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?

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!

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.

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.

Let's Recap: Anthro 101

I'm sure it's no surprise to hear that I'm waaay behind in showing things off on this blog.  Even I was surprised to see how long this one has been waiting, however.  It's over a year since I was finishing up this cardigan and wanted to show it off.  How time flies.

I won't go into great detail, here.  That old post gives all the deets on the cardi: where the inspiration came from, the yarns I used, etc.  I ended up scrapping the crocheted belt, in the end.  I just didn't feel like it did the cardigan justice.  Other than that, I think I did a pretty good job of replicating the original Anthropologie cardigan.  There are some great textures in this one, between all of the different yarns, as well as some great colours.

Another triumph for Elizabeth Zimmermann's set-in sleeve and another cute cardi for me.

Crazy Hat Lady

A while back, I knit a hat for my HLM (which never got a photo on the blog since he is shy of cameras) based on the hat that Opie wears on tv's Sons of Anarchy.  He loves it and wears it a lot.

Recently, one of my friends, who is quickly progressing through the basics of knitting, decided she wanted to knit herself a hat in that style.  We decided to do a hat knitalong, and both bought yarn and measured our heads and got to work.

The end result is a really simple slouchy hat that I love.  Sorry about the crazy eyes.

After finishing that one, I had the hat bug, and pulled out some yarn and a pattern that I picked up at the knitting store in Jasper on our girls' vacation.  A simple pattern by Wooly Wormhead, it knit up in a couple of days.  I added a half-inch to the length, and am I glad I did - it's still not really as long as I'd wish.  It's also a bit snug and wants to pull up, so it might be a donation hat, rather than one I keep.  The design uses a reverse-stockingette background with a travelling twisted knit stitch across it.  If I knit it again, I'd probably do a YO & SSK combo, instead, which would be easier on the hands and would give more-or-less the same effect.  It would also have more stretch, so it might even stay on my head a bit better.

Name Draft Towels

I love weaving for many reasons, but one of the cool things about it is that it's pretty easy for even a beginner to make up original designs and play around to make something new and interesting.

One fun way for a weaver to personalize a design is something called a name draft.  You can use a name or phrase of some sort and assign blocks to each letter (i.e. some of the letters of the alphabet will end up a blue block, some will end up a white block in this example.)  Then when you repeat the letter blocks across the width and length of the piece, it will hopefully make a pleasing design.

The story for these particular towels starts with a friend of mine that I've known for a couple of decades (yes, I'm that old.)  When I reconnected with him two months ago, he was in a real transition period in his life, just settling into a new place and starting anew.  I thought it might be a nice idea to make him a little housewarming gift, and wrote up a draft for these towels.  It took a while to get the appropriate yarn in the mail, but once I did, I started them right away.  A bit of a hiatus while I was away in Jasper, and while I was working on more time-sensitive stuff, meant that they didn't get finished as quickly as they could have.  I had them off the loom a few days ago, and hand sewed the hems down.  Tonight I finally managed to get them washed and ironed and photographed so they're ready to go.  By the time he gets them, he'll be well-settled into his new place, but hopefully he'll like them, nevertheless.

The towels are woven from soft and strong Aurora Earth, an unmercerized cotton from Cotton Clouds, and I really enjoyed weaving with it.  It's not shiny and smooth like a mercerized cotton would be, but it's really tough, and the colours are saturated.  I'm pretty pleased with the end result, and I'm glad to have a bit of leftover yarn, so I can use these colours to play again.

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.

Mawata Mittens

Last time I was in Portland, I was trying to find a suitable treat to bring home for some of my knitting pals.  I saw a bunch of silk hankies (aka mawata) on display and remembered the lovely mittens that Yarn Harlot once made from them.  I picked up a handful of brightly coloured hankies for each of the girls, thinking that maybe we might have a knitalong sometime.

A few months ago, one of them actually started to use the hankies to make some mittens, and we were all enthralled as we watched the process of drafting and knitting from them.  One by one, we grabbed our own mawata and began to make our own colourful and beautiful silky mittens.

My own mawata were not actually from that same trip to Portland, but instead came from wooliebullie on etsy, and are called Teal for Two.  The teal is quite a blue one, and what I took for copper in the etsy photos is actually a lovely deep chocolatey brown.  When I drafted the yarn, the blue smooshed into the drifts of white and the brown steeped through it all until it made for a lovely variegated yarn.  The yarn is, of course, a bit thick-and-thin, since I'm new to drafting mawata and knitting with it.  I totally improvised the mitten pattern, but it turned out pretty well.  They fit like... well, like a properly-sized mitten.  I did a more rounded top than I usually do (some of you may remember my penchant for the Norwegian pointed-top) and I really like it.

By the way, it's really hard to get a photo of your own hands in mittens.  All I could manage was one hand, unless I pushed the button with my nose.

Swoon Quilt

Earlier this year, I showed you bunch of photos of the progress on my Swoon quilt, as I was putting the blocks together and constructing it.  Unfortunately, getting a finished photo of a full-size quilt is a lot harder than a scarf or pair of socks.  Just before our big snowstorm last week, I finally got my live-in photographer to take a photo of Swoon so I could finally show off the finished quilt to you.  I think it was worth the wait.

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.

Stripes

The Inspiration

Several years ago I saw a project on Ravelry that was using a cardigan from Anthropologie for inspiration.  Sadly, that project has never been completed, but it was nevertheless an inspiration to me, and I went on to begin to plan my own cardigan based on their inspiration.  In the past year or so, I've seen a lot of Missoni-type chevrons appearing everywhere, and while this particular cardigan is more of a ripple than a chevron, I still can't help but feel it might be received as trendy.  I don't think I've ever been trendy, before.

The Plan

I spent some time last fall perusing the Knit Picks website and came up with a collection of various fingering weight yarns that would work.  I was originally going to stick with the blue/neutral/brown colour scheme of the original, but somewhere along the way my own colour sensibilities set in (probably in combination with the colours available in the various yarns) and I ended up going with more of a blue/grey combo, with some purple thrown in for a pop of colour.  I worked up a plan for the stripes that reflected the tonal sensibilities of the original cardi.  Because I wanted to play not only with colour but also with texture, the yarns themselves are many and varied, including some Stroll sock (merino/nylon), some Palette (peruvian wool), some Gloss fingering (merino/silk), and some Aloft (mohair/silk.)

Unblocked ripples

I started knitting the sweater (in a simple feather and fan ripple) last fall and then stalled out for some reason when I started the sleeves.  I must have been distracted by another project, whether woven or knitted.  In the past couple of weeks, I rediscovered my inspiration, picked it up again and finished the sleeves in no time.  Of course once the sleeves are done, it's a simple matter (?) of joining the body and sleeves and knitting up some seamless set-in shoulders, a la Elizabeth Zimmermann.  All I have left now is the button band, which won't actually have buttons, since I'm going with the belted version of the original Anthropologie cardi.  I crocheted a simple striped belt and now just have to work out the math for the button band (since I'm overcomplicating things, as I usually do.)  I can't wait to show you the finished product!

Koi Pond Socks

A long long time ago, I bought a bunch of variegated sock yarns from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  Over the years, I've used up most of them, but it's always a challenge to find patterns that will look good with some of the crazier colour combos.  I recently came across a free pattern on Ravelry called Harvest Dew, which has a really cute slipped stitch pattern that helps to break up pooling in these types of yarns.  I paired it up with a skein called Koi Koi and whipped up a pair of socks.

The stitch pattern itself is very easy to memorize (like, once through the pattern and you have it down) and also very quick, so the socks don't take much longer to knit than a simple stockingette sock would.  I knew it would eat up the yarn more than stockingette, so I did have to shorten the leg a bit, to make up for my big ol' feet.  If I used a yarn with a little more yardage in the skein, I could probably have made a taller leg, too.

End result: fun-to-knit, cute, comfy socks in one of my favourite yarns ever.  Sweet!

Not Enough Hobbies For Ya?

I've been doing a lot of fibery crafting around here, but it's been a while since I showed off my mad quilting skillz.  All winter I spent a lot of time looking at the gorgeous variations quilters were making of the Swoon quilt pattern by Camille Roskelley.  You can see a number of them here on Flickr, or with a quick Google search.  There are so many beautiful ones, but I had something specific in mind for mine.

I spent ages looking for the right fabric - something bright and beautiful, with a lot of colour and not a lot of directionality.  Eventually I found just the fabric that would be perfect for my vision, called Tonga Gumdrop batiks.  Batiks are always stunning, and these ones in particular were really bright rainbow colours.  I ordered the fat quarters, and got myself some nice clean white for the background, and then sat down with a set of markers and some paper to plan out how to put the colours together.  Because there were 20 fat quarters, I ended up with the nine blocks for the quilt and one extra for a matching pillow.

A few days ago I folded up my weaving loom, Miss Bennett, to clear off my work table, and then got out the rotary cutter and mat.  While taking lots of breaks to knit my Cashmere Affection (to rest my poor back and watch various British tv series that I'm obsessed with, lately) I ironed and cut a bajillion pieces of brightly coloured fabric and stacked them up in nice neat little piles, all organized and ready to go.

Then, phase two:  after a couple of days of working at it (with ample knitting and tv breaks, mind you) today I finally finished cutting up the second set of a bajillion pieces:  pretty white squares and rectangles and strips for the quilt background.  Now I just have to get out the sewing machine and put them all together.  I'll keep you updated.

Warm Plaid Blanket

I've put off blogging this finished object for a while, until I could come to terms with it.


I finished the weaving and sewed the panels together - it was huge and wooly and lovely. Then I took a couple of days to twist the fringe at either end, which took a while since there are so many ends. Having done that, I was left with the question of how to finish it. Back when I made my series of Kindergarten Scarves, I would wash each one by hand as I finished it, using friction to lightly full them. Well, this blanket is far too big for that sort of thing, so I decided to use technology to aid me. I soaked and washed it in the bathtub, and then put it in the dryer.


I know, I know - the dryer?! Well, to be honest, I've had a couple of felting projects that I've tried to felt in the washer/dryer in my building, and have had little success with it, even when running the item through the machine two or three times, so I was quite confident that it wouldn't be a problem. Well, okay, only confident enough to leave it for a few minutes before checking on it. Fifteen minutes in, I opened the dryer, and was disheartened to see that it had already felted further than I'd intended. Sigh. Lesson learned. So it ended up a bit narrower and a bit thicker and a bit fuzzier than was my intention. I was pretty upset about it, but friends and family have reassured me that it isn't actually a total failure on my part (as I had initially worried) so I am learning to enjoy it. By the time I use it on some bright spring mornings on the balcony, I think I'll even learn to love it.

A Year in the Planning

Okay, not really. I had it planned out and ready to go, way back when, but sometimes things just fall behind in the weaving queue, you know? So after making numerous showy towels and scarves and whatnot, throughout this whole year, I finally feel like this project's time has come. (I laughed when I read the bit in last year's post about "one more project before this one." A textbook example of the best laid plans, I think.) Perhaps the best impetus of all is that it's been a bit chilly of late, so why not prepare for the winter by weaving a toasty blanket?


I mentioned in that first post that I'm weaving it in two panels. This is the beginning of the first one, six repeats across and eighteen long. When I finish the second panel and attach them, the finished blanket will be twelve repeats by eighteen, which should be somewhere around 45 inches by 60 inches, the perfect size for napping on the sofa.

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Does anyone want to hazard a guess regarding what this portends?

Woobu Scarf: Take Two

For the second iteration of the leftover Woobu scarves, I decided to revisit a fancy-looking twill design that I used for my very first ever weaving project. The Handweaver's Pattern Directory tells me that it's a variation on M & W threading. Me, I just did what it said to do, and hoped for the best.

If you compare this scarf to the original, you will see the similarities, as well as some differences. The original was done in a super-drapey bamboo yarn, which was quite fine. This yarn is of course a much fluffier wool and bamboo blend. After blocking, it does have a surprising amount of drape for a wooly scarf.


Unfortunately my indoor photo shoot washed out the colours a bit, due to the sheen of the yarn - the design does actually stand out quite a bit better than it appears to, in these photos.

Having finished that one, I am in a bit of a scarf-frenzy right now. More to show off, tomorrow!

Woobu Scarf: Take One

Although my yarn stash isn't yet taking over my home, it is slowly growing excessive. As most knitters do, I periodically pledge to make some projects from yarn out of my stash, rather than buying more yarn. Sometimes that's easier to do than others. In this case, it was an inspiration to dig out some gorgeous Woobu that I had left over from two projects (oops, that reminds me of two more Finished Objects I haven't yet blogged...) Once I dug it out of my closet, I realized that I have just tons of it. I decided to make two (maybe even three) woven scarves with it.


The Jengu yarn is the whiter one - I used that for the warp of the scarf, in a point threading. Then I wove a 2/2 reversing twill to match, using the Irish Girlie Green. The colours in the green look pretty fantastic, not least of which is because of the sheen of the bamboo in the yarn.


It was a challenge for me to weave this loose enough - after having woven so many towels out of cotton/linen, I am used to beating the weft yarn pretty firmly. Even while trying to be gentle, I still started this out with far too many picks per inch, and had to unweave a bit and try again. It was a very quiet and gentle project, and I enjoyed the beautiful colours for every bit of it. In fact, while I was weaving this scarf, I kept thinking that it must be the prettiest thing I've ever made. After weaving, I twisted some fringe for the ends, and then gave it a bath in some Soak and laid it out to dry.


Once again, the whole scarf took only two days (which ultimately means I finished two whole scarves, start to finish, in four days!) It seemed to take a bit longer to dry than the alpaca, and resulted in a firmer fabric than the previous scarf did. That might be due to the much springier nature of this yarn in comparison to the relative lack of stretch in the alpaca. I am planning a second scarf with the same warp & weft combo, but in a different twill design, and right now I'm considering whether I might want to make that one a bit looser, at maybe 10 ends per inch, rather than 12. The jury is still out on that.

End results: a pretty scarf, a smaller stash, another project out of my head and into my hands. Big win.