As promised, here is what I knit with my gradient yarn.

Last week I finally was able to gift these mittens and can share them with you. They are the Anemoi Mittens by Eunny Jang, and the directions are just great! Along with help casting-on-tubularly via TechKnitting I was all set for my first color-work knitting adventure.

It’s really true what they say about wanting to see what happens in the next row… and these knit up super-fast. I loved the inside even more than the outside with all the beautiful floats, but none of the pictures of them turned out very well. I’m even considering making an inside-out fair isle sweater some day… the colors just blend so much more beautifully as floats.  Would that be totally crazy?

I wish the color transitions had been a little smoother as it might have allowed the yarns to contrast more. I think using varigated yarns would work as long as the colors are very contrasting, but here there were some similar sections which caused blurring. But as you can see I’m so happy with the result that this post is an image-bombardment.

A few weeks ago I dyed up some of the leftover Abuelita yarn from my monkey (really, most of the ball) using Wilton’s food dyes which are great because you don’t have to worry about toxicity, and if you don’t mind colored fingertips, gloves are optional.

I divided the ball in half, dying one of the pieces redish and then overdying again with blue to get a motled purple.

The other section I cut in half again and dyed in two rainbow gradations from red to green. The natural-colored base-yarn gave the colors a real richness.

Dyeing is so much fun, but I have to control myself and only dye the yarns I am actually going to use… it’s much faster than knitting.

Tomorrow I’ll show you what these yarns became!

Happy Fall everyone!

Back in July I was on a hat-knitting-high and decided that not only would I knit a holiday present for all of my closest family, but for another five people in my extended family. And a sweater for my grandmother. At the time I was learning a lot from each hat project, and was very happy with the fast progress through the gift list.

No, I don’t actually wear hipster glasses.

These projects using just one or two balls of yarn were so satisfying, letting me use some yarns I’d been dying to try (Noro, Madelinetosh, Malabrigo Rasta) in very small, affordable amounts. I also got to practice new techniques, cast-ons and offs (Rose Red, 16 Cable Hat, R2D2, Struan) and learn some stitches that would have been too tedious for me in a large-scale project, but were fun mini-sized (Laurel, Armando).

It’s not even November and I have all but two of my presents finished and even had a little time to work on a few other things (Muira, and some birthday surprises).

But.

You guessed it: I am so sick of knitting hats.

My little stash of yarn has been steadily growing, although pretty much all of it is designated to a pattern on my also-quite-substantial want-to-knit list, and there are so many other things I want to get on to. Things that are not for keeping your head warm, but are designated to other important areas like hands, necks, arms, and feet.

Fearing that a baaad case of startitis would incubate if care wasn’t taken, I am setting these two unfinished projects aside to work on when I am on the go and don’t want to be idle. They are both in progress between the band and crown and should be relatively mindless for a while. In the meantime, the Acorns sweater has been cast on for my grandmother, and mermaid gloves for me. The tickle in the back of my throat that threatened to be an outbreak of casting-on has gone. These new projects are fun, and that’s the point right?

The images in this post are of another 16 cable hat. The original was neither in the color nor the size appropriate for the giftee and has become mine (especially sentimental since it’s the project I was working on when this blog went live). After realizing that the size would not be as altered even with the most violent blocking (the giftee assured me repeatedly that her head is even more over-sized than mine), I dyed up some Valley Yarns Northampton and Rowan Kidsilk Haze. The original complementary color was too dark, but this second try was perfect.  I hope she likes it.

It’s been a long week…  A few things that got me through it:

Isn’t the box perfect?!

Fluffy plants

The prettiest yarn ever!  By Viola.

This is the Miura Cowl by Olga Buraya-Kefelian, a designer who lives in Japan and is clearly inspired by their tradition of origami (she is also part of the group that created Ori Ami Knits.)

As soon as I saw it, I had to get the pattern and stalked the Ravelry page until it went up for sale.  I was intending to knit it up in some special hand-dyed yarn bought specially that day, but couldn’t wait for the mail to arrive, so this is in Rowan which is easily available for me.  That’s okay, as I’m sure to knit this pattern again some time – it’s ingenious, but also really easy to memorize – though maybe as part of a larger sweater?

I’d like to find more knitting patterns with interesting textures (while I love to knit lace, wearing it is a little difficult for me) so this kind of geometric and 3-dimensional pattern is ideal.  It’s pretty amazing how the pattern just pops up as the knitting progresses!  It’s all in the properties of knits and purls.

The yarn is Rowan Silk Wool DK which comes in a lot of bright colors, but I just loved this natural shade called Lime Wash.  The yarn in ball-form is super shiny, but knit-up it glows very subtly, and the little bits of fuzz give it a nice halo.  There are many comments that this yarn pills a lot, but in order to achieve this amazing texture, it has been knitted tighter than the recommended gauge.

After washing and blocking, the yarn is much more supple, and doesn’t hold the structure of this cowl as well as hoped, but I’m sure to make another one soon in a woolier yarn that holds its shape a little better.

My project is named after Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please collection.  Check out some of his new designs which are absolutely stunning!

Happy dots!

In an effort to eat a more varied (grownup) diet, I present you with some things consumed by me.

Apparently if you are very very good, food just appears on your plate…

Another hat…

I really am learning a lot from these mini-projects, but it will be nice when they’re all done too. So far I have 9 done, and a couple still to go – in case you haven’t guessed, a lot of people will have warm heads come winter.   I’m looking forward to some larger, simpler projects.

Nevertheless, this one is pretty fun. Inspired by the color changes on this hat, I alternated a beautiful heathery Cascade220 (there are flecks of pink and green in there which really give a nice shimmer) with Noro for a subtle rainbow effect.

And who can resist pompompompompoms!

Last weekend I tried dying yarn again. Well, this time I actually went out and bought some white yarn, more of a pure experiment.

As usual, something went wrong.

The only reasonably priced yarn I can get locally is 50% wool / 50% acrylic, which doesn’t make for a very dye-thirsty fiber. A lot of the colors just wouldn’t pick up. Still, I’m pretty pleased that the colors I got are just about what I wanted, just a lot lot less saturated. Not really my kind of colors, but it will be nice to try something new…

grapefruit gradient

sage