Joyce Makes Art

Dye Yarn. Dye.

Sometimes a girl just has to dye yarn.  Nothing else will do.

I dyed some Blue Faced Leicester for a very sweet girl.

I dyed two skeins of Elliebelly's Eco Alpaca -- I guess that makes this an Eco Duo -- to use together in a hat for my oldest.  The skeins were dyed together and then the skein on the bottom was overdyed.  I'm hoping this means I get complimentary skeins that work well together.  It's an experiment I've been wanting to try for a while.  You can see the richness of the colors a bit better in the close up photo below.

There is a bit more yarn steeping and you would think I would be tired of dyeing, but of course, that never happens.

The First Week Of The Elliebelly Knit Along

Two weeks ago we casted on for the first ever Elliebelly Knit Along.  In the two weeks since, there has been masterly knitting, some early finishers, a lot of talk about pattern selection, tasty yarn pictures, and, exactly what I needed, encouragement for getting my fall knitting out and going strong.

Today I thought I would share some of the projects with you.  They are all so beautiful, but I've got a few at random (the knitters who I was able to catch up with and insure it was okay to share their pictures and projects), so I will start with these few and show off the rest over the next couple of weeks.

You are in for some serious eye candy in this one!

Siobahn is knitting mitts for her Mom, a nurse.  Actually, I should say past tense, knit, as she is so amazingly quick that despite using a sock yarn, Elliebelly Ellie-Blue BFL Sock, she is finished.  Isn't her Mom lucky?  The pattern is Alexandra Brinck's Fishtail Wristwarmers and the colorway is "Purple Rain."

Cricket is knitting this amazing sweater and bloomers set.  She is using Carina Spencer's convertible bloomers pattern and Elliebelly's Ellie-Blue Aran BFL yarn in Cupcake.

My cousin Ann is knitting a Shoulder Scarf using some yarn she spun from Elliebelly Alpaca Roving.

She is an amazing spinner and knitter and my best role model.  Isn't that scarf an artwork in its own right?  It is so simple and so beautiful.  I cannot wait to see it completed.

Clarissa is knitting the Storm Cloud Shawlette by Hanna Breetz.  I'm particularly interested in seeing how this turns out as I have some yarn earmarked for the same pattern.  She is using Elliebelly's Sea Wool in "Chihuly."

Tina knit Cappuchine for an incredible little model, using Elliebelly Ellie-Blue Bulky BFL.  I've never noticed this pattern before, but now, I can't wait to knit it.  Tina managed to show the yarn off to perfection.

 

The last bit of knit-porn for the day is Jenn's Citron, using Elliebelly's Juliet Sock Yarn in Marmalade.

Jenn's knitting is so pretty that I feel like she has captured a piece of the sun and is knitting it.

There is a lot of very cool knitting going on these days.  I'm really grateful to everyone who is participating in the knit along for all of the fun and inspiration it's bringing me!

What Do You Do When You Are Out Of Yarn?

I never cease to be amazed by the ways in which people convince themselves that something that is clearly not right is actually okay or even good.

You might think that this is a very successful knitting project in the works for a very sweet young man.

But you would be wrong.

I spent the better part of the week not knitting on this sweater, while telling myself I had plenty of yarn to finish the sleeves and the ribbing at the bottom.  Briefly, I entertained the possibility of finishing out the sweater with a solid gray yarn -- a moment of deep practicality.  Then I pushed the notion aside and reminded myself I still had three partial balls of yarn and everything would be, well, okay.  Or even good.

Last weekend I hedged my bets by starting in on the sleeves early.  I knitted the body of the sweater just far enough to do the last button hole, leaving a couple of inches of ribbing at the bottom to be done.  I started one sleeve, and then I told myself that just to be sure, I would start the second one.  At this point I had three circular needles and three balls of yarn attached to the sweater, and knitting the third sleeve was an interesting dance of needles and tangling balls of yarn.

And then this happened:

Two partial sleeves.  Two rapidly diminishing balls of yarn in ziploc bags.

I can "catch up" the shorter sleeve on the left to the length of its mate is on the right with the remaining yarn.  But that is about it, as you can plainly see.

Really, I knew.  I knew this day was coming.  After I exhaust these two little stubs of yarn, I'm going to have to bring out the gray -- I have some lovely Alpaca -- and pray that I can get gauge.  And that it doesn't looks stupid, a sort of a "hey, I ran out of yarn but I'm trying my best" sweater.  I'm hoping I can embrace the mistake and that it will look like an intentional design element or at least that it won't look like a total disaster and become the kind of sweater all children fear their mother may knit them some day.  In the future, I will try to keep myself from ignoring the impending train wreck, or maybe just recognizing that when the math on yardage is a little bit tight at the outset of a project, it likely won't improve with time.

Despite all of this, I am oddly delighted with this sweater.  I like the bulky Elliebelly Talia Merino yarn and I love how the colors play together.  The Ragman pattern is simple, but a joy to knit and not in any way boring.  So I'm going to suck it up, start knitting with the gray yarn, hope for the best, and trust that  another solution will present itself if the gray yarn doesn't work out.

Knitting Drama -- What To Do When The Yarn Runs Out

I should be ashamed.  Really.  I knew, I knew in my heart, that I was going to be short on yarn for Ollie's Ragman.  But I thought it would only be a bit at the end and I would compensate by shortening the sweater a bit.

What I didn't count on was that my gauge would be off and the sweater would eat more yarn than anticipated.  I'm here.

And this is a bad place to be with less than one full ball of yarn left.  I realized I was in trouble last night, and started knitting the sleeves before finishing the body, thinking I would just make it with a slightly shortened measurement.  (And yes, I'm annoyed that the sleeve patterning is inconsistent with the body, but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to rip it out and see if I can play with the number of stitches to "fix" that.)

I'm now accepting that I am, in the vernacular, screwed.

I once knit Ollie a cute little hat with this same weight yarn and striped it with this yarn in gray, an effect I really liked.  I think something like that, at the bottom of the sweater, is my only option.

I don't have any of that particular yarn left and I do wish I had planned better and knit the collar in trim, but unless I want to rip the whole sweater out and start over with the trim collar, my only option is to  squeeze out as much of the sleeves as I can and then use trim for an oversized cuff there  at the bottom of the body.

It doesn't help that it's my own fault and I should have planned better.  I've sulked and I've pretended it wasn't so, but like all drama, ultimately the only thing to do is confront it and move forward.  *Sigh*

Knitting & Knitting

The Elliebelly Knit Along is taking shape nicely!

The sweater I'm knitting for Ollie is coming along (although I'm getting a little bit edgey about the yardage and hoping I won't run out).

Some other Knitters are blogging too!  You can read about Jen P. and Plath's knitting and see some great pictures.

Other knitters have finished their projects already.  These people scare me!

There is lots of pretty knitting in the works, and I'm going to try to feature as much of it as possible on my blog over the next few weeks.  Seeing it has inspired me to organize my yarn and my knitting plans for the fall.

Studio Saturday

It's a lazy Saturday here.  We dropped Grandma off at the airport for her trip back home, which is always a sad sort of thing, so we decided to do nothing of any consequence for the entire morning.  We have succeeded admirably.

It's been a studio day.  I set out to do some straightening up, and instead, immediately picked up my first experiment at knitting with silkworm handkerchiefs and decided to knit some more on it, instead of sorting out the room.  It's such a pretty color -- if the hankies hold out, I think I'll try to get a scarf out of this piece.

I also stopped to press a scarf I dyed earlier this week.  The fabric is a Wool/Silk blend.  I'm very pleased with it.

I never made it back to cleaning up, because Ollie showed up, wanting to college.

He is always fun to watch because of his fierce concentration, but he seemed happy with his work.

Just about the time he finished, Ellie showed up, wanting to make a card for a friend.

And really, I realized it was absolutely hopeless.  There was no chance of organizing yarn because the basket had been taken over by a very contented Hermione.

I was not about to be the person to disturb her, so we've called it a morning and our contentedly lazing our way into lunch. 

I think we could all use a lazy studio Saturday every once in a while.  I'm very happy to be having one today!

A Special Day, Both Knitting And Otherwise

It was a special day today.

It was the first day of school.

Grandma Claire (who is visiting) and Teddy both got haircuts.  Teddy hasn't had one in at least six months.  I had almost forgotten how handsome he is.

One fringe benefit of the start of the school year is the extraordinarily long wait in the carpool line.  It stretches down 4-5 city blocks and it can be a 20 minute wait if you are really lucky and manage to hit it just right.  Extra knitting time!  The carpool line is one of my most favorite-ist things.

I am really pleased that the sweater seems to be knitting up enough on the large side that he should be able to wear it for a couple of years.

Apparently Ollie thought the day was pretty special too.  Although he was less than happy about putting on a wool sweater in 100` heat, he seemed to enjoy himself a lot.  Maybe too much.

It's very nice to have such a appreciative little guy to knit for.

Knit Along Progress

I have made great progress with Ollie's Sweater, having finished the raglan increases, put the sleeve stitches aside on waste yarn, and joined the body to knit down in one piece.

But my progress is not the knitting story of the day.  That story belongs to Ellie, who made this totally amazing hat in two and a half days.

Isn't she a wonderful next generation knitter?

Now you will have to indulge me and ooh and ahh over the pictures of her knitting.  I think it is the most incredible experience in the world to have lucked into a knitting child. (This is actually my second knitter, my first is here.)  Isn't she wonderful?

Knitting Ollie's Fall Sweater

I'm knitting Ollie's fall sweater for the Elliebelly Knit Along.  I'm a little bit better than halfway down the raglan portion of the top of the sweater.

The sweater is Ragman and the yarn is Elliebelly Talia, a bulky Merino wool, dyed in the Crayon colorway. 

Casting On: Ollie's Crayon Ragman Sweater

The Elliebelly Knit Along starts today, and I'm on top of it.

This yarn

is going to become this sweater, Donna Higgins Ragman.

I'm off to a good start. 

A very bad swatch indicated I would get gauge on size 9 needles (I've knit with this yarn before so I knew that and was too lazy to do more than just quickly confirm it.)

57 stitches, casted on using the long tail method.

And, on to the set up row for the raglan increases, followed by the insertion of pretty yarn jewelry (stitch markers).

The only hitch in the process involved our large black cat, squirt, who became enamoured with the "new toy" Mom got him, and suddenly wandered off with the ball of yarn, trailing my needles behind him.

He was very disappointed when I took it back.  Poor kitty!