Craft Hatch here I come!

I've figured out what time I have to be at Craft Hatch and will catch the 9.29am train to the city. I'm excited and apprehensive. I love this tiny market and hope that, despite tomorrow being cold and wintry, that people will come to the City Library and have a look and maybe even buy!

I took a quick picture of the new things that I take to the market. It's a good reference for me and reminds me that I have worked over the last two weeks. The first week was spent spinning and dyeing with a bit of basic knitting. This week has been more knitting, and finishing off each item and then pricing and putting on their tags. (Sigh!)

I'm happy with the new neckwarmers in single colours, the new lace-up fingerless mittens, dyed after they were knit. Just one more scarf sneaked in and I would have liked to make more button up mittens, but I managed one.

Sort of feel satisfied after spelling it out. Off to move the car as the builder finishes up his work tomorrow. Pictures to follow!

Leaves

This scarf is a culmination of several different threads coming together.

The yarn was handspun and a gift from one of my lovely customers. I decided to dye it using the colours 'Flax' and 'Coral'. This turned out a bit pinker than I'd imagined. The skein, which I forgot to photograph before I wound the ball didn't show this up, but once it was wound, there was the pink. I'm really not sure how that happened?

I had an idea that started with the idea of Autum, though with the pink, perhaps Spring is more appropriate.

That was the first step. These lace leaves occur in lots of pattern books. They consist of increasing without the mirror decrease. This creates a raised leaf, then decrease to bring the end down. I like the idea of playing with the fabric surface, and these are a good way to start.

I decided to knit this lengthwise and with leaves all along. I swatched and it worked well.

The next part of this was to use the provisional cast-off so that I could knit the leaves in two directions. I haven't done this before so I was glad to finally have a reason. You can see the white line is a crochet length from which I picked up the stitches. This was pulled out as the stitches were picked up and I started knitting the leaves in the opposite direction.

So far, so good...but this is a tale of changes, frogging and different endings.

Half way through the second length, it became patently obvious that I was going to run out of yarn. As the scarf is short anyway, some other design feature was going to have to complete the design. (I will do a double row of leaves another day, it was a good idea).

Second idea............frog it again.

Now, you might be thinking that I should have sampled and checked, but sometimes you just have to go with it. It really depends on how much time you're prepared to lose. In this case just a couple of hours to get what I really wanted, and swatching wouldn't have told me if I was going to run out, well not with some great scales and good math!

I finished off one side with the wiggly little cast-off all the way along. For each stitch, cast on three stitches, then cast off four. It created a gorgeous wave.

I undid the other cast-off edge and used the same technique as the other side, except on the tip of the small leaf I did two six-stitch cast-on and off in the one stitch. For the bigger leaf I did three nine-stitch wiggles. Two different edges, I love it.

Snb dyeing

Last Friday, a few of the members of our Snb group came over to my house and we did a little random dyeing, by way of introduction for them. It was alot of fun and some ordinary yarns were transformed into a myriad of colours.

The basic rule for random dyeing is to minimise, as much as possible, the amount of water in the dyepot to reduce the amount of movement the dye particles can make. Dyes are sprinkled on in varying levels of randomness. (I know, it's either random or not.....but bear with me!) You then continue dyeing as usual, with some housekeeping (read 'poking') throughout to ensure that all parts of the yarn has some dye.

I did my dyeing after they'd all left, trying to get a good red. Again, I did succeed but couldn't help adding a little green. I love the yarn and am ready to knit it up! (Apologies for the picture....I'm recharging my battery....)

I have been determined to use the travelling vine pattern. You know how something gets into your head and won't go away, well....

I've rewritten the pattern adding four more rows to the pattern to give bigger blocks of colour, and, changed needle sizes several times.....back to 4mm needles, sometimes the right size IS the right size.

I'm happy....hope I can finish this by the next market.