A New Treadling

As I mentioned last time, I decided to try a different treadling for each towel, so it's time to show the beginning of the second towel and see if you can spot the difference that the different treadling order makes in the pattern on the cloth.

At the bottom of the photo is the original treadling on the first towel - looks like little white Os on a coloured background - and at the top is the new treadling for the second towel - now it looks like little white Xs on a coloured background, and you can see how the little Xs connect together at their legs to make a design more like a lattice.  Pretty!  You'll have to imagine the back side of the cloth, for now.  It will be a light background with green Xs and Os.

It's fun to start the second towel and see how different it looks, but a bit of a challenge to keep the new treadling straight, when the first one is so ingrained already.

Beginning of Summer (& Winter)

In an attempt to break myself of my recent addiction to knitting nothing but a succession of quick and simple stockingette socks, I decided to start a new weaving project.  It's a set of dish towels in a weaving style called Summer & Winter.  The name is reflective of the light and dark contrasts in the cloth - one side of the towel will have a light pattern on a darker background, and the other side of the towel will have the reverse of the same pattern, this time in dark on a light background.

I did a bit of sampling before I started, since there are a few treadling variations in Summer & Winter.  I elected to use one of the variations on a so-called X-treadling.  The little Xs aren't totally apparent in this design, at the moment, but having done a couple of repeats of this pattern, I'm thinking that maybe I'll do a different treadling for each of the four towels.  Once I do another towel in a different treadling, it may be easier to see the differences that different treadlings make in the cloth.  Or maybe not.

The weave is a bit open right now, under tension on the loom (that's why the coloured spaces look like little green brick walls) but hopefully once it's not under tension and has been washed, the cotton will shrink a smidge and the weave will close up a bit.  Time will tell.

SPRING, Gorramit!

This year, spring has poked its warm little head out and retreated a few times already, leaving a long dull winter in its wake.  I finally broke down, mentally stomped my feet like a toddler, and decided to try to entice spring to hang around by knitting with some of the brightest colours I had in my stash - my last two balls of Felici sock yarn, in the Fizz colourway.  It's purely a coincidence that it feeds into my current stockingette sock obsession.

These ones were the same old simple design I always knit, with an afterthought heel, but I decided to change things up and do a star heel for this pair.  I'm really tickled that I did, since one of the heels sort of reminds me of a Jayne hat.

My obsession with striped socks continues, but now I have to resort to making my own stripes.  It's just a different kind of fun to come up with the colour combinations.  The next pair are a real doozy.

Violets on Television

Lately, I've been feeling a real addiction to knitting socks.  Nothing complicated, either; no lace or cables or any funny business.  Just a simple toe-up stockingette tube with an afterthought heel, in self-striping yarn.

I'm not sure if it's because it's so meditative, or because sometimes life is too complicated to think about anything but stockingette, or just because I need a dose of colour after the aforementioned neverending winter (which I'm sure anyone in the northern hemisphere is mighty tired of by now.)  There is just something perfect about the simplicity of a sock like this.

Immediately after finishing the pink ones, I pulled out my next set of Felici yarns and began these.  I mourned the yarn all over again, since it's such a pleasure to knit that I had a hard time putting them down.  I love all the shades of purple of these ones, and finished them in about a week.

These colours are a bit more calm than the last pair, and nowhere near the riot of colour of my final Felici pair, now in (peaceful and meditative) production.

Spring Flowers socks

After the long and arduous winter we've had, it's nice to have things warming up and melting, in the last few days.  I've been able to leave the house without a jacket for the first time in six months or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing some colour popping out of the ground.

I made some colour of my own with these self-striped socks from the now-defunct Knit Picks Felici yarn.  I'm super sad to see this yarn go, since I always loved the base yarn and the simplicity of knitting the self-striping colours.  I haven't got much left, but I'm hoping they'll come up with something else by the time I run out.

This particular colourway was called Peachy, and I think it's pretty perfect for spring.

I did the usual, nothing new here: toe up, 68 stitch circumference, afterthought heel.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I do love how the stripes match but are offset from one another.

Happy spring!

Something New

I've been crafting quite a bit in the last while, though you see no evidence of it around here.  I've gotten really lax with taking photos (or making my HLM take some for me.)  There are some real oldies that still haven't ever been posted.

I made a pretty exciting purchase yesterday, though, and I wanted to brag - I finally caught up with (practically) everyone I know and upgraded my old phone to a fancy new iPhone!

This means I finally got to dig out the cross-stitch iPhone case I bought last year (when I originally planned to upgrade) and do up something fancy to decorate my new toy.  I chose a relatively simple Norwegian-style snowflake, and updated it with some contemporary colours.  It's awfully pretty and springtimey, I think, and I'm quite pleased.

I have a feeling the photos around here are about to get a lot nicer.

A New Bag

The old purse I was using was a felted bag that I'd made yonks ago.  The handle started to give out, and then, despite some attempts to maintain it, it finally had to be put to rest some months ago.  I didn't have a new bag at the ready, so I just dug out this old fabric one I had, with a tattoo-print fabric and some plastic handles.  It served my purposes for a while, but ultimately was also an old bag and started to show some wear and tear.  In the last week, the zipper finally broke (on top of various other wear spots and rips in fabric, etc., so I decided it was finally time to stop procrastinating and make something new.

Fortunately I had a pattern and some fabric & notions already for a purse I'd been planning last spring, so I just took my weaving loom down from my crafting table to make room for a sewing project, and threw this baby together in the last 24 hours, natch.

A lovely batik with rainbow colours and a neutral background are paired with a coordinating purple batik handle and lining, matching purple buttons for a bit of embellishment, and a bright blue zipper just to throw everything a bit off kilter.  There are pockets inside there, too, for my phone, my keys, my coffee cup cozy.  It's got a pretty nice shape but is still not quite perfect.  A gusset would be nice, for example, and the outer fabric is a smidge too large for the lining, imho.  I will probably continue to make more purses in pursuit of just the right one to suit me for the next couple of years.  If I ever get around to it.

Snapdragon Socks

I wanted to celebrate the end of my Variegated Sock Yarn into Stockingette Socks project, so I saved a favourite of mine - sweetgeorgia's Snapdragon colourway in my coveted BFL sock yarn - for the final pair.

Despite what your eyes are telling you, this colourway features some fun fuchsia (not reddish) stripes on a super bright lime background.  In a fuzzy BFL sock yarn, they make some pretty warm, sturdy, and spectacular socks.

I did my basic sock, toe up with an afterthought heel, and tried the round decreases on the heel again.  This time I used the kitchener stitch to graft the last six stitches together, which I think makes a nicer close than just threading the loose end through and pulling tight.  I am growing to like the round heel, although for some reason it makes the instep tighter, I think, so I'm still working out the kinks in that.

Is it crazy that I've been wanting to order more variegated yarns to make socks?

Galactica

For the first FO of 2014, I have a scarf, but not just any scarf.  This is the sort of scarf that only a crazy person would begin, since it is done in fingering weight yarn on 2.75mm needles.  I also had to learn a new technique (Brioche stitch) to knit it, but once I saw the design up on the Purl Bee, I just had to do it.

The first question, then, was what yarn to use to knit it.  I'm a huge fan of Madelinetosh and when I saw the Spectrum colourway of their Tosh Merino Light, I fell in love.  My skeins are a bit darker than the samples on the website, but there is still an undertone of deep purpley blue with all of the colours of the rainbow within.  I like the way that, at a distance, it appears to be more of a semisolid, but up close it is so complex and beautiful.

Brioche stitch turns out to be pretty simple and also fun to do, which made it easy to dedicate a lot of knitting time to this project.  I also wanted to get it done quickly, to make sure I got some good use out of it this winter (I'm sure that won't be a problem, given the weather lately) so I watched a ton of Battlestar Galactica while I knit row after row, inch after inch, of Brioche.  It seemed like it took forever, but according to the Ravelry page, it was actually only about 35 days.  I guess that just proves how hard it is to be monogamous to any one project.  Thank goodness I have a bunch more to work on, now.

Why Are There So Many Scarves About Rainbows

This is the final scarf of this year's Kindergarten Scarf series, and none to soon, since it's the Zz scarf.  I might have to use the Greek alphabet to name them, next year!

This one is another scarf of leftovers, this time using leftover yarn from my Hue Shift Afghan (in every colour of the rainbow) and a bit of teal from my Opie hat.  You might notice that this scarf is therefore 100% acrylic.  Not my favourite, but certainly practical for a kid.

I used all of the colours (except the violet from the weft) to wind the warp, mostly in random single stripes, with a few doubled.  I had tons of the violet, which is why I chose to use it for the weft, but not quite enough to do the whole weft with it, so I considered a few options for stripes.  In the end, I did a 4:2 ratio, with 4 picks of violet to 2 picks of an alternate colour.  I did wide bands of the colours rather than changing up the alternate colour a lot, mostly because it would leave me with fewer ends to weave in.  With wool it's not so bad, because the ends will felt into the fabric somewhat, but with acrylic, I'm a bit more worried about things working themselves loose, so I figured the fewer ends the better.

I'm really happy with this one - I think it's pretty wild and some kid will love it!