emerald shrug

Pattern: I used the construction of the Little Lace Shrug in Lace Style as a starting point. Basically, it's a knitted rectangle which is sewn into a tube for a couple of inches at each end, with a picked up border around the back and neck. I changed the stitch pattern to 'Openwork Diamonds,' I adjusted for my own gauge and sizing, and I added a ribbed border.
Yarn: Kaalund 2-ply Merino Lace in Camphor Laurel from One Planet Yarn, which is a deliciously springy lace yarn
Needles: size 6


Shrugs are slightly strange little garments, but I think I'll wear this one. I love it!! It's an easy way to inject some gorgeous color into an outfit, and it's lightweight enough to wear even when the weather is heating up.

For example, I took these photos when it was 93 degrees in the shade even, and there I was in the blazing sun. As I wanted the oleanders as my backdrop, I had to standing on our picnic table (now I wish I'd taken a full-length photo to amuse you!). My feet were burning. But my shoulders? Quite comfortable in their laceweight wool, thank you very much.

Happy Earth Day!!

To celebrate Earth Day, I'm announcing my new website: Green Knitter

I started working on this website a few months ago when I was trying to find reliable information on organic, natural, and eco-friendly yarns. I wanted a website with straight talk about the sustainability of different fibers and yarns. When I couldn't find one, I took matters into my own hands...

I hope you check it out! And I look forward to hearing what you think about it...

coffee as dye

Mountain Man recently handed me a pair of white linen trousers. He told me he never wears them, and he asked me to dye them. Yay! I love a dyeing challenge.

The reason it was a bit of a challenge is that plant fibers are much less receptive to natural dyes than animal fibers. They usually require a labor-intensive series of mordants, and even then they often don't come out with the same pleasing colors.

I decided to search for a substantive dye, which is one that requires no mordant. I thought about pecan hulls and tree barks, but I settled on the nearest one at hand: coffee. (A big thanks goes out to Mama Java's, our local independent coffe house, for collecting some grounds for me.)

Before I got to the main event, I wanted to do a little experimentation. I set up two dye vats: (1) one for the stovetop, with a conventional 1-hour simmer of dyestuff and 1-hour simmer of fibers, and (2) one for solar dyeing, with a 2-day soak of the coffee grounds and a 2-day soak of the fibers. I made mini-skeins of wool, handspun alpaca, and cotton yarns for each vat, and I added a silk skein to the conventional vat as well. The results:

Left to right: tussah silk, conventional wool, solar wool, conventional alpaca, solar alpaca, conventional cotton, solar cotton.
Overall, I was pleased with how the solar dyeing compared to the stovetop dyeing. It produced slightly lighter colors, but it was free, carbon-free heat.

I love the caramel color that came out on the silk and wool. You'll notice, though, that the cotton just came out looking dirty. Had me a bit worried for those trousers, but I tried them out anyways, solar-style (that was the lesson I took from the experimentation). And, reasonable success!
I did two rounds of solar dyeing on them, and they came out a light khaki color, a little warmer than it looks in the photo above. I had to agitate them in the dye pot (basically, plunging my hands in every couple of hours and giving them a good scrub) pretty often in order to get the color even. Both my hands and the fabric seem coarser after all that, but it was worth it. Now Mountain Man has a pair of pants he can spill coffee on with impunity!

handspun and a book

These past few weeks, I've often spent a bit of time spinning in the morning, after coffee and the New York Times but before I really start the day. I need to spin outside because I'm working with raw alpaca fleece with a fair amount of hay and dirt in it. And I need to spin in the morning because the rest of the day is now getting to be too hot. It's becoming a lovely morning ritual.


I'm experimenting with making different yarns, so I don't have much of any one yarn. But I have it in my mind to pick a special project to spin for. And to that end, I picked up a marvelous new book: A Fine Fleece: Knitting with Handspun Yarn, by Lisa Lloyd.

The patterns in this book weren't what I was expecting, but I fell in love with them. What I'd been expecting, and what would be useful for a beginning spinner like me, would be a book with many small projects that could help me figure out what to knit with what I've spun. What this book offers for the most part are intricately cabled sweaters (although it does have a few patterns for socks, hats, and scarves).

That makes the book less functional for my immediate purposes. But, but! I LOVE these sweaters. The patterns are full of symbolism and beauty, and the author's passion really shines through. She's very thoughtful in these garments. Every single one is shown in both a handspun yarn and a commercially made yarn, so that you can see how the texture changes (and so that you use these patterns even if you're not an accomplished spinner).

So, I'm very, very happy with this book. I would highly recommend this book if you're a cable fiend like I am! Now if only I could figure out what to do with these little skeins of my handspun ...

family members taking an interest

It's usually gratifying when a family member takes an interest in your craft. But that's not the case when it's your cat, whose interest involves eating your spinning fiber:


My god, this is one crazed cat. I'd been spinning by the picnic table on Sunday morning, and apparently I dropped a scrap of raw alpaca fiber.

Leila pounced on it, rolled over it, ripped it into bits, and seemed to be eating part of it.

This went on for quite some time, and I couldn't stop laughing. And then Mountain Man got a laugh out of at me, as I crawled around on the ground trying to get a good shot of her. The best part was that I'd been Andean plying, so I had some 30 yards of singles wrapped around my left wrist, attached to the spindle, which I couldn't put down during this exciting photo session.

But I had my own good laugh at Mountain man a day earlier. He'd just returned from a workshop in the UK and was trying to describe one of his colleagues to me.

She was wearing an interestingly constructed vest, a peasant skirt, some wild boots. He summed it up as: "She looked like a Rowan model."

Mwa ha ha. My plan to indoctrinate him into my knitting world must be starting to take effect ....

knitting in green

This is a beautiful season in Phoenix. Temps are in the low 80s; it's already too hot in the sun, but it's incredibly pleasant in the mornings, evenings, and shade. The citrus trees are blooming, the grapefruits are ripe and full, and the sky is clear and blue. Outdoor colors of the moment: green, yellow, and blue.


Knitting colors of the moment: green, green, green. I didn't realize this until I tossed my active projects together. They're all predominantly GREEN. Starting at the top and moving clockwise, there's a strange felting experiment in a green wool, a camisole in pale rosemary-dyed silk, the Primavera socks, and a new lace project in green laceweight merino.


The lace project is my obsession for this week. I love the yarn, which is Kaalund laceweight in 'Camphor Laurel.' The color is a gorgeous, saturated emerald with hints of blues.


It's going to be a delicate shrug, adapted from the 'Little Silk Shrug' pattern in Lace Style. I changed the stitch pattern to the more defined 'Openwork Diamonds,' and I'm probably going to add a ribbed edging like Cast & Bind's version.

Happy spring to you too!

A Visit to the Forest

Mountain Man and I went up to Flagstaff last weekend. It was breathtaking, both figuratively (the mountain scenery is gorgeous) and literally (we hiked to 9000 feet!).


I brought along a hat I recently finished, a delicately striped cap that's meant to evoke tree rings. The yarn is Blue Sky Alpacas sportweight in two of their natural browns. It's knit in the round using a nifty little technique so that the stripes match up without jogs.

We spent Saturday rock climbing and Sunday hiking, and we came home happy and well-exercised. Isis was probably the happiest of us all - I wish I had a photo of her bounding along the trail and rolling in the snow. She finally got a taste of winter! But all I have is a photo of us on the hike, with me doing my best to smile in the intense wind and Isis intent on the next adventure:

pink!

Here's a precious little something to "awww..." about:

The patterns are Lacy Bonnet, from Knitting for Two, and Saartje's Booties. I love these patterns. They feel fancy and girly, but they're also quick and uncomplicated to knit. I used this combination for the white set with hearts, and I will probably come back to it again, although I have my doubts about the appeal of tie-under-the-neck bonnets compared to caps. (Any thoughts from moms or dads out there?)

The tie of the bonnet is a lovely silk ribbon. The yarn is a soft and bouncy worsted merino (label fell off) that I kettle dyed with cochineal last summer. It really, truly is the shocking pink that you see in the picture. I loved it all so much I almost didn't want to send it off to the intended baby!

feeling springy!

Blogging from Connecticut now, courtesy of free airport wireless (yay!).

I came back East on a last minute trip this week. I was feeling nostalgic for familiar people and places -- it was just my birthday on St. Patrick's Day -- and it was also time to reconnect with graduate school.

It was super to be home!! Here I am in my parents' garden, enjoying the hopeful sunlight and cool freshness of a New England spring.


You can see that I brought my Forecast along for the visit, and I was also wearing my birthday present to myself: a Perl Grey stick pin via One Planet Yarn & Fibers.

I spent a few days in Cambridge before I came down to Connecticut. I had the grand fortune of having a cup of tea with Ellen of Knit Sisters. No photo, alas.

But I do have a photo of some excellent yarn that my friend Gustavo (inspiration for the Cambridge Watchcap, author of the Dinner Bell food blog) brought for me from South America. He's been in Paraguay all year for his PhD research, though I think this particular yarn came from Chile.


It's soft, handspun, and beautifully colored: soft, mossy green with flecks of gold. Perfectly coordinates with the andromeda shrub :)

camping with yarn

I spent a couple of days this week camping, hiking, and birdwatching with a dear friend. We were primarily in Madera Canyon, a birdwatching hotspot south of Tucson. It's at reasonably high elevation, so it's forested, cool, even a bit snowy in places. Such a breath of fresh air!

I mostly was just getting in a few rows by the campfire in the evenings (all my yarn has a woodsmoke aroma now!). The last morning, though, I let my friend go on a birding walk alone, and I took the hour by a pond to just listen to the morning birds and catch up on some fiber arts. Here's what my backpack looked like:


The pink is a new hat I'm working on in Nature's Palette organic worsted wool, colorway 'Owl's Clover.' The camel-colored fiber is a lovely, straight-off-the-animal alpaca fleece that I got from a local alpaca farm. I'm spinning it up into a fingering-weight 2 ply on that there spindle.

The hat was meditative. Stockinette stitch in the round. I don't even have to look at it while I knit, so it was the perfect accompaniment to bird-watching...

impulsive knits

Isis (our doggie) and I go on nice, long walks every day. When we go up into the desert, we pack a backpack with water, doggie bowl, and biscuits. When we walk in our neighborhood, though, all I need is a little pouch for cell phone, ipod, and keys. I realized the other day that I didn't have such a pouch. It's always such a delight when you get ignore your ten other WIPs and instantaneously cast on for a little, easily finishable project.


I started it at the Stitch & Bitch last Thursday, where I talked so much and was so indecisive about which stitch pattern to use that I hardly made progress. But it was quick to finish the next day. Basically, I knit a long, thin rectangle and then picked up three stitches on the side. I knit a strip of garter stitch perpendicular to the main rectangle, picking up other side stitches as I went. This forced the rectangle to turn into 3-D, with a bottom of 3 stitches' width. I knit a garter stitch strap, and then when it was long enough, I attached it to the other side of the rectangle in the same manner.

I don't know if my off-the-cuff description makes sense. Sometime I may make another pouch with some improvements and post the pattern here.



It's soft and stretchy, knit in SWTC's 'Craft,' which is an organic cotton and milk protein (!!) mix. And I knit another kerchief to match. I brought it along rock climbing yesterday, and it was perfect for keeping my hair out of my eyes.


Whee! Impulse knits are good for the soul!

Primavera

Spring comes early in Arizona. The grass is greening up. The apricot trees are blooming. The grapefruit are sweet as can be. And I've celebrated by starting a very springy sock indeed.

The pattern, appropriately, is called 'Primavera.' Yarn is Fleece Artist Merino Sock in 'Rainforest.' It seems so yummy and fresh to me, and it's knitting up speedily.

I have to admit, though, that the warm weather makes me realize how much I missed having a cold and bracing Vermont winter. As long as my body thought it was autumn (which is what an Arizona winter feels like), it didn't miss winter. But now that we're headlong into spring, I really feel like I've skipped a season.

And soon it will be too hot for socks! So I'd better back to my needles ....

two reasons I'm getting less knitting done

My New Whorls

His New Wheels

(It's hard to knit when you're spinning. And it's hard to knit in that passenger seat!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I made this sweet little heart for Mountain Man. It's knit with cochineal-dyed licorice twist, lined with pink cotton fabric, and filled with lavender flowers.


The pattern is 'Lavender Heart' from Pretty Knits, with some modifications. In addition to changing the yarn, needles (6), and overall size, I made it by knitting one large rectangle in the front stitch pattern instead of two squares in contrasting yarn and stitches. I handsewed it. And I made it so the 'wrong side' is on the outside (it's more subtle than the ribbed 'right side').

It's a nice little pattern that I'm sure I'll use again and again for gifts. But I'm sad to say that I can't say the same for the rest of the patterns in the book ....

I was very much drawn in by the title and the concept of girly, lux knits. But in the end, it came off as too much frilly frippery for my taste. Too many ruffles, beads, bows, and flowers. And too much frenetic mixing up of textures and colors. I do like a few of the simpler patterns -- namely, a kidsilk haze stole (Anisette) and a delicate tunic-length cardigan (Isobel) -- and may make them yet, but I do wish they came with charts instead of just line-by-line instructions.

I'm disappointed because I really did want to like this book. But, these days, even romance has gone modern! I'm more likely to look to the stronger, body-conscious lines in books like Sensual Knits, Fitted Knits, and Knitting Lingerie Style.

Thank you, Phoe!

All my trolling for contests (in the name of WiKnit) has paid off, big time. I won a prize in a fantastic contest that Phoe was throwing for her own birthday.

It came so nicely packed up, a tidy bundle in orange crepe paper, tied with colorful yarn, and accompanied with a sweet note on cool stationery. Savage that I am, I immediately ripped the package open and unwound the hank to see the yarn in all its glory:

The yarn is Fleece Artist merino sock in the Rainforest colorway. It's a gorgeous handpaint of blues, purples, and greens. In addition, Phoe gave me a handbeaded necklace with opaque blue glass beads and sparkly crystals. This is such a kind gift that I can hardly believe it.

And to think that she sent it halfway across the world to a stranger to celebrate her own birthday!! May we all cultivate such generosity. Thank you, Phoe, for the gift and the inspiration.

dyeing experiments

After my foray into kool-aid dyeing, I've come back to the natural dyeing full force. It's felt like an exciting challenge to learn all about what I can dye with from this new landscape. So in the past few weeks, I've tossed dozens of plants into the dyepot -- our kitchen gives the distinct impression that Macbeth's witches are our houseguests! Here's what it looked like as I was 'loading' the dyepot, with pomegranate rinds drying in the sun:


I have a big enamel pot with a few inches of water in it. For these dyeing experiments, I just pack the large pot with mason jars, each with a plant sample (anywhere from a few teaspoons for something like turmeric to a few handfuls for a plant I'm unfamiliar with). I bring it to a boil, simmer it for about an hour, and then leave it for a few hours to cool. Then I'll add mini-skeins of wool -- alum mordanted or unmordanted -- and simmer those for an hourish.

These were the dyes from my kitchen (turmeric, carrot tops, chamomile) and neighborhood (all the rest). Unless otherwise noted, they're alum mordanted. Starting at the bottom and moving clockwise, we have: cochineal (yes!! I found some growing on a neighbor's cactus), pecan hulls, pomegranate rinds, unmordanted eucalyptus, eucalyptus, rosemary, chamomile, unmordanted carrot tops, carrot tops, turmeric exhaust with a pomegranate mordant, and unmordanted turmeric.

The turmeric is fantastic but not very light-fast, although the pomegranate rinds are supposed to help it (I'm interested in them more as a source of tannin mordant than a dyestuff). The carrot tops were a real surprise, and the fresh cochineal is divine. All in all, I was exceedingly pleased with the results.

The next task was to explore the desert plants. Mountain Man and I spent a day rock climbing in the nearby McDowell Mountains, and I came back with a backpack stuffed with plants: jojoba leaves, desert mistletoe, creosote bush, willow, ferns, and many others that I couldn't identify. Here they are, layed out on the counter in the evening:

The results were rather disappointing, with muted, washed-out colors. Some of the brightest yellows came from the most odiferous plants - creosote bush and turpentine bush (named because they have these smells). But I am curious about the pale reddish color that I got from the mistletoe, which is on the bottom, so I may try working with that to see if I can find another way to extract it.

And that's it for now! I've got another set of samples simmering away as I write this, but it's time to focus on the knitting again for a while ...

rainy day knitting

Last Sunday was a gloriously drab, chilly and rainy day. We don't get days like that in Phoenix very often, so I treasure them! It was perfect for curling up in the living room, listening to NPR, sipping tea, and catching up on knitting. First up: here's a little camping kerchief:



It's a 'commission' for a friend, who asked me to duplicate a camping kerchief that she bought years ago in South Africa. Hers was made with one strand of fine, soft cotton and one strand of hemp - it was a really interesting combination, because the cotton kept it soft while the stiff hemp somehow kept it from smooshing shapelessly and clammily against one's head. I couldn't duplicate that, so I substituted LanaHemp's allhemp6 in "deep river," leftover from my hemp camisole. It's basically a garter stitch triangle with ties, knit on size 7s.


(note to world: I'm happy with the kerchief, I swear. It's just that self-taken photos of my face are the bane of my existence.)
(note to self: then stop knitting so many hats!)

Anyways, in addition to this pleasant little kerchief, I finally did the finishing on a felted camera case for my mom. It needed a button and a bit of crocheting 'round the top after, ahem, I felted it down more than I should've. It's Malabrigo in "pagoda," leftover from my sister's ribbed hat.



And in addition that THAT I darned my Fleece Artist socks (only a year and a half old, never worn in shoes, and not worn at all during sandal season (May-Oct), so I can't say I'm impressed with how they've worn). And I fixed some frayed edges on a couple of sweaters. This was all the little stuff that's been sitting in my knitting basket, untended, for ages. I LOVE rainy days!

Make My Day

I'm such a lucky girl - both Cattywampus and Suzy Girl gave me a You Make My Day blog award! Yay! I never get nominated for these kinds of bloggy things - memes, awards, and the like - so I'm very happy indeed.

Now I'm supposed to bestow the same honor on 10 blogs that bring me happiness and inspiration and make me feel happy about blogland (seriously, I'm told those are the official rules). Here they are, with my two cents about what make them so fantastic:

1. Knit Sisters - witty, oh so witty, and fabulously knitty
2. Knitting Iris - gorgous photography, knitting, and dyeing
3. Tres Chic Veronique - lovely, lovely knitting and sewing.
4. Lickity Knit - knitting with highly entertaining self-deprecating humor
5. Riihivilla - inspiring natural dyeing
6. Creative Idyll/Blonde Chicken Boutique - just discovered her, she has gorgeous yarns with interesting stories
7. Craft Pirate - fun, spirited, and reminds me (sniff!) of Boston
8. Cosmicpluto - how does she knit so fast? one of the earliest blogs I read, still keeps me reading
9. Marnie, speak! - gorgeous designs, good storytelling, cute doggies
10. Getting Stitched on the Farm - yay for farms! I live vicariously through her

And for good measure I'll also direct you to two non-knitting blogs that make me happy (consider yourselves nominated too, guys):
PhD Procrastinating - for some fascinating Indian travels and thoughts on the world
The Dinner Bell - for some fantastic cooking with a Paraguayan twist

kool-aid yarn in action

So what did I do with all that crazy kool-aid dyed yarn? Well, I got right to work!



Yarn recap: the base yarn here is Andee, a worsted wool/alpaca mix from Henry's Attic. I dyed a portion of it green using lemon-lime and grape kool-aid.
Pattern: my friend wanted a densely-knit cap, so I knit this up on 3s. I just made the pattern up as I went along - cast on 100 stitches, knit in 2x2 ribbing for a about 1.25", increased to 120 stitches, knit straight until entire piece measured 5.5", and then decreased in 12 segments.
Thoughts: I *really* like this yarn, both in the natural cream and the surprisingly soft green. I was super pleased with how this turned out, although my fingers were a wee bit sore from knitting the worsted weight yarn at such a tight gauge!


Yarn recap: the base yarn here is Treadsoft Superwash, from Henry's Attic (frankly, turned out a little thinner than I'd hoped. Also had 8 knots in the skein, which was vexing). I dyed it this shocking, variegated red with black cherry and cherry kool-aid.
Pattern: Vinnland, by the Anti-Craft, on size 1s
Thoughts: looks great until I lift the cuff of my jeans ....


Yeeeaaahhh.... I haven't turned the heel yet. I started these when my sister arrived for Christmas. I worked pretty solidly while she was here through early January, but I didn't manage to turn the heel before she left. They're on hold until I see her next, when I can turn the heel and check if it fits.

back to the dye pot

I've been dabbling with dyeing again, inspired by a book that I'll talk about below. But first, let's cut straight to the dyeing.

I decided to try kool-aid dyeing because I was working on two 'commissions' (a hat for a friend and socks for my sister) in colors that I can't reliably get (yet!) from my natural dyes. For the hat, I wanted to dye an alpaca/wool blend a soft ferny green. I managed to get it by adding a bit of grape to lemon-lime. This photo is washed out with too much Arizona sun, but you can get a sense of the final skein along with my shade samples: lemon-lime (acid green), lemon-lime with a bit of grape(olive), and lemon-lime with too much grape (icky brown).

For the socks, I needed a deep, shocking red. I got the color from black cherry with a little cherry added in the end. It took twice as many packets as I'd expected to get the color saturation that I wanted, but it was worth it! It's so yummy looking I can hardly stand it. The samples in front, by the way, are cherry, black cherry, and grape.

Now, I'm the first to acknowledge that Kool-Aid is the antithesis of my green ethics and aesthetics. But, man, was it easy to dye with. I just heated up some water in my dye pot, soaked the yarn while the water heated, took the yarn out to stir in the kool-aid, and plunked it back in until it soaked up the dye. There was no complicated mordanting, no careful measuring, no uneasiness about using toxic chemicals in the kitchen, no hours of simmering at certain temperatures. I'll definitely play with it again.

That said, it doesn't feed my soul like dyeing with plants. I'm starting to tinker with new plants. Here are three yellows from plants that I can 'wildcraft' in my neighborhood of central Phoenix: from the top, Mexican Marigold, Rosemary, and Eucalyptus. The colors are flatter than the rich, golden yellows that I used to get from the goldenrod, marigold, and rudbeckia in my Vermont garden. But it's a start!

And now for the book. I got guidance on kool-aid and the idea of dyeing with eucalyptus from a new dyeing book: The Yarn Lover's Guide to Hand Dyeing, by Linda La Belle. I LOVE this book. Most of the dye books that I have just give basic dyeing recipes, perhaps with a photo or two of the raw material, dyepot, or dyed yarn. This book gives photos of every step for all kinds of complicated dyeing techniques: kettle-dyeing, handpainting, space-dyeing for self-striping, cold-pad dyeing, microwave dyeing, etc.

She shows you what the final yarn looks like as well as how it looks knitted up into a garment -- super useful, since the final knitted garment is often *very* hard to envision from the skein. The patterns that she's written for the handdyed yarns are simple enough to show off the dyed yarn, but with just enough of a twist to make them special. To top it off, she also has interviews with several of my most-admired handdyers, including Darlene Hayes of Nature's Palette and Becky Weed and Katey Plymesser at Thirteen Mile Farm, who focus on natural dyes. I wish she'd gone into a bit more depth on the toxicity of different dyes, and I also wish she'd added more about using natural dye extracts in addition to dyeing from raw materials. But these are minor quibbles that speak to my own idiosyncratic interests. Overall the book is a pleasure to read and a treasure trove of technical information. I'm definitely inspired to expand my dyeing techniques - expect to start seeing hand-painting in the near future!