12 posts tagged “black”
The first two pictures are more woven scarves. The first is woven from the green-pink-brown handspun from a couple of posts down, and I sort of regret using the green stripes in the warp, because I think the colours would show up better without. I will give this to someone at some point, because the colours aren't very me, but I haven't decided who yet.
The second is a last-minute Christmas gift for R, which I partly wove in front of him on Christmas Eve, figuring (correctly, it turns out) that he pays no attention to what I'm making unless I talk to him about it. There are stripes in the weft - plain dark grey Jaeger merino and black tweed YSL - but they're much less obvious in the flesh than in the photo.
Next up (pictures three and four) is the finally-finished Clessidra. I don't think I'll use the riverbed sockitecture again, because I don't like how it fits me, but I love the socks and am going to wear them to a crafting date tomorrow :-)
Picture five is R's blue socks with a reknitted heel after he wore a massive hole in one of them. I think I've still got some of the blue, but I'm not sure where, and he didn't mind them being mended in black.
The last pic is my new sock project, double knit socks which I'm knitting wrong side out, so I don't have to move the yarn backwards and forwards (near side is English-style purl, far side is continental-style knit, so one strand in each hand, which is fun). The downside of knitting them this way around is that I can't read my knitting on the wrong side, so whether I'm increasing or not on any given row is a bit random but because I'm knitting them at the same time they'll match anyway so it doesn't matter, and I'm planning a short-row heel so there's no other increases or decreases to keep track of. I wanted to use different yarn to make it easier to keep track of which stitch belongs to which sock, so these will end up non-matching stripes - once I've finished the toe I'll break the yarn and swap them over, and keep swapping them at random intervals throughout (must remember to break yarn to do this, so I don't end up knitting the two together).
The second is a last-minute Christmas gift for R, which I partly wove in front of him on Christmas Eve, figuring (correctly, it turns out) that he pays no attention to what I'm making unless I talk to him about it. There are stripes in the weft - plain dark grey Jaeger merino and black tweed YSL - but they're much less obvious in the flesh than in the photo.
Next up (pictures three and four) is the finally-finished Clessidra. I don't think I'll use the riverbed sockitecture again, because I don't like how it fits me, but I love the socks and am going to wear them to a crafting date tomorrow :-)
Picture five is R's blue socks with a reknitted heel after he wore a massive hole in one of them. I think I've still got some of the blue, but I'm not sure where, and he didn't mind them being mended in black.
The last pic is my new sock project, double knit socks which I'm knitting wrong side out, so I don't have to move the yarn backwards and forwards (near side is English-style purl, far side is continental-style knit, so one strand in each hand, which is fun). The downside of knitting them this way around is that I can't read my knitting on the wrong side, so whether I'm increasing or not on any given row is a bit random but because I'm knitting them at the same time they'll match anyway so it doesn't matter, and I'm planning a short-row heel so there's no other increases or decreases to keep track of. I wanted to use different yarn to make it easier to keep track of which stitch belongs to which sock, so these will end up non-matching stripes - once I've finished the toe I'll break the yarn and swap them over, and keep swapping them at random intervals throughout (must remember to break yarn to do this, so I don't end up knitting the two together).
This is the next batch of black alpaca carded with purple merino. More than half of the fibre is carded now, and it's going much quicker with the drum carder than it did with hand carders :-) I've actually spun one batch of this, but I don't think I've taken any photos. It's about 5m/g, and will either stay as singles or end as two-ply, depending on what I decide to do with it. It's probably going to be another woven wrap, but at the moment everything looks like a weaving project to me, since the loom is spread across the library floor in pieces having been varnished at the weekend. I'm resisting the urge to assemble it for as long as possible, because I can't start using it for another week and a bit, so barriers are good ;-)
The grey-pink alpaca for my MiL's Christmas present is finally all spun and plied. The first picture is a closeup of two balls of singles ready for plying, and it's really just another excuse to show off the macro capabilities of my new camera! The second picture is of the finished yarn, about 500m of two-ply. I spent some time the other day swatching from my sample of this yarn, and I didn't come up with anything I liked, so this is starting to look like a weaving project as well. Of course, weaving it also means the finished item (a scarf) will be larger, since weaving uses less yarn than knitting, so this is solidifying into a plan.
More spinning closeups! This is the fibre and spindling-in-progress for the purple ball on the ball winder in the previous post. There's still some variegation visible, although nothing like as much as in the pre-carding fibre. But my main excitement on these pics is that even in the ordinary macro mode (as opposed to super macro), the first photo was taken a couple of centimetres away from the subject, and every individual fibre is clearly visible :-)
Neither knitting nor spinning, but I frogged an ill-advised early project, rescued some Sirdar 'Wow' (which has now coated my house, my friend's car, and another friend's flat with fluff), and made two largeish pom-poms for a goth cheerleader costume.
Ravelry tells me I've been knitting this since June 2005. I can't now remember how I decided that, but it can't be anything other than an estimate, but now it is finished. I can trace almost all of the things I've knit in the intervening years in its stripes, but I am resisting the urge to keep it and look at it, and shall instead give it to C for her birthday - I promised it to her long ago, and she has probably forgotten now, but although I love it,it's much more her than me.
This is my lovely new drum carder, which arrived yesterday, and which has already got through hours and hours worth of hand carding in a very short time indeed :-) I've now carded all of the lilac alpaca which is destined to be my MiL's Christmas present, and spun the first lot of it; I'm intending to spin most if not all of the rest of it this evening, and then it will be ready for washing and plying, hoorah. I've also made a start on carding the black alpaca, which will end up carded again, with the purple merino, to make goth-coloured yarn.
I was intending to make this into a wrap for me, and had originally thought of one of the beautiful spiky lace shawls I keep seeing on Ravelry, but in the same delivery from Fibrecrafts as the carder was another package, which I'm not entitled to enjoy for about six weeks: the loom R is giving me for my birthday. I've got two projects planned for this, and one of them is the gothmerino-alpaca - a nice simple rectangle of plain weaving to make the kind of wrap I like best. The other weaving project I'm planning is one I've already talked about: the autumn coloured wrap, with one ply of burgundy merino and one of variegated autumn-leaves colours. For a while I looked around for fibre in the colours I want, and then when I gave up on that, I looked around for undyed fibre and dyes to produce it myself, but then I remembered that Freyalynn (who dyed my Wisteria and Caribbean fibre) also does custom dye jobs, so my autumn leaves fibre has now been commissioned! This will be a birthday present from my parents. I believe in planning ahead in such matters :-)
Things have not been quiet on the knitting front, either. I finished the Child(no)hoodie for my niece, but the gauge was off on the sleeves, so I've frogged them (one frogged sleeve in the first photo above), and I'm redoing them differently. Picked up stitches around the armhole to make sure they fit, and plain red until the garter stitch cuff, because I thought the stocking stitch stripes looked odd with the garter stitch, and because this way I'll have more orange left so can make an orange-and-red striped hat with the leftovers. The recipient now has independent existence, but we haven't been to meet her yet, so I have a little while left to finish knitting her welcome gifts :-)
And Clessidra is coming along nicely. The heel is turned, and I'm into the ankle, and am just about to take measurements and make calculations for the calf increases.
And Clessidra is coming along nicely. The heel is turned, and I'm into the ankle, and am just about to take measurements and make calculations for the calf increases.
Bellatrix FO pics! They look more twisted than they feel, which is ideal. What's not ideal is the obvious colour difference despite matching dye lots :-( Still, perfect matchingness isn't high on my list of priorities, and I love them. And there's enough yarn leftover to make another pair of something else :-)
I'm not sure how well this picture has come out, because the colour details are quite subtle even 'in the flesh', but this is my latest beginning-planning spinning project. It's about two-thirds natural black alpaca hand carded with about a third purple merino, and then rolled sideways off the card so the fibres are roughly aligned, then spun and plied. In person this is really quite lovely, with black bits and purple bits and blacky-purple bits, and somewhere around DK weight. I have about 400g of the alpaca and 250g of the merino, so together that should be enough for an actual thing, possibly a gothy lacy shawl.
In the last week, I've had two crafting dates with different groups of women, and I've resurrected two old projects. In the first crafting date, with one knitter, one mender and one, umm, court jester ;-) (R did bring some work with her, but in the end she didn't do any of it), I swatched yet another stranded project, with the leftover Coriolis yarn, which produced a much better swatch than either of my previous stranded attempts. The next day, I cast on for the project.
The second crafting date was with two knitters (Dyddgu and White_hart), one of whom had come to play with my spinning wheel. I gave a mini-spinning lesson (and my student produced a mini-skein of genuine yarn!), learnt the Norwegian purl technique, and talked a lot about knitting as well as about many other subjects. I knitted on the new stranded project, which you can see to the left. This is going to be a slipper rather than a sock, and the swirly pattern is from "Kiehkuralapaset - Swirly Mittens" by goldenknits / AnneL, which I found on Ravelry. I'm really happy with this project so far. The colour contrast is much better than both of the previous attempts, I love the swirly pattern, and I'm really starting to get into the two-handed knitting thing. I even, with benefit of Dyddgu's Norwegian purl lesson, added some short rows on the sole at the base of the toe, to lift the pointed toe up slightly.
Also inspired by the knitterly conversation, I've taken up the purple cable cardigan again, and am making solid progress. For once I seem to be doing quite well on having two projects actively on the go at the same time - this is now nearing the point where I can split off the sleeves, and it will then go much more quickly.
Part of the reason I'm now making progress on this cardigan is that I've finished spinning the yarn for my next purple cardigan, but I am being strict with myself and not casting on until I've finished another one. Three cardigans in progress is too much! And to minimise the chances of me cheating on this, I haven't yet washed and set the yarn, so I can't just cast on on a whim - it'll take a few days of washing and drying first, by which time I might be able to summon up enough sternness to tell myself off ;-)
A quick update with some photos...
The top picture is the completed peekapurpleboo (no one else around at the time to wield the camera, so I couldn't wear them to photograph them).
The second picture is an idea from the Twisted Sisters' Sock Workbook: the endless circular swatch. I purl looser than I knit, so I need to swatch circularly, but casting on enough stitches for a decent-sized swatch is a pain, and I don't like the thing where you leave long strands of yarn behind a flat swatch in order to knit every stitch (I have a vague recollection of once inventing a much better way of making a flat swatch and still only needing to knit, but I can't for the life of me work out what it was, so I might have dreamt it). The idea is that, unless I need to cannibalise the swatch to finish the project, this will just be an ongoing swatch tube, possibly to be made into a little bag or something eventually, but just sitting there, waiting for the next needles and yarn that need to swatch. And the cast on is Judy's magic cast on (which I got from New Pathways, but is also IIRC on Knitty somewhere), which really is magic.
The third and fourth pictures are the Riverbed BMP in progress. There's an unfortunate problem: I didn't anticipate what the effect on the fabric would be of me switching which hand I hold which yarn in, hence the line where the red suddenly becomes dominant. I like the red dominant better, but not enough more to frog the whole thing and start from scratch, so I think I'm just going to live with it.
The different yarn in each hand technique is loads of fun, and - colour dominance problem aside - I really like how these look.
The last picture is of my solution to the only problem with the otherwise gorgeous Harmony interchangeable needles. These needle tips are not marked with their size, and although the bag includes a number of perfectly needle-sized pockets, the needle tips come tucked into elastic on a piece of card with their sizes marked, and this annoyed me. I have now written their US and metric sizes onto both sides of little card labels (which I otherwise use for labelling skeins of handspun), and tucked a label and a pair of needle tips into each pocket. And added a needle gauge in case needles get separated from labels. This is a much more sensible arrangement, and I'm a bit cross they didn't come like this :-(
To the right is BMP, just before I frogged it. I love the pattern, I love the stranded technique, I love using one hand for each colour, knitting one yarn continental and the other English. Unfortunately, the purple is too dark and too variegated for the fine details of the space invaders to show up. So I frogged it.
For the second attempt at stranded socks, I used the same yarn but switched to the riverbed pattern from New Pathways for Sock Knitting. Specifically to the clematis vine variant, although I had no plans to knit the clematis vine pattern itself. I couldn't find the needles I wanted (Addi 2.5mm) so I settled for Knitpicks 2.25mm, but the number of stitches per inch was off the chart, the toe was too pointy, and the contrast still wasn't working. I frogged it, with no pictures taken.
(I feel as if I'm echoing Neil Gaiman here, with Eve's story about the wives of Adam, and her description of Adam's second wife: "the nameless one, the virgin, was made of flesh and of blood, forgotten, perhaps coldly destroyed, and unmentioned save in the dustiest of books" (The Sandman, "Parliament of Rooks").)
For the third attempt, I switched yarn. I've put the purple Knitwitches away, and I'm using the Vino Veritas colourway of Dream in Color's 'smooshy'. It's a bit fatter than the Knitwitches, and it's very lovely indeed. I'd originally intended to make the embossed leaves socks with it, but I'm a bit uneasy about the idea of the pretty delicate pattern in the strong bold colour, and I don't currently want to knit lace socks, so I'm happy with the repurposing.
This time I changed the toe increases to make a more rounded toe, I found my Addis, and I've actually made an attempt at taking measurements and making calculations. My gauge is still off the chart (this is an annoying flaw in the book - even though knitting stranded tightens up my stitches, this doesn't strike me as a particularly tiny gauge, and 2.5mm is a perfectly sensible (possibly tending to slightly large) size needle, so I'm surprised it's not within the included range), but I've nevertheless worked out roughly what I'm doing. There's a minor problem with some increases, but it looks OK, and it's not enough of a problem to bother frogging back. And to combine the riverbed sockitecture with the BMP I started knitting, I'm putting a single column of space invaders in place of the clematis vine panel. The red is a better contrast than the purple, and I'm just really enjoying knitting this.
These are the (finally!) finished Shadow and Ghost socks (from the Cheshire cat pattern at Purlescence). They're a late birthday present for female-friend-R (in honour of her grey-Ghost-cat and her black-Shadow-cat), who seemed pleased with them and impressed at the cleverness of me (even though I explained that it's entirely Alice Bell who's clever; I'm just following instructions ;-)
I'm plotting lots of other socks, several of which are inspired by New Pathways: Bartholomew's Tantalising Socks for partner-R, who turns out to like the handpainted red and green Opal I ill-advisedly bought on holiday last year, hoorah; Coriolis spirals for me from the red and pink sock yarn that Frax currently has custody of, and especially the Clematis vine socks, with vertical stripes, because I agree with Cat Bordhi: two-handed knitting is coooool.
Which brings me to my 'new' project. It's not new at all, really. I cast on for BMP sometime towards the end of November, and almost immediately sent the project into hibernation awaiting me getting around to learning to knit continental - dropping and picking up the yarn every other stitch was driving me potty. But now I've finished a project I'm allowed* to start another, and since I've now learnt continental (knit stitch, anyway; I still have to look up how to purl, and my muscles haven't learnt it yet), I've now properly started making gothic space invaders :-) The contrast between the purple and the black isn't perfect, but I figure over the whole sock it will become more obvious. And I really like how they look so far. The Knitwitches yarn is lovely, and knitting one yarn with one hand and the other with the other is loads of fun.
*This doesn't, of course, mean that I only ever have a certain number of projects on the needles - I might easily start yet another before I finish the next, but I'll worry a tiny bit about my attention span and lack of finishing ability. If I've just finished a project I don't need to worry ;-)
I'm actually plotting another sock project, which I might end up casting on for before these are done, but that's a matter for my next post...
