UFO's the journey continues...

Remember my post about my personal unfinished objects? Well the first one is finally finished! Here are my lovely pair of socks.

I think, now, that I've done enough socks to know what I like! So the next pair will incorporate all those elements that I would like in a plain pair of socks. A k2p2 rib at the top, slip st heels AND toes, and, of course, the right length for each foot.

Of course they're already started with some yarn that was a gift from a good friend. And then there's...

the yarn I picked up at Bendigo!

See what happens when you finish a UFO, you get two more!

Ladders

Now, I have to replace the fingerless mittens that sold on Saturday! I have a certain number of mittens in my head that I think I need to give people a reasonable choice. The first part of this is to replace those sold!

Hanging in my workshop were two hanks of 12ply yarn that had been dyed in Earth Palette dyes. I like the idea of these as they are a cold water dye and also allow you to 'paint' the yarn. My friend, Jackie and I, had purchased a few at the Sheep and Wool show and it seemed like a good idea that now was the time to experiment!

To make up the dye we used hot water to melt the dye and other chemical crystals. We were supposed to allow them to cool, but being impatient to give it a go we used them warm. In my fellow dyers case this didn't cause any problems as she was cautious (newbie dyer!) and I just ploughed ahead. Of course, the dye took too well and the mixing I was expecting didn't quite happen. I ended up with these two balls of yarn.

Using the newly purchased stitch dictionary (see yesterday's post), I chose a stitch they called 'ladders'.

And here are the knitted mittens, without finishing and buttons. Aren't they fun?

I can see this stitch in all sorts of ways: a very fine yarn would really suit this stitch, rearranging the ladders and perhaps, casting off and on the background stitches to really create a ladder. Just some ideas.

Now, I'm off to do the shopping, washing and all the stuff that didn't get done on the weekend......It was a nice weekend.

A glorious day in the Botanical Gardens

Yep, wonderful sunny Melbourne Sunday afternoon in the Botanical gardens. We're such a lucky city to have such a large open space fall of plants, buildings, lakes and more plants.

A meeting of Experimental Spinning and 3D5S was to start at the Plant Craft cottage in the gardens. These ladies are wonderful with all sorts of different crafts related to plants: dyeing, pot pourri (I can still smell on my hand the damp pot pourri, a pot of which you are invited to stir with your hand!), basketmaking, fibre group, counterpart and I think some more. So after a lovely cup of tea talking all things crafty I sat outside 'being inspired' by their lovely gardens and trying to come up with a pattern for my new balls of wool.

At a busy market at Ivanhoe Makers Market, one of my lovely customers had returned with a jacket that had been knit with some yarn I had dyed for her and presented me with a leftover hank. This had been dyed a lovely 'Flax' colour (from Landscape dyes) and seemed right to start in the gardens.

I had, also, just picked up another stitch dictionary from the little knick knack shop in Heidelberg in Hawdon st. (sorry, I don't remember the name) that has a really wonderful collection of vintage patterns, among other things!

Not being particularly successful, but feeling relaxed, I headed off for a stroll in the gardens, taking photos, enjoying the new wildlife, including signets and an egg laying turtle. Finally, finishing up at the Observatory cafe, where the SnB group were meeting.

The afternoon was spent chatting, laughing, eating and, of course, knitting where I finally, and with much unpulling arrived at what I thought would work.

A mixture of knitting and folding, short row knitting, adding eyelets all seem to combine to create something interesting.

It still needs tweeking. It will be knit lengthwise and various directional changes seem to be called for, but also a little look at the reversability issue!

Mystery Sock Knit along

OK, so the last time I tried a Mystery Knitalong I wasn't very happy (Yarn Forward Magazine mystery blanket......errors in patterns, lag time here and too many squares to knit each month......still waiting to be finished....). Anyway, Dr Bones did a mystery sock knitalong last year and ended up with a pair of gorgeous socks. It's on again and I am persuaded that the TTL mystery sock knitalong will at least be manageable and I will end up with a pair of handknit socks.

I have purchased my yarn, on a surprise jaunt to the city, while husband was in Dymocks, I was in Morris's, a denim coloured yarn called Ranco from Araucania:

The first part of the pattern was released on Friday, I was at the beach, so I'd better get knitting. This is the cuff and the next part is released next Friday.

Just a few 'Works in Progress'

I seem to have started quite a few little projects, attempting to work on them all at the same time! It might be the frightening prospect of two markets on the one weekend - Ivanhoe on Saturday and Rose St. on Sunday - that has prompted this, however, I suspect deeper and darker neurosis coming into play?


Firstly, there's the scarf in the beautiful Wendy Dennis yarn and the lovelyely drop stitch pattern that's popping up, not just in my work, but in quite a few knitting magazines....we do read the same stitch pattern books. I know I've said that scarves aren't selling this year and I wasn't going to knit any more.....but the yarn is so gorgeous and it's nearly done, and I didn't have an easy project for the train.......


Then there's the "toothpaste" yarn I just had to finish spinning...I needed the bobbins! Even though I have no idea what I'm going to make with it.

And, the fingerless mittens in the crazy handspun yarn. This is for a friend, but do I have to do two? and do I have to try one as a new design?


Then, there's more thick singles for the MUST do neckwarmers in 'Melbourne' colours. (Sorry about the photo...no time!)

And, I've started a hat that the guys in my favourite Ivanhoe coffee shop 'might' be interested in.

And then there are scarves on my new loom, in hand-dyed yarn in lovely 8-shaft colour and weave patterns.

AND, the prototype for a new neckwarmer....

Now, I'm off to Stitch 'n Bitch to work on my own jumper!

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!

Found the camera at last!

I really did think that we could get through this house renovation without much disruption. Yes, I am a glass half full (well, three quarters full!) type person. Subsequently, I'm now in a state! Part of this resulted in my misplacing the camera. Needless to say, I've finally found it!

I've been busy today, sewing on buttons on my latest batch of fingerless mittens - 60, to be precise. I'm off to Rose St. Artists' Market tomorrow, hopefully the rain will hold off for us.

So, I thought I would just show you some of the work of the past two weeks.

These are the articles I finished for last weeks Ivanhoe Makers Market.

1. Blue fingerless mittens made from the beautiful wool roving I bought on my weekend away at Tarndwarncoort.

2. New design of fingerless mittens, very simple but laced up down the back of the hand. Just using the yo,k2tog at the beginning of each row and using the resulting 'loop' to lace up with a twisted cord.

These both sold last week!

3. A funky simple beany using three different yarns together.

4. A black and white, feather and fan scarf, knitted lengthwise. This is the first of the upmarket footy scarves. Know a Collingwood fan out there?

These are the mittens I've just finished.

1. Two more mittens using the last of the Tarndwarncoort rovings. All that handspinning is just wonderful for my sanity.

2. The purple mittens use the pattern 'Stars and Stripes'. The grey mittens use the pattern 'Twist and turn'. Both these patterns are from the No.5 Vogue Stitchonary on Lace, that I just recently received. More on my purches in another post!

3. The hat is using some hand-dyed 12 ply from Morris and Sons. I managed to make their sale and picked up a few more cream wool packets. There's a little feather and fan pattern and the rim is stocking stitch which rolls up. I've got a hat like this and it's fun using the natural curl of stocking stitch.

All I have to do now is put the price tags on and I'm off tomorrow to market!

What did I do at Mt Zero?

I thought I'd better show you a couple of my drawings. I do like photographing them, I can look at them with a less critical eye, and, I do think, that they look better photographed!

I couldn't help including textiles in my week away, so I did another of the texture studies. I used some raw linen and much larger needles than before. I did want to get something that is substantial enough and could be finished within the week, with only finishing to go. This mostly succeeded and I am very happy with my little study.

It can't be a mistake!

Remember this:

Well, I've turned it into this:
















I love it! I've spent hours on it and the colour transitions have shown up really well, the pattern is interesting and I have enjoyed the whole process.

What's wrong? you may well ask......

I've been merrily knitting along, my only thought being that it will be lovely and swirly. So having finished it....there is no more yarn....it doesn't work as a scarf. It isn't long enough to tie, or swirly enough, or, or, or

The only thing I've come up with is a cross between a wrap and a capelet. All it needs is a pin. I need reassurance. I am going to take it along this weekend to Harrietville. A weekend away with like-minded (well, some of them, I am a bit strange!) spinners and knitters. I will put it on the show and tell table and ask for opinions....

I am NOT pulling it out!

I'm back!

After the most frustrating month without access to my computer and my files, the team (husband and oldest son) have finally got me back online. I did stay out of this as the old adage 'too many cooks spoil the broth' was perfectly apt; two IT professionals and a knowledgeable 18 year old meant that within 5 minutes of working on the problem we were arguing. A hasty (door slamming) retreat was made by me.

The computer problem was payback for the first weekend away that my husband and I have had to ourselves since before children. We've had nights away, and, individually, have been away for weekends, but not together. Doesn't sound much, but anyone with children will know that one night is just that! Drop the children off to babysitters, in our case, if using in-laws was travelling too far, or, cleaning up the spare bed so that babysitter could stay. If lucky we could have an afternoon, then our night out, then get back quickly to relieve said babysitter.

Our weekend was all out for Saturday night dinner, we headed off and spent all Sunday and most of Monday all by ourselves. The big boy cooked dinner for the two of them, so they were well fed and could watch whatever they wanted without my usual ' not THAT again'. (They do like to watch their favourite shows over and over and over again......I know an awful lot of shows, but have rarely ever watched full episodes, just osmosis over time)

Phone call just before returning was 'we've got a virus on the computer'........

Anyway, I have been working but will sort of work backwards through various interesting things that I've done. Not as much as I wanted, but some fun.

What am I working on now?

I have two scarves that relate to each other. The first was a 'just finish off spinning so I can get on with the next project' sort of thing that I fell in love with and kept going. I had purchased some alpace 'bump' they called it. You could pull from the centre and spin and it was in changing shades. I didn't think that I could recreate the original look, but to my amazement I did. I spun half from the centre and then from the outside and plied the two singles together. (This was going to be a whole entry about guessing half - I am always unsuccessful, but that was another story)

The resulting yarn was beautiful. As I spent most of the time at the beach spinning this I wanted a pattern that reminded me of the beach, waves, sand, seashore.....

As I thought the colour was right, I came up with two patterns in one. Half is a scallop pattern with an odd purl row thrown in, the other is double knit stocking stitch with the odd purl row. I'm hoping that because one side will be shorter than the other that I'll get a soft frill. I'm really happy with this so far.

So much so that I started another scarf with the double knit alternating sides and just garter stitch with extra rows for the frill. Out of my stash came a lovely blue and lurex yarn and dark blue mohair, which I 'm running out of! Might be a different blue mohair at the end.

What a ramble. See I missed you all!

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.

Nearly sculpture

How fast has this year shot by. This is my last week of classes, then I have a week to finish the work and then everything has to be handed in on the 9th November.


Monday was my last sculpture class for the year. None of them are finished, but I'm happy with the progress and will be able to finish them on time.


Here they are, in their current state:

There's the plaster sculpture,

the bronze,
















and finally, the free choice piece. This is knit copper wire. I'll be doing about 6 or so and need to figure out how to finish them off.

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.

I do love stitch patterns

Two projects this month have given me the joy of having to find an appropriate stitch pattern to highlight the yarn. As you may have gathered, I do love stitch dictionaries. I can walk past many a pattern book, but will walk over hot coals to get to a new stitch pattern book.



The first yarn was bought from Wendy Dennis at this years sheep and wool show. I had no idea what sort of pattern might suffice.

I have a lovely book: 'Traditional Knitting Patterns from Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Italy and other European Countries' by James Norbury, which I do love. I found a pattern called 'Mrs Hunters pattern. It's a lovely simple four row pattern and it worked. However, it did skew to the left and would need a little blocking when finished.......This is where I made my mistake.




I decided, in my folly....I had found the perfect pattern....to try and find another. Of course none worked and eventually, giving in to common sense, went back to Mrs Hunter.











It only needed light blocking and is just gorgeous. Lots of movement and of course the yarn is just gorgeous, as you would expect from Wendy Dennis. The joy of knitting is every single length of a beautiful yarn passes gently through your fingers as you watch it grow.




The next yarn is my fine fractal yarn. If you recall (I think I blogged about it?) I was a bit disappointed with the result. However, I now have a request that I knit the yarn up, if the person requesting can have first choice. I am very happy to do this.



The journey for this yarn was a little different. I knew exactly what I wanted and explaining to a friend, found it in a Barbara Walker book (which I don't have, but will one day....), but I then was able to find it in my Traditional knitting book. Hooray! I just love the way the fabric moves, it will work perfectly.....







No, it didn't......it needed larger areas of colour, so I went in search again....how about this one?







Yep, I think I like it!







aaaagh, knitting.................

It's all about the socks

Just arrived back from a busy session at Snb. Isn't it amazing how you can sit around with your knitting and spend most of the time talking about knitting. We did have a little drama with one of the children, I do hope she's OK.

I managed to finish my socks last night, so I could show them off today and, more importantly, start the next pair of socks. You may notice that one foot is bigger than the other. One of the joys of knitting your own is that you can tailor them to your own unique feet!

Aren't they lovely and bright.

The new pair are in the Noro Kureyon sock yarn I bought, on special from Morris & Sons. The pattern is the Lacy Arrow-patterned socks from 'Socks' from Spin-off and Interweave Press, edited by Rita Buchanan & Deborah Robson.

I've done the swatch and the pattern works very nicely. The only weirdness, is that when I started knitting from the centre the first green is quite different from anything that can be easily seen from the outside of the ball. The Noro is supposed to wash nicely, right now it feels a bit firm. Quite alot to think about, really.

Finally finished!

I've been knitting this blanket for absolutely ages.

I had far too much of this Shadow Tweed yarn from Australian Country Spinners and while it's an interesting yarn I was well over it, well I certainly am now!

Lorraine at Woolybutt has been collecting squares for blankets to send up to Marysville for the fire victims, and as it's August I thought I'd better finish it.

The blanket is knitted in one piece and I picked up, increased and decreased down the centre diagonal of each square, so it's not in any particular sequence and has a really appealing effect.

I hope it finds a good home.

Rhythms of the day

Having embarked on studies again, committing somewhere around 3 days a week has meant that I've needed to rearrange my week. Having had particular rhythms to the week for so long, it's been difficult to change my habits and enlist the help of the household. It's slowly getting there, but it's been an interesting challenge.

This might explain why I've only finished two fingerless mittens this week when I need to make quite a few for the next market, but here they are:

City Library

I'm so far behind in my posts, so much to tell you, so little time! However, I thought I'd let you know that my sculpture 'Windfall' can be seen at the City Library in Flinders Lane.

Richard, my sculpture teacher has been putting various student works on display and this week He chose mine.

It's always an interesting process seeing your work in a public place. I always want to stay there for the entire time and see what peoples reactions are. It's probably why I like having a market stall, getting direct reactions. I don't like phones for the same reason, you can't see people on a phone.

Anyway, if you're in the area, have a look, tell me what you think!

WWKIP

Yep, today is World Wide Knitting in Public day (WWKIP). There are people gathering all over the world to knit in public, be proud and have fun. Here, in Melbourne they'll be meeting at Fedish in Federation Square from 12.30pm on. I'm hoping some of them will make it onto the trams and take it to the people!

You may have noticed, so far, no 'I' in any of this, well 'I' will be at Craft Hatch in the City Library in Flinders Lane from 11-4pm.

I did manage to finish my Harrietville fibre sandwich yarn fingerless mittens. These were more of a trial than they were supposed to be, I even changed the very simple pattern and am now happy.

The pattern is a mix of moss stitch and stocking stitch. I tried a chequerboard effect and it looked a bit messy. The stocking stitch columns tamed it just enough. Don't you love the buttons I added!

I'll be wearing them today at Craft Hatch and I will be knitting.