New Hat!

Many years ago I took a colorwork class and found Malabrigo yarns. Talk about some amazing colorways! My favorite, for quite a while, has been Acro Iris, but I was always too intimidated to actually try knitting with it. There were just so many colors!

The other day, I went to my LYS "just to pick up some wool wash" and there was a skein of Acro Iris, just sitting there, and I hadn't bought any new yarn since the fall...Well it came home with me along with a skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Cypress.

Of course, I still had the Malabrigo Book 4 from the original class, so I thought the two yarns could make a good hat, and here's the result!

 

I still have a bit of each left, well quite a bit of the Cypress, so maybe these two will find their way into another hat in the future!

Octopus Guard

This is my octopus. He won't eat you though...I don't think.

So this is one of those projects that started as a joke between me and the DH. We saw a video and then found the pattern, and it just had to happen! The DH is very picky about colors when it comes to knitting animals. In order to avoid his grumbling about the octopus being the wrong color for the next million years, I made him come to the yarn store with me.

I really like how it came out, though I would have liked to have found a yarn that was a bit more variegated so the octopus looked like he had some texture.  I would also have liked the underside of the tentacles to be a bit more textured as well, there must be some way to get some suckers, preferably without knitting bobbles. The pattern is really well written, and very easy to follow, I just have to knit pick.

I've gotten tons of compliments for him and a request to alter the pattern into a hat because who doesn't want to look like their head is getting eaten? I don't know if that alteration will ever happen. As it is, this guy ate around 800 yards, which is quite a bit for a future hat, but as a guardian of the window sill, he does a great job!

Here we go...

26,200 stitches, 1048 rows, 53 color changes, 106 ends to weave in.

Due to a Ravelry "competition," I have until July 31st to get it done. According to my math, I need to do 12 rows a day to make that goal. That should be pretty manageable,  but for the competition, I have a shawl to make at the same time, as well as at least three other projects.

 Swatches are required for the competition, so I'm got my mega row swatch (no I'm not going to share what the project is, we'll see if anyone- or everyone- figures it out before I'm done). The original pattern is over 66 stitches, but it was originally for a much larger man. I'm not 6'3" so I'm not going to wear a scarf that is a foot wide. Mine is going to be about 5 inches wide knit over 25 stitches.

I also have the swatch for the shawl. I'm going to be using some of my hand spun for the shawl. A while ago I spun about 8 ounces of a red mohair and gold merino yarn. Now I finally have the right project for it!

Here I have all the colors and yarns that I'm going to be using for these projects. It should work out quite nicely, and I'm excited to get started.

Since both are part of a competition, I have to submit a proposal and get it approved before I can start knitting. I'll also be dealing with different time zones, so even though the competition opens tomorrow, I probably won't be able to start these projects. But maybe I can get most of the way through one of the other projects I need to complete.


Now I just have to wait...

New Adventures Tease

(Hopefully) Starting tomorrow, I'm going to begin a new "adventure" in knitting. I've had a crazy year, while my husband applied, interviewed, accepted, and then moved for a new position overseas. We've gotten settled, and now, I'm ready to jump back in!

The goal is to have weekly updates on the new large-ish projects. I've got one that should be about 600 yards and one that should be around 700. In addition, I hope to get some update posts up, going over the things I've knit/spun recently, as well as the places I've seen since moving. There will be a bit of a shift from the fiber-only focus, but there will still be a heavy fiber focus.

So here we go, into a new adventure in fiber and life!

It's been so long....

Wow, it's been a busy year. I've been working up to four different jobs, completing 1st grade and starting 2nd with Tiny, and now we're getting ready to move across the Pond. Busy days!

I have been doing quite a bit of knitting. Here are some shots of some of the thing's I've gotten done since the 2015 Fair.

In this photo, we have two shawls, a sweater, some chain ply rainbow yarn, and a cowl, from last year. There's more, but with all the moving hassle, this is what I can get my hands on right now.

Now for the rest of the day I get to deal with sorting through this.

Between these piles, emptying drawers, closets, and washing all the dirty laundry, I think my next 12 hours are pretty full with different types of fiber...wish me luck!
 

Moving yarn with a drill

Here is a very poor video of me transferring some singles off a wheel bobbin and onto, well a weaving bobbin. I bought them a couple years ago to hold my yarn back when I only had drop spindles. The white bobbin doesn't fit in my flier, so I can't spin onto it, but it does fit on my Lazy-ish Kate bar, so I can ply off of it.



Anyway, the drill method works much better than the mixer method, though they are aiming for different goals.  Luckily, these white bobbins fit into my husband's drill, for the most part (you'll see the adjusting).



So yes, moving yarn with a drill. Not super interesting, no audio, and sped up quite a bit, but hopefully it'll help somebody.

Grease Dyeing Part 1

My TDF team put forth some challenges for the Tour. One of this week's was dyeing in the grease. So far it's pretty similar to regular dyeing, but we'll see how the wool comes out at the end. Here's some photos of the process so far.

 While I still have plenty of blue and green left to work with, I figured I'd try for orange, but not directly. I was hoping for a bit of variegation.  Since I have found that it is much harder to add enough yellow to red in order to make orange, I started with the yellow.

 I added a bit of red to fairly spaced out areas, hoping that these areas would stay fairly red, while it would spread to orange everywhere else. This was not the case. Once the red diffused through the water, the wool was just looking pink, so I added more yellow. I ended up with more dye than wool, so I added more wool. That's the nicest part of grease dyeing so far. While I did soak the first set of wool, I just grabbed more wool out of my bag and stuffed it in.

Turns out the dye had been orange at this point, but the first set of wool seemed saturated, so now the new wool gets to soak up the orange. We'll see how it goes when it dries...

• Will there be yellow?
• Will the first wool just be pink?
• Will the orange be variegated since it went in dry?
• How will the wool come out with all the grease, dirt, and veg that didn't get removed in the first wash?

I guess we'll see in a few days.