Page 80 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Afghan Progress

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

Progress…

I've made it through two full repeats of the 14 row cable pattern, and am into the third. I've used about four of the 16 balls I dyed for this project, so based on the size I'm feeling increasingly confident I have enough for a good sized blanket.

I tried tarting up the contrast on this picture in Photoshop so you could see the cables a little bit more distinctly. I've chosed to do a very basic eight stitch cableover reverse stockinette, with four stitch bands of stockinette separating the cables. Although I had a little bit of cable anxiety, this patterning is so easy that after the first repeat, you can just read the stitches and put the pattern away.

The yarn is wonderfully soft. The Merino content is giving it good stitch definition, but it's warm (I'm guessing the Alpaca) and very soft (must be the silk). I could have knit this on larger needles to get a loser gauge I suppose, but I'm fairly enchanted with the firm, structured fabric flowing out of this uber-bulky yarn on size 11 needles. As it gets cooler here, I'm trying to knit faster. This is a piece of knitting that is definitely going to get a lot of love and use.

Final Touches — An Afghan for our Couch

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

If your interest survived the horribly lit IPhone picture of the yarn for the afghan I've just started (yes, I must get an IPhone 4 with its improved camera lighting if I'm going to go on blogging off of my phone), today I'm back with what will hopefully be better pictures of the Afghan in the earliest stages of progress.

As part of what seems to have become a never-ending redo of the first floor of our house, we decided to replace the war torn furniture, survivor of four children and numerous dogs and cats. The new living room sofa is Rowe's Berkeley, in a hopefully indestructible graphite gray micro-velvet. I'm indugling my inner desire for color, though, and have selected a blue-purple velvet for the bench we keep in the living room, as well as for small pillows on our chairs. And, that selection led me to finally dye the yarn for the throw I wanted to keep on the sofa.

The yarn is a bulky weight Elliebelly yarn called Chubs. It's dyed in the Mauvina colorway, a mix of purples with just a bit of burgundy in it. Since I had decided to do a cabled pattern for the afghan, I didn't want a yarn that would be so colorful that it would compete with the cables. But, I also wanted something more interesting that a solid purple. This softly mottled yarn was my compromise. This yarn is so thick that it's going to ruin me for other knitting — a friend who was knitting with it commented that it made her aran weight yarn feel like dental floss. But it's beautiful and soft, and its 70% Merino/20% Alpaca/10% Silk blend ought to be just right for cool winter evenings.

I am, at best, an inexpert cabler, but my wonderful cousin Ann got me up to speed, at least enough for me to pull off this very simple version. I've used two of the 16 skeins I have dyed, and am one full repeat through the cable pattern, which is 14 rows. I may have to go back to knitting at breakfast with the guys to get this one ready in time for cool weather. Although they will undoubtedly tease me unmercifully — the contrarian joy of being the professional woman in the business suit who, OMG k.n.i.t.s !!! — I am really eager to have this one ready to use.

The Start of Something Beautiful

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

Three of 16 skeins.

The start of my cabled afghan.

I can’t wait to get started!

Stay tuned.

Playing Catch Up

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

The following things happened while I couldn't get pictures off my camera and onto my computer:

[Okay, a lot more than this happened, but frankly, you would be bored by most of it, and I'm not leaving out anything that involves yarn]

(1) I'm all done with the Faraway, So Close shawl, with the exception of the ruffle, which I hope to work on this week.

(2) I bought this great knitted pouf of a foot rest for my living room. I liked it so much when it came that I immediately bought a second one — the kids like to perch on them, and it's almost like having two extra chairs in the room.

(3) I never knew how much I loved modern furniture until we started redoing parts of our house. Our house is hopelessly traditional, and I mostly like it that way, but the cats did get a very cool modern bed from Hepper out of my new found love. The cat pictured is at least five pounds overweight for this bed. He does not care. It is made from felt and beds don't really get any better than that.

(4) The cat who the bed, above, was intended for is forced to pose elegantly on my settee, since her evil brother won't let her near the bed. Poor kitty.

(5) I fell seriously off the wagon and bought some yarn. This isn't all bad as I (mostly) have purposes for it in mind. It is bad because I really am trying to knit from stash, and I do love my stash yarn. But,

(a) I bought two skeins of Koigu KPPPM to add to the basket for my Barn Raising knitted quilt

(b) I bought two skeins of Noro Silk Garden because I want to see if it will make up into a Noro Hat

(c) And, I bought two skeins of Aslan Trends Bariloche because I had never seen it before and it was purple. I thought that was reason enough.

I'm hoping to find a little bit of time to finish up Far Away So Close this week, although I've suddenly realized that with 12 rows in the ruffle, at heavens knows how many hundreds of stitches in a row, it's going to be a while in the works. I'm highly motivated though, because I want to get to work on the afghan for our living room and perhaps do a bit of holiday knitting in October.

Technical Difficulties

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

I apologize for being absent from the blogosphere. The Judge's dying desktop computer decided to blow the lights out of my photocard reader when I unsuspectingly plugged it into a usb port a couple of weeks ago, so I've been pictureless. And, as much as I love my IPhone, the photo quality isn't great. But I have been socking away a few things to post when my new cardreader arrives in the mail.

Until then, I want to share a lovely collage my dear friend Karen Owen has in her etsy store, Karenink. Her work always has a slightly ephemeral quality to it, and I love the way she plays with eggs and nests. Isn't this lovely?

Far Away So Close Gets A Turn

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

Somehow, Far Away, So Close ended up in the back of my knitting closet in a bag, and wandered off my radar screen for a couple of months. I picked it back up last week to take along on a trip and have made a good bit of progress.

I have repeats left in the garter and stockinette patterns, and then a long stretch of half linen stitch before I'll be ready to add the ruffle that runs all around it. It's a fun pattern that weaves together a variety of different stitch patterns across a basic bat wing scarf.

My favorite pattern repeats are the eyelet rows and the drop stitch ones.

Although I rarely look forward to blocking anything, with this one, I can't wait to get the stitches all firmed up and see how the colors look. I have an old, quilted purple velvet coat from a long out of business British company, Ghost, and I'm hoping that this will look good tucked inside it on cold days. The Blue Faced Leicester yarn is stunningly soft and non-itchy, making this the perfect scarf.

The last decision to make is about the ruffle. Although the pattern pictures and virtually every knit up version of FASC that I've seen uses a contrasting color for the ruffle, I'm inclined to do it in the same yarn as the body of the scarf. Let's face it — this colorway has enough going on as it is, and it doesn't need any competition. Since I'm normally your basic black kind of girl when it comes to what I wear on a day to day basis, this scarf is going to be a huge stretch for me, but I am really looking forward to its wooly comfort while traveling up north this winter.

Bad Knitting Mistake = Buy New Yarn

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Joyce Makes Art

I am not sharing my knitting with you this week. Not. Stupid mistake. Really stupid. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that if you mistakenly add in an extra set of increases where they aren't supposed to be while knitting in the round, catch it about 20 increase rows down the road, drop the stitches back down to where you made the mistake and fix it, you will end up with a bunch of really lose stitches and a lot of extra yarn. I've tried easing and stretching and I'm sad. And this is an annoyingly difficult pattern to rip back. And I have no other knitting along on this trip. Sad.

But never fear. After feeling distinctly annoyed at myself, I remembered I was only 10 minutes away from one of my favorite yarn stores, Connecticut Yarn and Wool Company, in East Haddam. I'm really not supposed to be buying yarn — my yarn is all so nice and neat after I organized and destashed. But this was desperate times….so I indulged.

This

is Plymouth Royal Llama Silk. I've used it before, for Ellie's Victorian Gauntlets. Its really nice stuff — 60% Llama and 40% Silk. I thought it might make a nice scarf, with little accents in the leftover yarn from the Gauntlets.

And this.

The store is nearby Farmhouse Yarns and carries a lot of their beautiful yarns, many of which I have succumbed to over the years of visiting this area. This is a 100% bamboo yarn in a soft varigated turquoise blue. It's scrumptious. I actually wanted the yarn in every colorway Bonnie had dyed it in, but decided I would get just this one. I'm off to surf Ravelry and see what others have knit with this yarn. It is absolutely beautiful!