Dyeing – Page 25 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Spring Knitting Weather

Posted on March 30, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

She who must be obeyed (that would be my eight-year old), has absconded with my long awaited Handmaiden silk ribbon yarn. "Make me a mini-skirt" she commanded airily as she left the room. Because I live to serve, as soon as I can do the math to recalculate Colinette’s Giotto Mini-Skirt pattern, I will be casting on. It will look better on her, than it would have looked on me, in any event. It is really pretty yarn that isn’t available on their website, but that I was lucky enough to get my hands on. Pictures forthcoming.

Ellie only got her grubby little hands on the Handmaiden, because I had pulled out all of my spring yarn and was eyeing where to start. I haven’t knitted with a ribbon yarn before, so I decided to warm up with a little tank made out of Colinette’s Giotto in the Paintbox colorway (an ebay purchase that I was ecstatic about). It is essentially just row after row in moss stitch — very good meeting knitting. Not particularly mind boggling although the needle is a bit prone to slice through the ribbon, so I think I’m going to have to beware. Knitting with this yarn gives me a chance just to see how beautiful it is It really could pass for silk and the colors are mah-velous.

I’m also swatching for new socks, hopefully for myself this time. I have misplaced the ball band, but I have emailed the store where I purchased it, in hopes they can identify it for us.

Isn’t that beautiful? This is my last pair of self-patterned socks for a while, as I received the new Interweave sock book I posted about last week and can’t wait to start in on those patterns. This yarn, however, has been on top of the stash box in my bedroom for months, calling my name. It got too loud to ignore.

Here are some tidbits from my early morning. On the other end of the leash is my neighbor George, being walked by his dog and my cat.

Harry & Hermione love Little Miss Ellie, and they come running to see her when it is time for their walks. They also take great delight in stalking her….and attacking. The kittens have now befriended all of the neighborhood dogs and go running to see their friends Pierre and AJ too.

Can you see how beautiful it is getting here? Everything is coming out. My roses are blooming.

The dogwoods are out and my lavender is in full bloom.

I grow an obscure tall garden iris called Eleanor’s Pride, that I planted when Ellie was born. It was a Dykes award winner in the 1961 and is subtle and lovely.

And we even have early blooms on our Meyer Lemon tree.

It is truly spring, and if we can manage to survive the pollen, it’s going to be a wonderful one. I’m off for one last day of work this week, and then a mad weekend of children’s birthday parties, visits from out of town friends, and yarn dyeing. I’m going to rave at length about my Mama Bear skein winder, which arrived on Wednesday and proved incredibly easy to assemble and use. I wound up a test skein of my British Blue Face Leicester and dyed it. Two new loves in one week — this skein winder and this yarn are going to be making my weekend really enjoyable. The pink yarn is the first bath of a yarn I’m working on — Meagan, take note. And the undyed skein is some bulky merino I’m playing with. I have been wanting to add a bulky sweater yarn to my line up and I think this one is going to be it. It is incredibly soft, evenly spun, and the first few test skeins are looking great.

I just love spring and all it holds in store!

Pictures….

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

As promised, I have pictures.

No sock pictures yet, but soon. Just a bit of Kitchener stitch and they will be done.

In the meantime, I have handpainted Bamboo ribbon yarn for the last two days.

This is destined to become a little sweater for Miss Ellie. There will also be four skeins of it available in the Elliebelly store on Midday Faire this Tuesday at noon. It is the softest yarn I have knit with in a long time. I never really thought I was much for ribbon yarns. I am in the process of rethinking this — in a big way.

I’ve also had some time in the studio. This is a little bit of a graphics fool around.

And this little piece, called Ella in Red, is from my journal.

I am off to play with bad cats, finish up the pot roast, and Kitchener stitch the socks. I will be back with more photos later.

Weekend Wrap Up

Posted on March 18, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I wanted to share a couple of quick things before the work week starts back up.

First off, I finally finished a painting I’ve been working on for several weeks. I have to qualify this by saying that I’m not a painter and don’t have any pretensions of ever being one, but I’m doing this to just try and stretch my personal boundaries a bit. It’s nice to just relax and enjoy something without feeling any pressure to perform.

The words on her crown read, "There was a legend in the city."

Second, cat pictures. This time, our bobtailed cat Dragon. Forgive me for linking you — I told the whole story when I listed the yarn at Midday Faire. Although the yarn she has become enamoured with is for sale (well, a little bit of it is. It’s mostly for her. Not like I had a choice.) it can’t be purchased until Tuesday at noon, so go enjoy the story without the risk of engaging in impulse buying.

Third, bad dog. Our stray dog, Trouble, manage to escape this afternoon. The judge is usually fleet of foot, but he was enjoying an afternoon siesta. By the time he caught up with her, she was behind our house in the alley, and apparently she put up a fight. He was the loser. You can’t quite tell, but his pants were ripped for about 12 inches down the leg. Trouble was treated to hot dogs.

Finally, a couple more harbingers of spring. It’s beautiful here. My lavender is getting ready to bloom. It’s Grosso — the kind where the bloom looks like a little bee at the top.

And our cherry tree is about to be in full bloom.

I hope it’s beautiful where you are, too!

In my Dyepots

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m so happy to be back home! After getting settled in, I decided I was entitled to induge myself and dye all the colors that were swirling around in my head. So, in between helping Teddy catch up on missed school work and answering Ollie’s numerous questions ("why can’t I see God?"), I’ve been playing. Peace Fleece, Organic Merino, Silk Merino blends — all of my favorites. At one point, I had this unusual mix of colors out drying on one of my racks.

Mmmmm……..

This yarn is going to be a sweater for my son. I’m timing this one just right because we wear the same size right now, so when he outgrows it, um, gee, I guess it will be mine.

This is the silk merino yarn, similar to the yarn I’m using for my Clapotis. (I have to digress here and confess to utter boredom with the Clapotis. I’ve made it through the 144 rows in the straight section and have started the decreases. Will it never end?)

I love to dye yarn. I guess it’s a sickness.

Most of the weekend’s yarn is for me, but there will be a few skeins available at Midday Faire beginning Tuesday at noon Eastern Time and more going into Elliebelly later this week. Go buy some, ok? You know you want to.

Yarn For Sale

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Three little words to stir the heart of any knitter: Yarn For Sale!

I have three new colorways, including the beautiful Peace Fleece pictured above, going on sale at Midday Faire today (Tuesday) at noon. There is also a lot of wonderful yarn, including some cashmere, silks, and organic merinos at Elliebelly. Although I don’t usually mention my business on my blog, I’m doing it this week to let those of your who ~~need a fix~~ might want to buy yarn in the next little bit know that I will be out of town next week with one of the kids looking at schools, so from Saturday to Saturday, I won’t be shipping. Come and get it while it’s hot!

A Little Yarn & Some Birds

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

We had an amazing experience this morning! Ellie came running from her bedroom to ask me if it was dangerous for birds to eat the poison berries in the backyard. She said there were some robins in the holly tree that grows up to the second floor of our house outside her bedroom and she was worried about them. She insisted that I go with her to look even though I reassured her that the berries were good food for the birds. It was astonishing! There were upwards of 200 robins in our backyard, spread out among all the trees.

It was hard to get a close up picture out of doors because they would fly off in a sudden burst whenever we went out, but they were beautiful and lots of fun to observe through the windows.

I have never seen anything like it before! I’m hoping it was a mission to stake out nest space and that we will be blessed with lots of little baby birds this spring.

The afternoon wasn’t quite as much fun since a few unexpected things came up at work this week, which left me with a lot of work to do today — something I try to avoid on weekends. I did manage to dye some yarn while working and came up with this:

and with this:

Several skeins of each yarn will be on sale at Midday Faire on Tuesday at noon. Although they don’t go on sale until then, you can see them now here and here along with a few other things.

What can I do with one little skein?

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

It’s the age old knitter’s quandry: one can you do with just one skein? Yes, I have all the books. I’ve had this dilemna before. I’ve knit socks, hats, scarves. But I’m there again. I have one skein of this Alpaca.

It’s pretty! But it’s different from what I thought it would look like when I ordered it. I was expecting bright vivid colors, but it has more of a brown tone in each of the shades. It won’t work for the purpose I had in mind, but it is soft and lovely and I feel certain it can’t wait to be knit into something wonderful.

I have been wanting to knit Fetching from Knitty and briefly flirted with that idea, but I think the cables in Fetching would be lost in the multi-colored hues of my Alpaca (which comes from Irish Baby Knits by the way. Go there and drool!) So I’m at an impasse here and would really appreciate any suggestions for this beautiful yarn. It is labeled as 270 yards of merino/alpaca blend for needle sizes 5-8.

This:

is in my dyepots right now. I’m not sure if you can tell, but I’m getting beautiful varigated colors on this yarn, due to the use of different base singles that have been spun together. To say I’m overjoyed by this simple pleasure would be an understatement. I guess I’m easily amused, but really. It’s wonderful.

Because I have crafter’s ADHD, I’m going to switch from knitting to art without benefit of a transition. Today’s mail contained this beautiful Artist’s Trading Card from Svenja.

I can’t begin to say how much I have enjoyed coming home to daily art in the mail as a result of the Informal ATC Swap. The swap is still continuing and you can join us by using the link for details, posting your own ATCs, and emailing the link to your cards to me, so I can include you in the list of swapping artists on the left-hand column. My daily dose of art in the mail has kept me inspired all month long!