Knitting – Page 58 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Mootah

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

My kids love Miyazaki movies. Actually, the Judge and I do too. He makes wonderful anime films that captivate the four year old and the sixteen year equally. That’s a pretty amazing concept for anyone who has teenagers.

One of Ollie’s favorites is The Cat Returns. Without ruining it for you, because you really need to see it, I’ll just tell you that one of the characters is an ENORMOUS cat named Mootah. Somehow, overtime, we have come to call our own huge sweet cat Squirt by the nickname Mootah, a very fitting name for him. And somewhere along the way, I decided Ollie needed a stuffed toy Mootah of his own. Please, please keep in mind that I am not a seamstress and that this is a knitting and collage art blog. Nonetheless, I’m going to show you a picture of my little Mootah, who I have had to pry out of Ollie’s sleeping hands for purposes of photography.

Isn’t he cute playing in my spice cabinet? What a guy.

One last thing before bedtime. Earlier this week, I promised a picture of the baby socks I’m knitting out of my Poppy sock yarn. These are small baby socks, so they are a quick knit and I’m enjoying the way the yarn stripes.

I wish socks for big people would knit up as quickly!

Yarn Everywhere!

Posted on May 29, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I have yarn for sale, well, it feels like everywhere this week, even though it is really just two places.

In addition to Midday Faire, where yarn will be available Tuesday at noon, I’m the guest artist at Club Thread for the next two weeks, beginning this Wednesday. At Club Thread, I’m doing several collaborations with the very talented Tara of Urban Fibers, including peasant tops in Amy Butler Fabric with coordinating yarn, and, for next week, an incredibly wonderful knitting bag made by Tara and filled up with some of my favorite yarns, including the elusive Treasure colorway, and stitch markers.

Here are some of the colorways I dyed up for this week:

This is Treasure on Blue Faced Leicester

This is Lizard on Peace Fleece

And this is my new favorite colorway for sock yarn, on superwash Blue Faced Leicester. This is Poppy and I’m in the middle of doing a pair of baby socks out of it, which I have to photograph and show you later today because they are adorable. For now, here’s the yarn.

I hope everyone finds something to lust after.

I’m off to start thinking about Harry Potter knitting goodness. I’ve joined the Knitty Harry Potter Swap, and can’t wait to start coming up with some great ideas and items to send!

Today: The Finished Market Bag

Posted on May 27, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I procrastinated for almost a week after I finished knitting the Market Bag (based on the pattern in Alternknits, one of my favorite knitting books and one of the few you really need to get if you don’t have it). The reason was that I planned on following the instructions in the book for making handles out of plastic tubing, and I wasn’t quite sure it was going to work. I love how the bag turned out, and I was just the teensiest bit afraid of ruining it.

Last night, I decided it was time to go ahead and finish it — in the wee hours where no children were around to distract me.

The bag is knit mostly from Peace Fleece, which felts nicely, although I still need to shave off the fuzz. I changed the pattern to create a roll down top, so I would have a very sturdy fabric to attach the handles to. I’m going to use this bag at our weekly farmers market, and wanted to make sure it would hold up.

The handles are mad of plastic tubing, a brilliant idea from the book.

I took some twill tape and dyed it to match the lavender yarn, using Procion MX dyes. Then, I stamped on both sides of the tapes, so that it reads "knit & purl" across the handles. I made holes in the plastic tubing and sewed it to the double thickness of felt created by the rolled over edge. To cover the ends of the handles, I sewed on vintage mother of purl buttons.

Voila. I can’t wait to use it.

Preparing To Transfer

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m preparing to do some Poloroid Transfers this afternoon. To get ready, I did some photography and have used some of it with vintage images and writing from my collection, to make collages that i can use for the transfers.

This picture from the farmer’s market

became this

And a flower in my garden

became this

I can’t wait to work on the transfers later on today.

This week I’m doing something fun and special with some old friends. Some of my hand-dyed yarns and other items will be available for sale at Club Thread beginning on Wednesday for the next two weeks. I’m especially excited about doing some collaborative work with Tara from Urban Fibers. We have a few things in the works, including the most fantastic tote bag for knitters! I’m excited because I just received a large shipment of Blue Faced Leicester yarn, as well as more organic merino, so I will be busy with my dyepots for part of the holiday weeked, and am excited about some new colorways, like the Rose Garden, pictured below, as well as repeating some recent favorites like Treasure and Lizard. I’m hoping to have the www.elliebelly.com fully stocked by the end of the month. New items are starting to creep into the store in dribs and drabs, so please drop by for a look!

Knit ‘n Swatch

Posted on May 23, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I have been totally felled by some kind of horrible illness that makes me sleep for about 15 hours a day. This morning, with the best of intentions, I crept out of bed, took the oldest boy to the bus stop, came home, and just never managed to get dressed. In almost 30 years in the working world, that’s only happened to me a handful of times. I made the obligatory trip to pick up Ellie and managed to read a book (Lyle, Lyle Crocodile) to Ollie when he crept into bed with me, but other than that, I’ve been completely worthless. I’m really much more of a go-to-work-and-whine-around-like-a-martyr kind of sick girl. This has me completely off my feed.

To make matters far worse, I’m going to torture you with poorly lit, late-night indoor pictures if you want to see current knitting, because I was asleep through all the day light hours, and only emerged to watch the Daily Show and Colbert with the Judge. Here is a bit of knitting before I go back to sleep.

First, Ellie’s Cahaba River Jacket. The body is done. I have sleeves left to do and then the collar and neck. This jacket has to be lined. I’m torn between ~~using one of the literally hundreds of fabrics in my stash that would look great~~ trying to find something that doesn’t look to awful down in my studio or splurging on some beautiful Liberty of London Fabric (all of my Liberty prints are blues and purples) to finish it.

Next up is the start of the first cuff in my Blue Moon Rock and Weave Socks. My wonderful friend Carolyn got the pattern for me, and I’ve know since almost the minute I saw it that i wanted to use my Colinette Jitterbug yarn in Popsicle for this sock. The cuff is knit in linen stich, working horizontally, and you pick up stitches to go on with the rest of the leg and move on down. It’s very interesting. I haven’t gotten very far because I keep trying to knit this one while drinking with friends. Lesson learned: Do not drink Sherri’s Margaritas and try to knit in linen stitch, because it will not work.

Finally, I have started swatching for Teddy’s first sweater. I think I had better knit him a pile before he goes off to school in New England. This one started with the yarn. He wanted an orange and green sweater — pretty complex for a 14 year old boy, and I saw no reason to not honor his request. At least in swatch, the yarn I dyed up for him seems to fit the bill.

Towards the bottom of the swatch, I played with it in linen stitch and
a wide rib, trying to decide how to border it. I think this will just
be a simple basic sweater, using Ann Budd’s sweater book to write the pattern. I also got this pattern from Knit and Tonic today, thinking ahead to his second sweater.

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I have lots of yarn to show you tonight. I’ve been dyeing yarn all week.

Some of it is cashmere for a special "private party" later on this month.

Some of it is an incredibly beautiful mixture of colors found in copper and the various patinas it takes on. This is a lovely, thick organic Merino that I just love to feel.

And some of it is sock yarn. I’m still having an affair with sock yarn. If all goes well, this yarn will be Father’s Day Socks for the Judge. If all does not go well, the socks will be a Christmas present.

And here it is swatched. I’m showing you this (even thought it’s almost midnight and i had to scan it instead of photo it so the colors look very washed out) because I’m just so tickled about the way the colors work out together in the swatch. It’s not an exact science, but even with the socks which are about double the number of stitches per row, I should still get nice little bands of color.

I’ve been in that sort of long, dark, tea-time of the soul phase of
knitting with all my works in progress. Despite knitting steadily,
there seems to be little if any progress. Certainly nothing that
warrants photos. I’m still working on the back of the Ophelia
Colinette Tank — the moss stitch pattern is beautiful and it takes
forever. After ripping lots of the Cahaba Jacket out (due to pattern
error — I should be more gracious but am not feeling particularly
gracious) I’m about back to where I was and ready to head for the home
stretch. I’m dyeing some necessary bits and pieces to put together the
handles for the market bag. And my undulating rib socks are getting
the occasional row here and there. In other words, I am the
quintessential ADHD knitter, lots going on but little to show for it.
I hope to have some pictures for you by the end of the weekend.

Tag, You’re It.

Posted on May 13, 2007January 4, 2016 by Joyce Makes Art

Miz Carla tagged me with the meme that’s going around. I have to list seven random facts about myself and then tag seven other bloggers. Here goes:

1. I was born in St. George, Utah.

2. I wear glasses.

3. I cannot draw ANYTHING. I suck at drawing.

4. My first cat’s name was Licorice. Currently, we have five cats.

5. My grandfather is still my hero and role model.

6. I will have been married for 19 years this October.

7. Of my college friends, I was the one everyone thought was least likely to grow up and get married.

Ok, the challenge here is going to be finding seven people who haven’t been tagged yet. Here goes: Lou, Audrey, DJ, Maija, Selena, Susie, and Joanne.

I also have a little bit of show and tell for you. I’m been knitting a big "market bag" — I wanted something that Ellie and I could carry to our farmers’ market outings this summer. I’ve been loosely basing it on the pattern in Alterknits, although obviously the colors and patterning are different and I’ve rolled the top of my bag and given it a broader brim that the body of the bag. I felted it up last night and think it is going to be awesome when it is finished. Now to add the handles (the book used plastic tubing with words stamped on it and I’m going to try something similar) and see if it holds up. Here it is drying under the watchful eye of Mr. Squirt.