Joyce Makes Art – Page 18 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Knitting with Dragons. Color Choices. Why I Knit.

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

Drachenfels, which means Dragon Cliffs in German, is also a wonderful pattern by Melanie Berg for a multi-colored, knit shawl.

(c) Melanie Berg (with permission)

My plan is to knit it with sport-weight cashmere from The Plucky Knitter.

The issue? Color selection. I have some choices ahead.

Choice One: the blue color is Thank You Note, and truth be told, it is probably my all time favorite color. The green is called Good Old Days, and the first time I saw it, I wondered who could possibly like it. The answer is me. I've got a hat on my needles in it, a sweater in a related shade in progress, and plans to do another sweater (because I want a pullover in this color in addition to the cardigan I'm knitting). I adore it, and although as a kid I was told I couldn't wear green, this one works for me. And gray. Because I love gray.

Choice Two: It's hard to capture the depth of this teal blue-green. It's the same color as the Olivia I currently have in progress, which I've also been unable to get an accurate color photo of.

Choice Three: I am not a colorful person. But I could be, especially if I knit Drachenfels up like this!

Choice Four: Ignore Thank You Note on the left, and focus on the delicious introduction of Cabernet, the red, with the pink (Decorum Dictates) and the light gray. This one might be impossible to resist.

Choice Five: My original thought was to go with the two grays and the scummy green. But the contrast wasn't high enough. Then Decorum Dictates, the blush pink, dropped into my lap while they were out. The three on the left — pink, gray, and green.

Choice Six: Another strong contender (ok, they are all strong contenders or we wouldn't be having this wishy-washy post), I originally thought about doing this is the red and grays combination, and this is the yarn I ordered for Drachenfels. And I still love it. I love them all. I think they would all be splendid. So, I'm having a hard time deciding.

Choice Seven: Finally, there is this lovely concoction of gray, blue, and red. It will look good with black, which is a must in my wardrobe. It is both unusual and familiarly comforting. I like it a lot. But then, as we have previously established, I like all of them.

So help me out. Let me know what you like and why. What would be practical. What would be whimsical. Help me decide on colors for my Drachenfels, and consider joining me! Drachenfels has been knit 511 times on Ravelry (as of this posting) and in such a wide variety of yarns!

This project pretty much sums up why I knit. Beautiful colors. Wonderful, soft fibers. Texture. The planning is as much fun as the knitting. The finished project will be surreal. Truly, I cannot wait!

Knitting Catch Up

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

With apologies — my long lovely weekend with this child

kept me from blogging. But, not knitting. In addition to reporting that she thoroughly enjoyed visiting Georgetown and had a great time auditioning at the Washington Ballet, I have some knitting progress to share.

One thing I have come to accept about myself is that although I can pack a week's worth of clothing in a carry on bag, my "personal item" — the second carry on airlines allow — is exclusively devoted to knitting. For this four day trip, I had four projects along with me.

Top to bottom you can see my newly cast on Tipperary Shawl, the French Laundry colorway portion of my Sugarloaf Cowl peeking out, a wee bit of my Vodka Lemonade sweater in the bag with the green zipper, and Olivia, which grew a lot on this trip.

I'm indulging my inner geek here, and sharing my Da Vinci drawing style Dr. Who meets the Daleks project bag, which is Olivia's home.

My big knitting news is finally finishing the fisherman's rib portion of Olivia, and moving on to the short rows. For some reason, short rows and I have never been friends before, but we are getting along famously this time.

There was, however, the predictable knitting disaster without which no trip would be complete. Forgive the late night/hotel room/bad lighting photo, but it portrays the exact moment at which my lurking suspicion that the game of yarn chicken I was playing with my third skein of Plucky Primo Aran was going to end badly. See the little bit of yarn that trails across the right front side of Olivia? That would be the 12" of yarn left from my last skein. And, at this point, I still have 50 short rows left before I get to the lengthy cast off row.

This was the first project I cast on with Plucky yarn, and I didn't stop to realize that the yardage for the pattern yarn, Plucky Traveler Aran, is different than the yardage for the Primo Aran that I substituted. Several other knitters noted the need to shorten the rib when knitting in Primo to conserve yarn for the garter portion of the pattern, but apparently oblivious, this girl knit a fulsome seven inches of rib and then came up short on the garter.

Thankfully, a kind knitter has already put one of her precious skeins in the mail to me. I'm hoping for a good match and a bit of time this weekend, as I'm ready to wrap Olivia's squishy goodness around my neck. Love, love, love this pattern.

Knitting in Flight

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

Everyone flies with four different knitting projects in their carry on bag, right? After once being stranded on a runway for hours with no knitting, I swore it would never happen again!

More details on each of these lovelies as I tour colleges with child #3.

Fisherman’s Rib

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

I'm still knitting Olivia. For the record, that's almost seven inches of fisherman's rib. It has taken me just about all of two skeins of Plucky Primo Aran (more like a light worsted weight that an aran) to get to this point.

It has been a long slog, as you all know, because it's just about all I've blogged about for weeks. But it is so worth it. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is as cushy as fisherman's rib and I can't wait to wrap Olivia around my neck. That is, if I ever manage to finish.

A Perfect Knitter Day

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

For a brief moment in time yesterday (about 45 minutes) I was as close to knitter nirvana as I can get.

I managed my weekend work to squeeze a bit of time out of the office, sent one child to ballet and the other off to play soccer, and urged Mr. Knitter off to the grocery store (thankfully, dogs, cats and older children were cooperative as well) and I engaged in blissful knitting while getting a pedicure. Not just any pedicure, but the most fabulous pumpkin pedicure of all time. I am told it exfoliated my feet and made my skin baby-bottom soft. Personally, I was just happy to get the uninterrupted knitting time!

It paid off too. The rickety fisherman's rib on my Olivia is almost at the seven inch mark (that's one and two-thirds skeins of Plucky Primo Aran to get there). Olivia and I got off to a rough start. I didn't know how to knit this quirky rib and had a hard time getting directions that explained "knit into the stitch below." And I may have misread some directions regarding the last stitch on wrong side rows. But none of that matters. We are good friends now and I am embracing my early mistakes as learning scars. Olivia is beautiful and I am in love with her.

Travel Knitting

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

Today it’s Olivia in my brand new knitting bag from the Silver Shed. Hoping to make some serious progress on miles of fisherman’s rib.

Dyeing For Spring

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Joyce Makes Art

I'm going to need a hat to wear on my travels this spring. I want something lighter weight than the hats I have managed to keep out of my children's greedy little hands and also a springy green color. Since I didn't seem to have anything the fit the bill in stash, I dyed this.

It's a new-to-me yarn, Kraemer's Maria, a 50% silk/50% merino blend with 225 yards in 100 grams. The yardage and the look are both about right for me to call it a worsted weight yarn. For patterns, I'm still deciding between a Plum Tree Slouch

(c) NNK Press (with permission)

and an Irving hat.

(c) Melissa LaBarre (with permission)

They are both tempting choices and I feel sure I'll end up knitting both of them. The yarn itself seems to almost completely lack a Ravelry presence, so I'm knitting blind here. But I tend to like Kraemer's yarns and this one dyed up beautifully, so I have high hopes.

A note about the dyeing process. I like to apply color to yarn in layers, rather than all at once, to get more organic color variation in yarns that aren't going to be level-dyed a solid color. This yarn was originally dyed a pale yellow and then overdyed with a blue that was a dilute almost-navy solution, before being glazed in a yellow-brown. Although I'm often asked is glazing is worth all the work, there is no doubt in my mind that the same principles I used to use in painting collage backgrounds are equally at work in dyeing yarn, and there is simply no substitute for carefully applied layers of dye, each of which makes the final color full and rich.