I finished my Nantucket Red on Tuesday, which is not red but a pretty golden color...
Nantucket Red by Thea Colman done in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.
It was a pretty quick project. I finished it in less than a month, and that was in the midst of the house stuff and some other knitting. There are more pictures of it on my Rav project page, along with my project notes. I'm 98.9% happy with it. I am having issues with the sleeve caps laying right...I think I could have made them about two rows shorter and they'd have been perfect, but clearly, that isn't a big deal. The fit in the left bust area is a little snug (yes, just the left...I'm slightly lopsided, LOL) but there really wouldn't have been much I could have done to make it bigger on just that one side without it looking odd. I'm confident that with wear, the Silky Wool will open up and it'll be fine. The only other issue is fixable...I may need to move my hooks/eyes closer to the edges. You can't tell as much in this picture because of the way I'm standing, but they aren't as gappy as they are supposed to be. We'll see how I feel about it after I wear it a few times. Again, though, overall...very happy with it, it was a terrific pattern, and I'm glad to have another Silky Wool cardi to take the place of my February Lady Sweater that is now way too huge on me.
I also finished my first Norwegian Rose sock this week...
I started this sock back in May, after Spring Fling, as part of a KnitGirllls KAL. I started off strong, finishing the foot part in no time, but when I got to the heel, I flagged. It's that whole toe-up heel thing. This pattern called for a short-row heel, of which I am not a fan, so I kept debating about doing a different heel and essentially paralyzed myself with options, so I just pushed the project aside. I finally pulled it out again a couple of weeks ago, deciding to just do the heel as written and see how it went.
Now that it's done, I have mixed feelings about it. The sock is definitely pretty, my stranded colorwork has enough give that the sock fits snugly but comfortably (and I can get it on, which is always a crap shoot with colorwork socks), and the short-row heel is ok, but the pattern called for a "mini-flap" above the short-row heel, which essentially made the heel too high for me and kind of boinks out unless I really pull the sock up, and it will never stay that way. I could omit it on the second one, I suppose, but then the socks won't match, and that will bug me. I could rip out the first one, get rid of the mini-flap and re-knit it, but....hahahahaha! I am not ripping out 6 inches of colorwork. Sorry. Not happening. I'll live with the boink.
As for other projects, I am working on another pair of socks (Norwegian Rose #2 is going to wait a while, I think), which will be a Christmas gift for a friend. First sock is done, second about 1/3 of the way. No pictures yet, though. I am planning to start a Haruni shawl for another gift (I am so on the ball with gift knitting this year...it's amazing!) -- the yarn is wound and the pattern printed out -- and I'm going to start another Traveling Woman soon, I think, for yet another gift, but I haven't decided on yarn yet. In the mean time, I've started a random cardigan with some Lorna's Laces Swirl DK I've had laying around forever.
And I do mean it is random because I have no pattern. This is some of the first yarn I ever bought when I first started knitting a few years ago, but I had no idea what I'd made with it. I finally decided to swatch to see what the colors would do, if they'd pool unpleasantly or what, but the only way to do that for a garment is to make a really big swatch. So I cast on enough stitches to accommodate the back of a cardigan for myself. I've got about 15" now, almost far enough to bind off for armholes. So...yeah...that's what I'll do. And then I'll try to mimic the same design in the front, I suppose. (Really, it's that random.) The sleeves may be a bit of an issue, as I have never tried to fake an entire sweater pattern before, but I know how to measure and divide and count, and I'm hoping that will yield functional and pleasing results. LOL It's actually kind of fun to be knitting something in this way. And I have to say, I LOVE how the yarn is working out. I love how it looks, and I love how it feels. The colors are awesome and not pooling unpleasantly. So...I'll see what I end up with. Stay tuned!
On the fiber front, I had the day to myself on Tuesday, and though it was one of the days I was feeling kind of punk, I thought, Hey! What better to do today than make a giant mess in my kitchen! So that's what I did. I broke out the fiber and the dyes. By the end of the day, this is what I had...
I've been wanting to learn how to dye roving for some time now...it was on my "to do" list for the last two summers, actually. I've been gathering materials and equipment. I've been reading, reading, reading about the process. I finally decided that the only way I was really going to learn anything was to just give it a go. I chose some Southdown/Shetland cross fiber that, frankly, I don't think is of great quality. It's rough and very neppy and I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to buy a pound of it, but I did, so I used some of it as my guinea pig fiber. It dyed beautifully, but it's still a rough, neppy mess that is not the least bit fun to spin.
On the plus side, though, I managed to dye it without felting it, nor burning it. I did, however, use WAY too much dye, thus it took two more batches of fiber afterward to exhaust the dye baths. I also succeeded in dyeing my hands purple during one of the rinses because I forgot to put my gloves on. Live and learn. I feel cautiously optimistic about what I did, though. Next time I think I'll try it on some better fiber. Life is too short to mess with unpleasant fiber, period.
Oh, the reason I had the day to myself on Tuesday is because Kevin took an extra day's vacation for the long weekend. His big project for the four days was digging up his parents' yard in order to install a new water line. We were all over there on Sunday for dinner, and afterward I grabbed my camera and said to the kids, "Hey! Let's go have fun with the ditch!" This sentence would probably seem strange in most contexts, right? It says something about our family that the kids just shrugged and said, "OK!" So...here you have it...fun with a ditch...
1 comment:
i like this post. :) you are adventurous and fun!
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