Published!!

I can finally post pictures of the socks that Lark commissioned me to design for The Joy of Sox. They've given me the pictures you see below to use as blogger fodder and for general blowing of my own trumpet! Unfortunately they don't show the details of the heel and foot as weel as the ones they used for the book, but you get the idea. They have named them 'Snow Bunny', I think because the colours are reminiscent of the Playboy Bunny girls, and because they take the narrow diamond border pattern on the legs to be similar to the symbols used on maps showing challenging ski pistes.

Gosh - it's rather dusty in here!! I didn't realise it was quite so long since my last post here. I get so caught up in my knitting groups, posting at my Potter blog and in Ravelry that I forget this one. Which will not do as it is referenced in the bio section of The Joy of Sox, the Lark Books publication featuring a design by Yours Truly (they've called the design 'Snow Bunny'!).

Well, what have I been doing since February? Knitting and spinning of course! One wonderful experience was learning how to spin superfine lace yarn with Anne Baron from Bradford Guild. I can now spin yarn as fine as hair!!

Another highlight was UK Ravelry Day in Coventry in June. This was a marvellous day at which I attended inspiring talks by Meg Swansen and Debbie Bliss, as well as meeting lots of wonderful Ravellers, including the famous designer Jared Flood, aka Brooklyn Tweed:


I designed some full-length British-themed gloves for the fashion show at Ravelry Day. Jade silk with a red rose for England, red wool with a daffodil for Wales, and white wool with a thistle for Scotland (alas - I have no pics of these last ones to show you).

I plan to publish the pattern, either via Yarn Forward magazine (negotiations ongoing) or via Ravelry and my new website (which I will link in the sidebar here at some point!)

Of course I have lots of other knitting on the needles, much of it self-designed, especially as I am still putting together a book proposal. I've also taken on knitting a shawl for Mum who had knitted it rather badly and wants a better version to wear. Very sadly I think she is beginning to lose skills as she ages. I frogged it earlier today and am now off to wash the yarn prior to reknitting it.

Recent Knits

As I haven't been posting very regularly (!) I have again quite a few finished projects to share.

Firstly, I did finish Tom's scarf during the Christmas break, so he has been able to benefit from it's super-warmth during the recent snow!



One skein of my indigo-dyed yarn made this Swallowtail Shawl designed by Evelyn Clark(this one is for me!):



Another skein made this scarf for Mum (modelled by my dear twin-sister). I found the pattern on Ravelry - it's called 'The Waltz':



Odd sock yarn remnants made these hats for Bonnie Babies (UK Special Care Baby charity). They are based on a design by my wonderful Danish knitting friend, Kaae:



The yarn I span with wool from Freyalyn made this 'Morning Surf Scarf' from Spin-off magazine:



And I finally knitted the Ravenclaw Quidditch Socks from Charmed Knits that I've been lusting after since I got the book from my son last Christmas:



Next post - 'On the Needles' - embarrassingly more projects than permitted by my usual '5 or less' rule of thumb!

And then there were three...

Columns in my blog, that is! I've used a wonderful online tutorial to edit the template setting so that I could add the sidebar you see on the right. That way I can now make a better job of showcasing my patterns. Because the tutorial was so clear this was a lot easier than I anticipated.

Double Knitted Bookscarves

I've spent a lot of time before Christmas and in January working on my skills in double knitting (see the video tutorial in the advanced techniques section at knittinghelp.com for basic instruction). Having progressed to the middle section of Tom's scarf I received in the post a version of it for my nephew, made by a Danish knitting friend, Heidi Bybeckmann. This scarf was so beautiful and so perfectly executed that it sent me to my needles to swatch, swatch, swatch in an attempt to emulate her amazing skill. However, only after seeking advice from the Master Knitter herself did I manage to recreate the beautiful corded edges and approach anywhere near her even tension. My two-handed yarn management (which I swear by for fairisle) was not working well for double knitting, and my single-stranded edge stitches were making the edges messy.
Armed with this new knowledge about how to do double knitting I designed and knitted these Hogwarts bookscarves to practice with:

Fronts:



Backs:



Pattern:

Materials:

4ply/Sock yarn in House Colours as shown Main colour = Colour A, Contrast colour = Colour B
2mm needles

Instructions:

Cast on: Make 18 stitches in each of the two colours for the bookscarf (36 stitches in total), alternating the colours with every stitch. Any two-colour cast-on will do. (I do a very fiddly thing with Judy's magic-cast on to make a cast-on that looks like the back and front were knitted as one long piece and then just folded and seamed at the edges. I'll explain that technique in another post.)

First row: Slip the first stitch knitwise, then alternate knit then purl stitches as when working K1P1 rib, but work all the knit stitches with Colour A, and all the purl stitches with Colour B until the last stitch. Purl the last stitch with both colours held together.

Second and subsequent rows: Slip the first (doublestranded) stitch knitwise. Working a knit stitch first again alternate knit and purl stitches, but working the stitches in whichever colour is required as follows:
On the right side work all knit stitches in the colour shown on the chart, following each knit stitch with a purl stitch in the other colour (i.e. not the colour that was used for the knit stitch). On wrong sides work all the knit stitches in the opposite colour to that shown on the chart following each knit stitch with a purl stitch in the other colour (i.e. not the colour that was used for the knit stitch).
Purl the last stitch with both strands held together.

Cast off: Any cast off will do. I like to separate the stitches so the stitches from each side are on different needles, then graft the two sets of stitches together with Kitchener stitch.

Weave in all ends, and you're done!

Charts: (these link to my flick account - please feel free to download larger versions of the charts from there for your own, non-commercial use)



Enjoy your Potter reading!

Indigo

Yesterday I finally got round to using some of the stuff we sowed and planted in spring at the allotment for me to try some natural dyeing with.

When I know something is going to take all day, I need some kind of spur to actually get on with it! In this case it was the fact that natural dyeing with plantstuff is this month's assignment for Herbology in the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup. So I asked Dave to harvest the leaves from two of the Japanese Indigo plants while I set up the kitchen for the task ahead so that I could get the leaves into hot water as soon as he brought them in.

My sister was here and took lots of photos of the process for me to share. I followed instructions in Rita Buchanan's fantastic little dyeing book 'A Dyer's Garden':

1) I covered the leaves with hot water in Kilner jars and put them in a big pan of water, then slowly heated them up to 160 degress F over two hours.



2) I strained the liquid off, and squeezed as much as I could from the leaves:



3) I added some soda ash to make the solution alkaline:



4) The mixture had to be poured back and forth between containers to aerate it - this apparently releases the pigment, and it did turn a more blue colour as I did this:



5) I added some Spectralite (a 'reducing agent'), then heated the dyebath to 120 degrees F for an hour before putting the first skein in. The dyebath had now turned a greenish yellow colour:



6) I left each skein (I did three consecutively) in the hot bath for 30 minutes. I was thoroughly excited by how the skeins changed from yellow to blue when I took them out, it took seconds rather than minutes, and they went through a marvellous turquoise moment on the way:



The same skein seconds later (though it was less bright than the picture shows):



After hanging the skeins to air for at least half an hour I washed them, then re-skeined them (they had felted a little in the process). This is how they ended up - beautiful soft tones of French blue, grey and silver. The top skein shows the bare yarn I started with - a laceweight lambswool from Texere:



An awesome experience!!

Dave is so enthused by this he has created a raised bed at the allotment just for my dyeplants!

Sheep Spotter!!

Masham Sheep Fair was fantastic!!! I went with my sister and we had lots of fun ogling the sheep and all the various stalls. Marie was so inspired by the displays in the schoolroom where Bradford and Craven Guilds have stalls that she bought some fibre from Adelaide Walker, has borrowed a spindle from me, and has now learned spindle-spinning. I'm avsolutely delighted because last year she gave up in disgust after only a few minutes with my spindle during our camping holiday. She has now spun at least 25g of her lovely mixed blue merino top.



The biggest treat for me was finding a little pocket-sized 'Know You Sheep' book - recently published. It is going everywhere in my handbag because I am indeed a sad little wool addict and really want to be able to identify every sheep that I meet. I've been this way since my teens, and do now know many brreds by sight. I struggle with Blackface and Swaledale and Lonk though - they are so similar. While the Swaledale has only a grey muzzle, the markings on a Blackface or Lonk can take that configuration anyway, and Lonks and Blackfaces of any markings seem indistinguishable. And if I ever come acvroos some 'down' sheep I'll also be in trouble because they all look virtually identical too! Ah well...!!



Marie drove, so I was able to get some knitting done on the journey, and am pleased to report that I have now finished Tom's Hogwarts Socks. I've just to finish writing up the pattern and then I'll publish. Alas, I haven't got a decent photo yet -the flash has made the purple cuff and foot look blue. The text says 'Never Tickle A Sleeping Dragon' - the Hogwarts school motto!!