More Colours in Twill

The last few towels flew off the loom, and I pretty much flew by the seat of my pants in deciding what colour combinations to use.

For the fifth towel, I went with one in kelly green and magenta, which is definitely one of my favourites of the whole bunch.  It's really bright and I like how the colours work together.

With the sixth towel, I realized that I was running out of towels to weave, and I wanted to get back to orange, since I had really liked the previous orange one a lot.  Since I had done it with magenta already (and didn't want to do anything too tonally similar like the dark red) I matched it up with the dark purple.  I like this one a lot too.

The other light colour I'd only used once was yellow, and while I toyed with using it against the kelly green or against the orange, I was afraid that they just wouldn't have enough contrast to be visually interesting.  I went with magenta instead, since both of my previous magenta towels turned out so pretty.  In the end, I think it's a bit too similar to the yellow/red combo (until you see them next to each other they look pretty close) but je ne regrette rien.

I had to get them off the loom quickly because I have a time-sensitive project to weave - Handwoven magazine is taking submissions for designs for a new e-book and I wanted to weave up a sample to submit it - but once that is all done, I will hem and wash and iron these towels and show them off as a set.

Can't Stop Won't Stop

After doing the last colourful set of towels, I really wanted to do another set in some different colours, and keep playing with the concept.  I thought it would be fun to do a set in Mardi Gras colours (purple, green, and gold) so chose a couple of shades of each and used a weaving program on the computer to come up with a point twill stripe design that I liked.  In the end, I also added a deep red to help balance out the darks and lights in the design.

Once I had the green summer and winter towels off the loom, I couldn't wait to get started on this warp, since it's so colourful and fun (and the weaving is comparatively mindless.)

My initial plan was to do seven towels in total, with each of the first three towels in one of the three colour groups.  I started with one in Kelly Green and Pistachio.  You can see it at the bottom of the photo.  The two colours are both relatively light, and there wasn't a lot of contrast between the stripes.  It made an overall wash of green over the colours of the whole warp, which I didn't hate, but it wasn't what I was imagining.  I decided to nix my initial plan to follow up with a purple/magenta striped towel and an orange/yellow towel.  I wanted more contrast between the stripes to make the towels more visually interesting.

With that in mind, I did the second towel in orange and magenta stripes.  This one had a lot of visual pop and I was really happy with how it turned out.  The colours have a good amount of contrast and they give the warp colours a lot of variation.  I like how the twill diamonds alternate between columns when the weft stripes alternate between dark/light.  In the green towel, they only show up distinctly in the dark warp stripes, since the greens are both so light.

For the third towel, I stayed with high contrast and did a towel with stripes in Pistachio green and a deep Purple.  Again, I think the contrast makes it much better and I like the green better here.

I went with yellow and deep red stripes for the fourth towel.  It is only subtly different than the previous one, but definitely still pleasing to the eye.

That passes the halfway point for the towels, since there should be a total of seven.  I have a couple of colour combinations planned for the last ones, but to be honest, I'm actually reconsidering doing the yellow/orange combo... and even the purple/magenta...  what do you think?

So Many Socks

As time marches on, here at Chez Crafty, I am completing projects at a much faster pace than I have been blogging them.  I have had it pointed out to me that I am being remiss in keeping everyone up to date with my goings on, so here is a finished-sock round-up for you, to get things started.

First a simple two-colour striped sock, as is one of my favourites.  I did the usual 3:1 ratio of rounds, this time as 6 rounds grey to 2 rounds pink.  I love how these turned out - they are a really cozy colour combination and so comfy.

The second pair is one that I took my time completing - one of my knitting groups had decided to do a stranded colour work knitalong, and I chose this design.  I pretty much only worked on them when I was with the group, so they took a long time.  The pattern is a super fun one, that you build as you go - components of the design are printed off onto paper and made into dice that you roll to decide what the overall sock will look like, 10 lines of knitting at a time.  The randomness of it and the anticipation of what the next section would add to the design kept me going on this one.  Of course, stranded knitting makes some thick warm socks, so I probably will wear these around home on chilly mornings, and not so much in shoes.

When Knit Picks reintroduced some new colours of Felici self-striping yarn, I couldn't resist picking up at least one colourway - this one is called Rustic Cabin and I fell in love with it.  Didn't take long to make a lovely pair of stockingette toe-up socks.  I will have to keep my eyes peeled for more Felici in the future.  There is nothing I enjoy more than peacefully knitting mindless stockingette and having it come out in pretty stripes without any effort on my part.

Finally, Hazel Knits did a knitalong for March/April - this cool pair of socks were the recommended design.  I thought they were super pretty and just happened to have some beautiful silvery Hazel Knits yarn in my stash, so I knitted some up.  The original pattern had beads, as well, but I left them out.  I think they're still really beautiful!

Of course I have two more pairs on the needles right now.  I will never run out of socks!  Many other things are going on, as well, including completed weaving projects and new weaving projects, so stay tuned.

Fire & Water

I started just playing around with different colour combinations, since I have a lot of colours to work with, this year, so I made a scarf with a combination of red/orange/yellow in the warp.  I was going to do the whole weft in a lighter yellow (as you see in the bottom right of the photo) but decided that the light colour was washing out all of the vibrancy of the warp.  I plopped some orange stripes in there, and that helped, so then I switched to some darker paprika stripes and liked that too.  For the darkest colour, I also shrunk the width of the stripe, just to keep things interesting.  I think the way it changes looks pretty cool.

Then I decided to try something with a greenier tone, so I put a couple of pale greens and a yellow in the next warp and wove it with a light blue and a darker blue/green, in an unequal ratio.  The combination of colours makes me think of Aquaman, though I'm sure no kids today would even know who that is.

The Season for Scarves

So it's that time of year again, where I occupy my weaving loom (Miss Bennet) with a whole series of quick and fun and colourful scarves for donation.  This year I inadvertently started out with a bit of a Disney theme, since my first inspiration was to weave a scarf for all the little girls who want to be Elsa, from Frozen.  I just picked a handful of representative colours and did the warp randomly, and the weft in little stripes of two colours.

Then my next thought was of a recent favourite Disney lady of mine, Merida, from Brave.  I did a tartan-ish design (she's Scottish, so duh) and used the colours of her dress and hair to weave it.  I really love how it turned out, particularly since I was lazy about it and just used two of the colours for weft, when there were so many more in the warp.

My third inspiration was Maleficent, from the recent movie version with Angelina Jolie.  I used a bunch of darker colours in the warp (and again two in stripes in the weft) but this time did an inlay technique with a couple of shades of green (like green misty magic.)  Well, the two shades of green turned out to be a bit too close, since they look pretty much like the same yarn, and the mist might look more like PacMan, but I still think it's really cool how it turned out.

I have another scarf on the loom right now, but am always looking for inspiration, if you have any ideas...

Snowflakes in Red

Every serious crafter knows you'd better have your holiday ducks in a row by the time the leaves start changing, or you'll be caught in a mad panic, come December.

I'm pretty well on top of things this year (it helps that I don't really participate much in exchanging gifts at the holidays) and am just enjoying this cute set of striped towels before I get serious about working on my charity weaving.

Don't you just love 'em?

Celebratory Towels

So it's just another photo-heavy post to show off the completed, washed & dried & ironed towels, because I'm so delighted with how they look, both individually and as a set.

More Twill Towels

For the fourth towel, I changed to a different set of weft colours.  This one had less contrast again, with a blue and black weft.  What a change in tone from the previous three towels!  All the colours are still there, but much more muted.

Then I brought in the brightest colour of them all, the light green, and made the fifth towel with all the contrast, in black and green.

Then I did the last one in green and blue, a little less contrast and tonally more similar.

But wait!  I finished the sixth and final towel only to realize I had tons of warp left on the loom.  When I initially planned out the pattern, I thought the magazine allowed for an unnecessarily long warp, and upon getting to this point in the weaving, I realized that I easily had room for another towel.  My first thought was to use the last of each colour to do a really variegated stripey weft, but I was sort of done with swapping shuttles and winding bobbins.  I couldn't bear to waste such a pretty warp, though, all ready to go.  I decided I'd use some spare 10/2 cotton I had, in white, without any stripes at all.  This made something completely different and a bit unexpected and I really really like it.  The colours are softened a bit, and the blocks look like changing transparencies of glass over the stripes of colours.

Now to finish them up!

A Set of Twill Towels

I don't know if it's just because of the change in the weather, but I got a real case of startitis this week, and began a second pair of socks for gifting, an out-of-the-blue artsy knitting concept, and I really have my eye on a new slouchy hat for fall... maybe some fingerless mitts... not to mention this baby from the new BrooklynTweed collection.

But before I get to any of that, I should catch you up on my weaving.  I did get the skully napkins off the loom (seemed like they took forever) but I haven't gotten to hemming and finishing them yet.  Instead, I got really distracted with these babies, a set of dishtowels using a bit of colour and an irregular twill weave to add interest.

There are six colours in the warp, and I chose two of those for the weft of each towel.

The first towel had a red and pink weft.  The two colours didn't have much contrast, but it still looks quite nice:

Then came a towel with an orange and red weft:

Then one with a pink and orange weft.  It looks quite similar to the last one, again since there isn't much difference between the red and pink, but there is still a different tone to it:

That last shot shows the design most clearly, since it's nice and close.  There are warp stripes in six colours, weft stripes in two, and the overall pattern is an alternating 3:1 and 1:3 twill.  The places where the twill changes is offset from the colour stripe changes, which makes the whole thing much more interesting and gives more colours to the eye.  I can't wait to see how much better they all look, once they're washed and ironed.

Next time I'll show you the other weft combinations!

Hudson's Bay-by Surprise Jacket

As I was sitting there working on the HBC shawl a few weeks ago, one of my knitty girlfriends was working on a Baby Surprise Jacket.  I was thinking about all the leftover coloured yarn I would have from the shawl and then I had an epiphany: an HBC BSJ!

I was intending to wait until after the summer to start it, since I have a few time sensitive projects these days, but then I realized I have a bit of time before the August Camp Loopy project starts, and I couldn't bear to think of finishing the sweater I'm working on in this oppressive heat, and a BSJ only takes a few days...  So I cast it on and knit it up, squeeing all the way.

I thought about a few ways to incorporate the stripes, either right at the beginning (i.e. just after the sleeve cuffs) or through the main part of the body, but because the jacket itself is so wee, the stripes would have to be thin single ridges of colour to fit in most positions.  In the end, I decided to put them in the "work the middle 90 stitches for 10 ridges" part of the pattern so they would just be in the hem area around the bottom, but had to upsize that section to 14 ridges to accomodate all of the colours in a 2-ridge width.  The jacket ended up looking a bit long, but when I blocked it, I tugged it a bit wider and shorter and it turned out fine.

I was planning to get some little blonde wood buttons, but then I found these darker dyed wooden ones with little leaves on them, and they were so enchanting and perfect for a little outdoorsy baby that I bought them on the spot.

I still have tons of yarn left over, so I might just make this my new go-to baby gift.

HBC Shawl

Of course, the thing that prompted me to finally write a post about the June shawl yesterday was because I have another shawl to write about today!

Since I was a kid, I've always loved the iconic look of the Hudson's Bay Company point blankets: a simple off-white blanket with the four wide stripes of colour.  It's an instantly recognizable symbol of Canada (though admittedly not always a good one.)  As they cost hundreds of dollars, I've always relegated it to the "someday" pile.

Much to my happiness, the second project for Camp Loopy was to knit something up (using at least 600 yards of yarn) that is somehow reminiscent of a favourite place.  I instantly thought of the shawl Point, based on the concept of the classic HBC blanket.

The Loopy Ewe carries about a million colours of solid fingering weight yarn, in 200 yard skeins, which make it easy to stock up for striped projects.  I got one little skein each of the colours (and have just tons left over) and then three skeins of the Ivory.  The pattern only calls for two, but since that would give me essentially a one-skein sized shawl (like the one I posted yesterday) I elected to upsize it a bit.

The main body of the shawl is a little knit-purl pattern that adds just enough texture, particularly in a simple ivory colour, and then mindless garter stitch to make the stripes.  Because I'd upsized the shawl, I also decided to make each stripe three ridges of garter stitch instead of two (i.e. six rows of knitting instead of four.)  I really like it, since the stripes in the blankets are so fat and I didn't want these ones to be too thin.

Much to my dismay, the red yarn bled a bit into the ivory as it was washed.  I tried a second soak to minimize it, and while that did work to some extent, you can still see the little bit of red there, if you are looking for it.  I suppose I'd better wash the rest of the red before I make anything else with it, and keep that in mind in future.

Having pulled it up from drying on my bedroom floor, I couldn't wait even a moment to try it on for a selfie, without any makeup or even a sensible look on my face.

Perfect.

By Any Other Name

While I might be quite tardy in blogging about Camp Loopy this summer, I've been pretty timely about getting my projects done.

The first project (the June project, that is) called for something smallish, only 400 yards, that reminds you of a favourite book/movie/tv series.  I scrolled through my Ravelry favourites list for inspiration, and quickly came upon a little shawlette that I've been wanting to make for ages.  It's named Henslowe, after Philip Henslowe, a real theatrical contemporary of Shakespeare, who was portrayed by Geoffrey Rush in one of my all-time favourite films, Shakespeare in Love.

I chose madelinetosh for this project - their fingering weight wool single called Tosh Merino Light - in a colourway they call Cherry, but I see as many shades of fragrant roses.

I went down a needle size to get the specified gauge for the project, but having done so, it seems to have turned out a bit small for my tastes.  It will work well as a scarf but isn't really sufficient for a shawl.  It looks so lovely in this yarn, though (go ahead and click on that photo for a close up and try to deny it) that I am tempted to make another in a different colour, this time with two skeins, and make it both wider and taller in the garter stitch portion before doing the lace edging.  Then again, there are so many things to make, that who ever has time to revisit something a second time?

Using the Leftovers - Oranges & Pinks

Once I've made a few of these scarves, I have enough leftovers from the colours used to make a new scarf with the combination.  This time I added a bit of Galway wool in Natural and a bit of Custom Woolen Mills wool in Red, to round things out and give a bit more contrast.

I kept it in hopsack, which for some reason I thought would end up looking different than just a fat plain weave.  Live and learn.

I do love these crazy plaids, and I'm betting some of the kids do, too.

Red Kathleen

I've had this hat (called Kathleen) in my queue for a while.  I loved the cables and the giant tall ribbing and the funky little slouch.  When I started thinking about fall/winter knits, a few months ago, I grabbed a lovely fluffy ball of red wool from the shelf and began this one.

I knit practically the whole thing at the recommended gauge, with my hands getting stiff from all the tight cabling, before I faced the fact that it really wasn't going to fit my big head.  I ripped it out, back to the end of the ribbing, and went up a couple of needle sizes to reknit it.  This time my hands didn't get as stiff, and I found that it fit better.

Although I do enjoy the look of it as a slouchy chic hat, this week it's been bloody cold, here, and I found that if I fold the brim double, it still looks cute, in a different, Steve Zissou sort of way, but will also keep my ears warmer.

Win.

June Gardens socks

Many years ago (nearly a decade already?) when I was a beginning knitter, there was an amazing yarn dyer in Edmonton named Virginia vanSanten.  I used to admire her yarns in the shops and dream of knitting with something so wonderful and beautiful.  I bought some of her yarn for a shawl once (Ravelry link) and loved every moment of knitting it.  Some time after that, I found out from one of the LYS owners that she had passed away.  It was a palpable thing, to know that such an amazing fiber artist was gone.  Suddenly the few skeins of her yarn that I had left seemed so precious.

These socks represent the only skein of her sock-weight yarn that I had in my stash.  I held onto it all these years, but finally decided that I would do it justice by knitting it, more than I would by keeping it in storage.  The colourway was called June Gardens, but I've always felt that it was more of an autumn colourway, with all that orange and red.  Perhaps her garden was full of marigolds and roses.

I did my usual toe-up sock recipe, a 68-stitch circumference on 2.25mm needles, but for the afterthought heel I did something a bit different: a star heel with decreases in the round, since I felt like that would reflect the shape of my heel more than the usual way (simply reversing toe shaping.)  If the center of the star heel doesn't feel weird when I wear them, I may do this for heels from now on.

Porcellana Cowl

I saw this cute little cowl pattern on KnitPicks a while ago, and thought it looked like a quick and easy little lace project.  Their Shadow lace yarn is a lovely heathered wool, so I ordered some in a nice deep red, to try it out.

Of course I can never let things be simple, so I decided to swap out one of the lace motifs (a zig zag that I didn't really like) for a different lace motif (a sort of leaf or petal design) and rewrote the chart by hand with that substitution.  It turned out to be a bit of a complicated pattern, with one motif containing lace on both sides (i.e. no rest rows on the wrong side) and several different motifs across the width, so I never managed to memorize certain parts of it and needed to refer to the chart the whole time.

After listening to about a million podcasts on my brand spankin' new iPad, I discovered that I'd finished the knitting, so last night I blocked it out on the living room floor, and today I grafted the two ends together to make a lovely long cowl.

The website suggests that you can wear it long "for a chic look" but I didn't feel particularly chic with it like that.  Maybe it's just me.  Of course, one little twist and doubling it up makes a pretty and featherweight cowl that sits like a cloud around the neck and looks lovely, too.

That's one more in the "completed" column.

Nordic Pot Holders

The Norwegian yarn company Drops is always putting out great free knitting & crochet designs.  Over the years I have knit many of them (and have many more in my mental queue.)  Every winter they organize a little set of holiday themed designs, and this is one that I've been wanting to make since they first published it a few years ago.

The original design is in cotton yarn, but I think that's a bit crazy.  Cotton yarn is a fantastic conductor of heat when wet, which translates into burned hands from gripping hot pans (I've learned that lesson the hard way.)  Wool, on the other hand, is insulating when wet or dry, so you won't burn yourself even if these get damp.  I had intended to add a layer of quilt batting in the middle, to add some extra insulation, but it turns out that two layers of stranded DK weight wool are pretty thick already.  I washed and blocked them to tidy up the stitches a bit, and just like that, my holiday decorating has begun.

Truth, Love, & Laughter

In the last hours before the election below our border, I thought I would take some time to show off some art I made earlier this year.  Normally I consider my work to fall under the heading of “crafts” rather than “arts” but sometimes I feel like I straddle that line, and this is one of those times.

Bill Hicks was a satirist that I discovered a decade or so ago, a handful of years after his death from pancreatic cancer, at only 32.  I have watched and listened to nearly every bit of recorded tape that exists of Bill, and his is the voice in my head that guides me when I strive to be an intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate human being.  Although I never knew of him when he was alive, I miss his presence in the world in a heart-wrenching way, and often wonder what he would have to say about so many of the issues we face, today.

Front of Quilt - click for bigger

Four years ago, as George W. Bush’s second term as President was coming to a close, I was inspired to make a quilt with Bill’s words on it.  I bought the fabric and planned it out, but once Barack Obama was elected, I felt (like so many others) a new day was dawning in world politics – that perhaps things might turn around, after all.  Perhaps people would no longer be content to let the wool be pulled over their eyes.

As this year’s Presidential election loomed ever closer, I see again the lies, the partisanship, the way the media tries to distract us all from the real issues by focusing on petty politics, shoddy statistics, and inaccurate facts.  I pulled out my old quilt design and slowly put it together, thinking of Bill and all of the things he would say, were he still here to say them.

Quilt Back - click for bigger

I hope that, in some way, his dream will be in your thoughts, if you are one of those going to the polls to vote.  I hope that you will think of a country where honesty and intelligence matters, where integrity is something of value, and where a voice like Bill’s can guide us.

If you want to see the stand-up routine that encompasses this quote, please go here.

“I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love, and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.” – Bill Hicks

L is for Lightning

I decided to start using up some of the leftovers, for this scarf, and picked a simple 2/2 twill with Oxblood for the warp and Lemon Yellow for the weft.  I thought it would make an interesting scarf if I did a bunch of random back-and-forth with the twill, and it did.  Then I realized that I was going to run out of yellow before the scarf was long enough, so I had to throw in a bunch of natural yarn to make up the difference, and I did it randomly in amongst the random twill.  It made for an interesting effect, overall.  If I had the choice, I would have rather it was just yellow, since I think that colour combination vibrates less, but as Tim Gunn would say: make it work.

Kindergarten Scarves Hh

Last winter, I did a series of woven scarves to donate to some kids who needed a little homemade love.  As I mentioned at the time, they are so quick that it's like instant gratification and also a fun way to experiment with colour combinations and various weaving drafts.  I decided to play some more this year, and stocked up on Cascade 220 when it was on sale at Webs in the springtime.  I pulled it out the other day to start planning this series and then found a bag with some leftovers of Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, as well.  So now I am well stocked, for a dozen or so scarves.  Let the games begin.

The first draft I chose was a hopsack draft that uses one colour in the warp and two other colours in the weft.  It makes a sort of faux gingham if the right colours are used, which is what I went for, here.  The yarn is the Peruvian Highland Wool from Elann, in Peach, Brick, and Oxblood.  I warped and wove this one on Tuesday.  I like how it looks, in those warm autumn tones, but it's not exactly what I was going for.  Today I am trying another colour combo which is working better - I'll show it off when it's been washed and dried.