Eeek! (Adriana)

Help! I've fallen down under a giant pile of school work and I can't find my way out! Please send help and/or yarn.

Sorry, no time to blog right now. I do have a couple of FO's to show off but I haven't had time to block or take pictures of them for you. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures this weekend.

Until then, please enjoy pictures of my gorgeous Clapotis which I'm pretty sure I've never blogged about.


Lying seductively on the couch


Close up of the yummy Noro (Silk Garden 205)


Gen and I snuggling our claps

Hope to be back soon!

In which Adriana does some colour magic

A few weeks ago, B sent me some yarn to overdye for her (remember the exploded package of goodies?). She'd asked me to dye it a nice springy green. Unfortunately I haven't had much experience with overdyeing yarn and so I quickly realized that adding green to mustard yellow gives you swamp green (not attractive). I instead opted to go with blue in the hopes of losing the icky colour. It was an interesting process because the Araucania Nature Wool is kettle dyed to begin with so it took the dye differently in places. After several trips into the dye bath, I finally had yarn that I deemed good enough for B.

From yellow:


To blue:


I think it kind of has a Malabrigo effect. B, I hope you like it as much in person. I can't wait to see it knit up.

Recently Phoe offered up her Phairo scarf on her free stuff page and I was thrilled to be the recipient of it (I dyed her the orange yarn in exchange). When it arrived I really liked the scarf but not the colour of the yarn. Luckily it's soy which apparently takes dye like wool so into the pot it went.

I took this:


And magically transformed it into this:


That colour is much more me. Thanks again for the scarf, Phoe. I can't wait until it gets warm enough for me to need a lighter weight scarf.

Dyeing Orange (Adriana)

A few days ago Phoe sent out a call for orange sock yarn so that she could do a rainbow of socks, like B is doing. I'd been wanting to dye some yarn for her for a little while now, especially since she's sending me her lovely Phairo scarf which was offered up on her free stuff page.
I wasn't sure how she wanted the yarn dyed so I offered her the choice of solid, semi-solid, variegated, stripes or gradient stripes. She was intrigued by the last option, an idea which had occurred to me as I was falling asleep one night so I wasn't sure how it would actually pan out.

I stretched the yarn out down my hallway the way I always do when I dye striped yarn. I laid it out zig-zagged on my counter so that I could see the whole length. I started with pale yellow, and gradually added more red as I went along. It involved some of trial and error; I ended up going too dark at one point and had to jump ahead in my colours. It was a lot of fun and I think it turned out beautifully.


Here it is on my dying rack:


And finally all wound up:


Phoe, I hope you like it! I can't wait to see how it looks all knit up.

Work in Progress (Adriana)

Two blog posts in two days?!? What is this world coming to? (Don't get used to it, biweekly blogging should resume soon)

So I have a new long-term work in progress. This one should be done around Fall 2009.

Yarn to Dye, Yarn to Love (Adriana)

About a month ago B from Karma Kitties dropped me an email asking if I could overdye some yarn she'd bought which looked very different in person than on her monitor. I was happy to help out and told her to send it on over. In exchange for my dyeing services, B was going to send me some yarn from her beautiful and often coveted stash.

The package arrived yesterday but unfortunately not in perfect condition.

At some point in transit the package seems to have exploded. Luckily it's pretty hard to hurt yarn so everything seems just fine, even if covered in papery bit.

Here's a picture of the yarn in it's current state (I can't justify washing yarn when I have readings to do. I promise better pictures later).

To say that B spoiled me is a huge understatement! The yarn on the left is Araucania Nature Wool which needs overdyeing. On the lower right is Malabrigo in Amoroso (I loooove Malabrigo). Above it to the right is Sunshine Yarn superwash merino sock yarn (I've drooled over Dani's lovely yarns for a while now). The light blue/grey yarn at the top is, wait for it... Handmaiden Cashmere! B, you shouldn't have! But the best part, the pièce de résistance, is that unassuming green sock yarn at the top which arrived without a label and so I didn't know what I had at first. That, my friends, would be Sundara sock yarn in Pine over Gold (swoon!). Sundara's yarn is hard to get ahold of for anyone and it's especially a challenge for Canadians when shipping roughly equals the cost of the yarn itself.

B, I don't know how to thank you for these beautiful yarns. I promise to do the best job I can to dye your yarn to a colour you will love.

The Chevron Scarf Goes On (Adriana)

I think Heather said it best when she said "nothing seems to inspire project monogamy like explicitly stating that I plan on making it a long term work-in-progress."
That's how I feel about my Chevron Scarf. Given that the pattern takes the same amount of yarn as two pairs of socks, I had fully intended to knit this slowly over the next few months so that it would be done in time for spring. So much for that. Instead it's literally all I've worked on for the past week. At least that means I'll be ready when spring does come.
This is the latest section I knit:

It looks a little different than the last picture I showed you, right?
Here's why:

This is the yarn I'm using:

Koigu KPPPM in P511L on the left and P210 in the centre and right.
These colours didn't look too different in the skein so I assumed that they would work out when knit up, however there is a marked difference once it's combined with the red yarn.
You can sort of see the difference here (it's clearer in person):


I'm now down the darker yarn and ready to go back to the lighter one. My theory is that it will all blend together once it's worn and laypeople won't be able to notice a difference. And I'll have the darker section against my neck so I won't be able to see the difference myself :)

ETA: Thanks for the feedback, ladies. I'm glad it's all in my head :)

Big Red (Adriana)

So school is now back in session and I'm finding it hard to remember how juggle my time. It feels like I've barely knit at all these past few days. I guess it doesn't help that I've been primarily working on the Chevron Scarf which is slow going (though soooo beautiful!). I did manage to finish the big red scarf I made for my friend Emma's sister (who is coincidentally also named Adriana).

Emma had requested a uber long scarf, long enough to wrap twice around the neck, with pockets at the end that could double as mittens. Considering that I was designing this myself, I think I did a pretty good job recreating her idea.


Emma doing The Robot

Since I knew this was going to be a big scarf I insisted on bulky weight yarn. Emma chose Peruvian Highland wool (doubled) in Oxblood. I cast on 15 stitches with 7.5mm needles and knit in stockinette with 3 stitches in garter on either side. I actually did a provisional cast on to start with since I wasn't sure exactly how the pockets were going to play out. Once I got the desired length I reversed the stockinette so that the top of the pocket looked like the top of the scarf. I knit until it came just past the wrist and finished with 5 rows of garter stitch. Emma loves the scarf and hopefully her sister will too.

I've got to get to work on more interesting projects so I have something to blog about :)

A Chevron Scarf of My Very Own (Adriana)

For at least a year I've been wanting to knit a Chevron scarf. I think the first one that caught my eye was Ashley's. Then there was Julia's. More recently Phoe offered up one for free on her blog but I sadly wasn't the first to ask for it. I was delighted to discover that Bertha was the lucky recipient. This is such a beautiful pattern that Phoe is actually in the process of knitting another one (or will be once her arm pain goes away).
These scarves are so beautiful and so different depending on the two yarns used. I remember emailing Heather while I was at work last spring telling her how much I wanted to knit one but I couldn't decide on the yarn. Luckily I got distracted by different knitting projects. This fall I scored some Koigu on sale but promptly got buyer's remorse (the skeins are small and they aren't the same colour). Then for Christmas Heather gave me some lovely FA Merino Sock Special Seconds which is beautiful but I was worried about how well socks would wear given that the yarn is fairly thin in places. Necessity is the mother of invention and, after being encouraged by Bertha, I cast on while in the bus station at 7am Monday morning. I pretty much randomly chose these two colours and I didn't have a clue what they would look like knit up. Imagine my shock and delight to see this unfold in front of me:

It's like magic!! I'm so in love with this scarf it's all I've been working on these days. Once it gets too big for bus knitting I guess I'll have to start the second purple Koigu sock but until then I will continue to watch the beautiful colours come together.