used up. There should be 36 stitches on the sole side.

Now I have the second heel to do.

Continue with leg, using chart A.

Rib and cast off loosely.

See here for Part I

Not Knitting

I'm not knitting them...just wanted to see what it would look like in balls. I have willpower.

I think I'm not going to knit a pair of JAYWALKER socks with this.

Need sunglasses!

Last night, we got together for the unveiling (or unraveling) of our handpainted sock yarn. Overall, I think the results were pretty spectacular. "Not Really Orange" came out a nice bright yellow.

The surprise of the day was the "mop up" skein. One skein got a bit messed up during soaking and instead of playing around, trying to sort it out, we used it to mop up extra (and spilt) dyes. The overall colour came out golden rust with bits of blue.

I'm so tempted to start knitting this right away but I wanted to finish the toe-up Poms first, then the second Elfine sock...

Fibre Fun Weekend

I'm so very tired and my feet are hurting. But I had such a good fibre weekend that I would do it all again, given the chance. I don't know where to start.

Friday

Fiber Festival at Tradex in Abbotsford. It was so much fun! With everything we had planned this weekend, I knew that I won't have time to go both days. Instead of a workshop, Amber and I shopped till we dropped...literally.

I came home with just few things. :)

It was a Merino kind of day. Two bags of merino/silk, one bag of 100% merino, one bag of merino/bison, two bags of jet black alpaca, 200gms cotwold/silk blend, one skein of handpainted tencel, one bag of fake cashmere, 1 set of Crystal Palace double pointed needles in a size & length I don't already have, and a couple of magazines.

The fake cashmere is nylon so I thought it would be something to blend with merino for socks. I still have so much of that merino from Black Sheep last year.

The black alpaca is from Cortes Island Suri Alpacas. There's a picture of Thunder, the Alpaca. My son has met Thunder and he is as gorgeous as his picture.

Still, considering what was there, I thought I showed remarkable restraint. We shopped until 4:30pm, met up with the rest of the gang (who were finishing up the Nuno felting workshop. There should be some pics on the Twisted By Choice blog in a few days.) for more shopping and a late dinner. I was exhausted by the time I got home. I think I spent just as much time chatting with everyone as I did shopping. :D

Saturday

This was our Sock Painting Day at the Clubhouse. Jade's husband had kindly made us two jigs. We got together about 10am-ish...and finished at 8:30pm! The first two skeins took us 6 hours to organize and paint. The rest was much faster once we figured out what we were doing. Heh! It was done with our usual trial and error method - accompanied by a lot of laughing and giggling.

We did managed to finish painting six skeins. I love how they turned out! There were some surprising results after steaming. Some colours bled and separated, making interesting effects. Other colours changed drastically - some were more vibrant and some were more muted than we origianlly thought. I think we were all happy with the results. More socks to knit!

Sunday

I really don't like losing that hour when we move the clocks forward. Especially this busy weekend. I think we should all petition to change that to Wednesday - I don't mind giving up an hour of work time for daylight savings. :) Weekends are short enough as it is.

The Glass Bead workshop was so much fun! Kerri Fuhr is a very attentive instructor and talented bead maker. She had all of us oohing and ahhing over her work. At the beginning of the class, Kerri passed around samples of her work. The work was fantastic! They were the kind of stuff that you want all of it - every single last bead!

During the class, as Kerri explained different techniques, she would pass the samples around again. After trying it out for ourselves, we can appreciate the hard work that goes into the making of a single bead. Our attempts were nothing like hers. I'm not going to point out which misshapen beads are mine. Making glass beads (or Lampworking) was something I've always wanted to try. Despite the wobbly first beads, I really enjoy working with the glass and came home with one of her beginner's kits. I'm trying not to think of this as a new hobby but as something that will accessorize my fibre work.

Toe Up Pomatomus and stuff...

Toe-Up Pomatomus so far...

I decided on the short row toe method. I really like the look of this toe after seeing how it looked on the Elfine sock (notice just sock - not socks). I started with 2mm needles and provisional cast on for 32 stitches. Knit the toe according to instructions at Knitty. Knit 1 round even after the last wrap pick up.

Switch to 2.5mm needles and knit 1 round even. Next round, knit according to the Foot chart, row 2 but don't k2togbl - knit as separate stitches. At the end of this round, increase 1 more. There should be 36 stitches for the top of the foot and 32 for the bottom. Continue in pattern until the foot is long enough. The scales are facing the opposite direction from the original. The pattern is working nicely.


Elfine Sock

The first sock is done. I was overly eager to start the toe-up Pomatomus that I casted on for that instead of the second Elfine sock. I hope I haven't doomed the Elfine socks to a lonely life of SSD.


I'm still not sure about the picot edging yet. This wasn't part of the pattern but it seemed like a good idea at 2am. It can easily be redone if I change my mind.

Further Adventures in Sock World

Now I regret not knitting both socks together. I wanted to see how the pattern would look with this yarn. If I knit both socks together, it would have taken me twice as long to get to this point. Just in case I didn't like it and have to frog it.

I do like the yarn and the pattern. Once I got the lace repeat charted, it was a breeze. I'm not good with teeny tiny print. Much MUCH prefer charts to written instructions.

The toe up Pomatomus will be next. I dyed some more yarn on the weekend and was pretty happy with the results...or at least, most of it. One skein is definitely destined to become the next Pomatomus. (One skein will be re-dyed, thanks to Felicia's suggestion.)

Here's my thought:

I was flipping through the latest issue of Interweave Knit and wondered why did the designer of Simply Lovely Lace Socks made them in two different colours. At first, I was annoyed by this blatant attempt to get us to buy more yarn. But after giving it some thought, I thought maybe she had something there.

So many of us suffer from SSD. We all have 1 or 2 (or more) single lonely sock waiting for a mate. Take Karen Baumer's idea of mismatched colours and go further with it - why stop at wearing two different colour socks and why not wear two totally different design socks? Not only would you be in the latest knitting fashion but really cutting edge of knitting fashion!

Socks that match are highly overrated.

P.S...Dear Anonymouses: Yes, I know the socks are two different patterns. It was just me being silly, with all the talk about Second Sock Disorder. But I am seriously thinking I should start wearing my single lonely socks and perhaps start a new fashion trend.

Adventures in Sock World

In anticipation of our upcoming Sock Yarn Painting Extravaganza, I thought I would play around a bit. Besides, I have a LOT of sock yarns just for that purpose.

The original plan was to dye the yarn yellow and handpaint green and red highlights. The yellow came out beautifully. Just the right shade of daffodils, I thought. I let the yarn cool down and laid it on plastic to paint. Here's where things went wrong.

I really don't think I should be trusted with dyes. I think I got a bit carried away and by the time I came to my senses, there was not a lot of yellow left on the yarn. It wasn't terrible. But not quite what I had in mind.

Note to self: Colours will bleed together during steaming. I watched the colours migrate for 20 minutes. The results were a lot more disgusting than I had imagine.

As I started to wind the yarn into a centre pull ball, I found I didn't mind the colours after all. There were interesting little flecks of bright yellows and greens here and there. Still, even the ugliest yarns can knit up into something beautiful, right?


Toe-Up

Knitty has an excellent article on different types of toes for toe-up socks. Short Row, Figure 8, Easy Toe. I never liked the Figure 8 cast on and I usually do the Easy Toe so I thought I would try the short row. It looks just like a little heel! The top of the toe is smooth - no corners! I think, depending on what method used for the short row, you won't even see the ridges on the sides.

One suggestion for the short row: use a different colour (non-fraying) yarn to mark where you wrap and turn. Otherwise, it may be hard to see where your last wrap & turn was and you have to redo your toe 3 or 4 times!

Now, the question is: Should I make the Efline's Socks or a Toe Up Pomatomus?

Madli Shawl

I have finally finished plying the yarn for the Madli Shawl! The finished yarn is a little bit thicker than the sample skein but I think it will work better. This is more like the recommended yarn. The shawl knits up quickly except for the nupps....not to be confused with neps. Nupps are several knit and yarn over stitches all in one stitch. This pattern requires nupps of 7! It was driving me crazy, trying to purl through all 7 loops so I changed it to 5. A bit better but still tedious. Changed to 3 nupps and hated it.


Life without nupps...

Round Two

I still didn't like how the nupps were looking and did a full repeat without nupps. It was much better so I took a deep breath and ripped it out. The yarn is a two-plyed attempt at evenly spun lace weight. There's a bit of over twisting and some thick & thin sections. Overall, it seems fairly balanced. I haven't set the twist yet. That will be done when I block the shawl.

I don't know if it's the fibre (Polworth) but the yarn is snagging on my hands...no matter what I do. I did the sugar scrub, hand lotion, lemon juice, a layer of lanolin. Nothing is working. Silk wasn't this bad. I don't recall the sample skein and swatch being this bad.

Pomatomus Socks

Pomatomus Socks in Fleece Artist superwash merino sock yarn, colourway - Marine. Knitted with 2.75mm Bryspun double pointed needles. Heels and toes knitted with 2mm CP bamboo double pointed needles.

I was very concern that I wouldn't have enough yarn for the pair. FA yarn measured 330m (wound on my niddy noddy) and the pattern called for 350m. I knew it was going to be very close. I'm the type of person that would buy more than the pattern called for. If the pattern suggested 10-12 balls, I think I need 15 but I would by 20 just in case. Doing it toes up would have been a good idea but I wasn't sure how the pattern would translate. I kept to the pattern mostly. It was pretty tense as I got to the heel of the second sock!

I would definetely make this pattern again. I think I would use either the hourglass heel or afterthought heel. Having made these once, I can see that the socks can be done toes up. The socks fit snug on my feet and baggy at the ankles...just the way I like socks.

The ridges were interesting. If you turn the fabric one way, you can see the ridges. The fabric looked flat if you turn it around. It's a fun stitch pattern that I can see many other uses...perhaps a shawl or a scarf?

A use for disposable chopsticks

Wow! Look what you can do with recycled disposable chopsticks! It does make sense now that I think about it. All those millions of people eating take out food with disposable chopsticks must generate a lot of chopstick waste.

Fleece Artist sock yarn

"It's not a sock yarn kind of shop!" was told to me by the clerk working at Urban Yarns today. Heh! I pointed out the Fleece Artist merino sock yarn. "Oh, that's a kit...." Huh!? I thought they had a pretty okay selection of sock yarns...Regia, etc. The basic stuff that you can find in any other LYS. Once I saw the FA yarns, that was it. Game over for all the other sock yarns.

To describe a skein of yarn and badly written instructions as a sock kit is pushing it. Don't get me wrong...I love the yarn! All my favourite colours! But there was no gauge given in the instructions, other than what size needles. The sizes of the socks did not tell you the measurements. No yardage. No weight. I didn't care. It felt like about 100gms...which was what I was looking for. It did give a needle size so that helped.

The clerk did try hard to convince me that I really should follow the pattern that came with the kit. I think that was sweet of her but I had my heart set on Pomatomus from Knitty.

Oh, and the rest of the day was spent wandering around Granville Island, lunch at the Watermark on Kits beach. The food was pretty good but the place was a bit drafty! The weather was gorgeous and we had a window table overlooking the beach.

I picked up some more silk fibre at the Weaving Studio. A couple of bags of Tussah silk, a bag of silk/camel, and a skein of silk chennille and some nubbly silk. I was hoping to find some of the new silk blends (silk/linen & silk/seacell) but they only had the dyed skeins. No worries, I picked up a couple of the mini skeins to experiment with.

When I got home, I discovered I already had 5 bags of Tussah silk, 2 bags of silk/camel, and 3 bags of cultivated silk in my stash. I probably knew that. But it didn't stop me from picking up a few more bags. My domestic enabler (aka hubby) thinks I'm worried that these people will go out of business if I didn't buy constantly.

Of course, I had to cast on and knit a bit as soon as I got home...just to see what the colours would look like.

(I'm relieved to know it's not me but the camera. I used the tripod for these and they're still fuzzy. This camera doesn't do close-ups.)