Lana

Lana is off the needles!
The sun has not been around much lately and today was no exception.
But it did show it's face for about 15 minutes and out the door I went with camera in hand and hubby following behind.
I wondered if we would have any pictures at all with the winds blowing as they were.

But the winds did calm down for a few minutes.

The shawl drapes really nicely because it's knitted from side to side on the bias.

The lace border is knitted with the body of the shawl on one side and is knitted-on on the other side.
I thought this was such a wonderful way to add the border.
The two other shawls in this series are designed the same way.

I love large asymmetrical shawls.
I like tying knots in my shawls and wearing them off to the side.

The yarn I used is from our own herd. It's an alpaca/mohair blend.
Soooooooo soft!
It's light as a feather too and I think I'll be wearing it all year long.

I've been felting shawls this weekend and I have lots to show you...
 

By golly, I think I've got it!

Creating the perfect red in my yarns has eluded me completely.

Yarns ended up being too pink or too orange, too light or too dark.

But since red is one of my favorite colours, I kept on trying and last night, the stars lined up just right! The perfect red, or pretty close to it appeared in the dye pot. It's a bright, happy poppy kind of red. I can't wait for the yarn to be dry to I can really see it. This is a lace weight merino yarn.

 

Do you know Susan B Anderson, the author of numerous knitting books?
I enjoy reading her blog. She's a positive, outgoing, motivated person. From her blog posts you can see that family is number one and that she's passionnate of her knitting. My kind of person!
Her baby hats are so cute!
Susan has a giveaway going on for two Winter Bliss cowl patterns. Get your comment in for a chance to win!

Now back to the dye pots and more poppy red, this time I'm dyeing some fingerweight yarn for MOI! I have a cardigan in mind and I've been dreaming about it since last night! Wonder if I could have it done for Christmas? A girl can dream ya know!

 

Last weekend,

...took the pots out and proceeded to dye!
I recently purchased new dyes and I'm trying to use up the ones that I still have. Well, at least that's the excuse I gave myself to play with colour and ignore the cleaning and cooking that needs to be done!
My goal is to get more saturated colours, deeper shades...I'm getting there. Experimenting seems to be the only way to learn how. So experimenting I will do.

After a day's work, here is my yarn, drying on the rack.
7 skeins of fingering yarn
1 skein of bulky yarn
1 skein of lace weight

 Eventhough I don't wear shades of gold and orange, I really like the shades in this skein.

Hubby bought a 4x 8 sheet of plywood to build a pump house to bring water to the alpacas and I quickly decided to use it before he cut it up. I'll tell you all about it in my next post!

FO Baby girl blanket

As my mother is destashing, my stash seems to be growing! That's not exactly how I thought it would end up but some yarn is just too nice to let go. Many, many years ago, my mother and grand mother used to order yarn from Bèrgère de France in Montréal. They would order lots and lots of yarn! My grand mother would knit constantly but my mom would mostly stash it!! (Just kidding mom!)

With all the babies being born lately amongst our friends and family, I thought I would get a few items ready for those baby showers coming this summer.

Eventhough I don't often knit with acrylic yarns, I knew that the washability of this yarn would be appreciated by busy parents.

This blanket starts from the center and is knitted on circular needles. It's one of those mindless knitting project. I always love to have one of those on hand when I want to knit and watch tv or expect to be interupted often.

 The colours are for a baby girl in lavender, rasberry and white. I also made the hat that was included with the blanket pattern. I have enough yarn to make a sweater or booties too.

Pattern: Hopkins Hat and Blanket (free download from Knitcircus Magazine)
Needles: forgot to make a note of it!
Yarn: Barisienne by Bergère de France

Puppy news:
She is growing like a...well...like a puppy! Well not surprising since all she does is sleep, eat, eliminate...
Now 16 days old and with opened eyes.Her ears are starting to open up as well so she will soon be hearing us walk in the room! Doing her best to get off her belly and use her legs. She actually barked this week! With no littermates, we will have to entertain her till she can be introduced to one of our super gentle golden.

She loves to use the stuffed toys as a pillow.
What's her name? Not sure of that yet. She was born by c-section and when we stepped out of the vet's office, there was a penny by the car. I immediately thought of calling her Penny and register her as Lucky Penny. But hubby doesn't seem to like the name too much so we are still working on this.

Swiss cheese

Just off the needles and blocked.
Swiss cheese scarf made with my hand dyed yarn.

The colours are bright and cheerful. The transition from one colour to the next could have been dyed better but it works anyway.

 With spring well on it's way (I hope!), the scarf will be put away till next fall.

After reading several Ravelry notes on this project, I did modify the pattern to better suit this DK yarn. I mostly followed the notes from ilovecandyfloss.

I will be adding a 100g maki roll in my Etsy shop later today if anyone else would like to knit a similar scarf.
(Please note that my camera if way off on the colours in this maki roll...I will take more pics for the shop.)

We have our daughter's wedding this weekend...I think we're ready!!

It's what's on the inside that counts

It all started with wonderful Fleece artist kit that I purchased from my LYS last month to make a pair of Thrummed mittens.
The kit has a great handpainted worsted weight yarn and kid roving dyed to coordinate.

Thrummed mitts are actually a Canadian thing. They have been around for a few hundred years in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador. Bits of fleece were added to the inside of knitted items to add warmth.

After several false starts (a.k.a. frogging), I finally settled on a technique to make the thrums and to thrum a stitch by following the instructions from Biscotte and Cie.
Another great tutorial can be found on Hello Yarn but I did not follow that technique to knit the thrums.

I found that it's best to make a few dozens of thrums at a time.

After knitting a 2 ½ inch cuff, I started to insert thrums every fourth stitch and every fourth row. 

Even the thumb is thrummed.(try saying that three times in a row!) Looks really great on the outside, wait till you see what's on the inside!

How crazy is that? 

Over time, the thrums will felt to eah other and to the knitted mitt to form a warm felted layer on the inside of the mitten. But to help things along, I intend to wet the mitt and start the felting process by gently rubbing with a bit of soap and hot water, just to make sure that the thrums are lined up properly and don't felt in lumps...I would hate lumps on the inside of any mitts.

I intend to make more of these. Too much fun.

Just in time

I completed this wonderful alpaca yarn cowl a few weeks ago but could not find the right buttons. Isn't that often the case?
But last week I found these wooden buttons in the perfect shade.
I sewed them on last night while the wind was howling outside and the snow was accumulating at the front door!!

The cowl is from Alana of Never Not Knitting blog. It's called Shawl Collared Cowl.  It's very thick and with the cowl collar, it fit very high and tight around my neck. Great for any winter storm coming my way.

I used yarn is 100% alpaca from Misty Haven Alpacas. I fell in love with the colour right away. It's a little heavier than what the pattern called for but the pattern could be ajusted easily to accomodate the chunky yarn.

 I also made a pair of matching mittens. They were such a quick knit, completed in two evenings. I could not find a mitten pattern for chunky yarn so I ended up making one up. I really like the feel of chunky yarn, especially when it's alpaca chunky yarn from Misty Haven Alpacas. I really must get more of this chuky stuff!

I even had a chance to try it on today out there in the wonderful winter wonderland.



Keep on knitting!!

Alpaca softness

I picked up some wonderful worsted weight alpaca yarn from Misty Haven Alpaca farm this spring. The reason for a visit to the farm was to pick up a birthday gift for my mother (and a little something for me too).



Hand dyed in a rich denim colour.

100% alpaca = pure softness

The cowl is Foxglove. Available on Elann.com.



I modified by casting on only 108 stitches instead of 144. I prefer my cowls to fit closer to the neck.

Now, I 'm not wishing for the cold weather to come, I am enjoying this warm summer way too much! But when the cold wind does start to blow, I will be ready!

Are you ready?

I've dyed and gone to heaven!

That's right...gone to heaven!

A new beginning in my fun with dyeing yarns. I've experimented lots with recycled yarn and dyeing. I have a bit of a feeling for how the colours react allthough I am still learning all the time.

I have now progressed to dyeing new yarns. I received a huge order of 'bare' yarn last week and have just started dyeing them.

It seems to be different from dyeing with reclaimed yarns...the colours take better, they are sharper, cleaner looking.

I have put the recycled yarns in my shop on sale in order to make room for the new stuff. But I will still be adding some recycled stuff from time to time since I have some left.

I've also reviewed my shipping costs and reduced those as well. I have sold lots of yarn in the last couple of weeks because of that.

But on with the new!

Here they are...TADAAAAM!!!

Beach ball:

Strawberry shortcake:

Sun and Surf:


Summer meadow:

I have also been knitting. I'll show you those things in another post.

Catching up

Work has me feeling like I am on a roller coaster! It's unbelievably busy. I have had to travel out of town for meetings or conferences every single week of April. I have hardly had any time in my office to tackle all the files on my desk. And it doesn't look like May will be any slower!

But I'm not complaining. I'm lucky to love my work and to still feel very passionate about it after almost 30 years.

I am now 9 mths away from my retirement date and slowly preparing for it. I'm very excited about that new chapter in my life.

Even though I haven't posted much, I have done some knitting at home but mostly in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms. A couple of weekends ago, I have taken out the dye pot.

Have a look at a basketfull of newly dyed yarns. I have been experimenting with Wilson food dyes.

This yarn was dyed with Black dye. That's right, even though you see lots of colour, only Black was used. You see, depending on how much heat and acid you add to your dye water, the colours that make up Black will seperate and do fun stuff with the yarn.

This yarn is also Black, but very little of it. It turned out to be a wonderful blend of greys, blues and lavenders. I love the softness of the colours.

For this Pink Panther yarn, I dyed the whole skein in light pink then squirted darker pink here and there. Nice girly colour. Might become a light cardigan for bébé O.

Green, aqua and yellow make a nice blend as well.

But this one is my favorite. The dye is called Copper and it's components also will separate and produce differents shades. Allthough I don't wear oranges and rusts, I do love how this turned out.

I can't keep all the yarn that I dye. I doubt that I would get to knit it all in this lifetime! So it will make it's way into my shop.

Wishing you a great weekend!

Northern Sunset

My lastest hand dyed yarn, with Wilton Icing colour in pink and yellow I had on hand, reminds me of some of our northern sunsets.

I had not yet tried Wilton as a dye (not for icing either !) I was eager to see how they would look. I have a lot of bluky yarn on hand so I thought it would be fun to use it for this.

I ended up having to play around with it a lot because I had too much yarn in a too small pot. I kept ending up with too much white sections. After a while, I then decided to sprinkle some orange Kool Aid powder where I could still see white spots.

The results are okay. I find the colours a bit too bright for my taste. Mind you, I shouldn't say that cause it reminds me of a sweater I bought last summer.

Wow, till I got it out of the closet, I did not realize how similar they are! Maybe I don't mind it so much. What looks good in the summer as summer colours, should look good in the winter as well, right?

I might use it to make another cowl. I might also add it to my etsy shop..we'll see.

I will have to do some experimenting to see how to tone down those Wilton colours a bit though.

I have also been working on another fun project combining two things I love to do...soap making and knitting. I'll be back with pictures this weekend!

Till them, do something nice for yourself, you deserve it!

Spring dyeing

Spring break means time to do some experimenting with dyeing. And this wonderful mild weather does not feel like March but more like late April! The snow is just about gone and the sun is warming things up nicely.

So with spring around the corner, I decided to take out my pots to do some immersion dyeing.

According to the book Teach yourself Visually Hand-dyeing, Immersion dyeing is the process of creating a dye bath in a large pot, adding fiber, and heating it over a period of time...Heating the dye bath triggers the chemical bond between fiber and dye. Because large pots are used, this process is sometimes called kettle-dyeing.

I had a worsted weight lambswool yarn in a shade of yellow that did not appeal to me too much. Since the yellow was so light, it would make a good yarn to overdye.

The first skein of yellow was overdyed with teal and chartreuse. It produced a yarn with shades of yellows and greens that remind me of budding trees in the spring.

The second skein was overdyed with teal, ans saphire blue. It reminds me of a sunny spring sky.

The yarns are now listed in my shop.

Loving the blues!

Blue...one of my all time favorite colors.

These beautiful yarns are all handdyed by Karen Lawrence.

Bought at Sheepstings yarn shop last spring. Unfortunately, Sheepstrings is now closed but Karen says on her website that she will pursue with her dyeing and designing, which is great news because she does such a fantasting job!

Just before the shop closed last spring, I purchased a kit from her. The kit has 4 different types of yarns all dyed in several shades of blue. The yarns have wonderful names like Algonquin Dew, Tanglewood, Muskoka Forest Vine and Rainbow worsted. The kit is to make a wonderful shrawl (shrug + shawl)

Karen had two made up samples in her store and once I saw the samples, I could not resist.

I started the shrawl right away on #12 mm needles. I was halfway done and concluded that there was no way that the shrawl would fit me. It was much too short. I put it away to ponder on the next step. I put it away for almost 9 months!

I took it out again last month and decided to take it apart and start over on #15mm needles. But I could not find # 15mm anywhere in town.

I had a conference in Ottawa and hubby came with me. Guess what he did when I was in conference all day?? He went to a yarn shop downtown and purchased a #15mm circular needle for me! I was so impressed!

So as soon as I got home I had it on the needles again. It took only a week to complete. I only need to do sleeve seams and I will have pictures of it to show you.