The knitting I can share is Nightingale, once I finished the heel I realized that the leg required following two charts, both of which were rather large for my little A5 sized chart keepers so I splurged on a KnitPro(Knitpics) A4 chartkeeper. The chart keeper arrived Friday and so I've been working on the leg .. which is going well. The front continues with the birds repeating.
The back of the leg has a stylized symmetrical flower motif repeated up the leg. The pattern includes instructions to work increases between the vertical borders of the front and back patterns .. I'm not at that stage yet but will be soon. I love the magnets on the chartkeeper, they are strong and click into place with a solid plink. The chartkeeper is nice to use, it folds up to protect the chart and keep the markers from being knocked askew, there is a wee pocket on the inside flap - opposite the chart, which is a little to small for A4 charts - I'm not sure what it is intended for ... but the size of the magnetic section is perfect for this sock. I notice that Nightingale is for sale now thru Ravlery.
The secret knitting project for my secret swapee .. I can't really tell you about, or if I did it would be along the lines of - I stalked ????? and saw she had ????? queued so sorted a copy of the pattern and found a yarn in the colours she has lots of projects in and started knitting, then I had a change of heart, frogged it and decided to knit ??????. So I sorted a pattern for that and a yarn for that as well and cast on and its all going well. I'd even be able to tell you that I've knit up X of the Y rows before I have to work the ????. And I'd tell you I was loving it, and part of me wished it was for me, and it might not be swapped after all .. but then it wouldn't be secret so I can't tell you any of that at all. The good news is that I'm about to sort a sweater for the oldest cub ... in the Possum yarn I bought for Owls and then discovered concealed any Owl I knit in it. Because he is a boy cub .. it will be basic, plain and ordinary .. with as much little fun knitters detail as I can hide in it as i work it.
For the fibre swap I've been working on what to swap. This time there is a thread with open questions on the Ravelry group, where some one asks I wonder if my swapee likes pink or green, or a really important issue like dark chocolate or milk, tea or coffee? Then all of those signed up answer .. its quite a bit of fun. I started the day reading thru those and then had a go with with a blue and purple dye .. but its not my best work ... I really prefer less contrast and more semi-solid colours. After that I put a bit more planning into my dying. This is all Perendale combed top.
Next I dyed a citrus lemon tangerine and followed that with a skein of lime green , the last one is just out of the dye pot - palest pink and lavender at one end and stronger pink and purple at the other. I had 200 grams in the dye pot and found the dye didn't penetrate all the way down, but it is pretty. I've not decided which if any will be the swap fibre - the plan was to dye several and see how it went. What I learned is that a little pre planning and mixing up dye solutions that related by colour family gave me results I was happier with than just winging it. I kept the dye pot just under a simmer and the fibre came out lovely and fluffy when it dried.
Take care - I've got a day not teaching tomorrow, so plan to spend the time sifting thru readings and make sense of them as preparation for a paper I'm writting. I'm looking forward to it, hope your week starts as interestingly .. take care,
na Stella
3 comments:
So many beautiful things! I'm really loving those nightingale socks; I should queue them (as if my queue weren't already out of control). And the colors of that last batch of fiber are gorgeous -- so bright and vibrant! I may have to get involved in a swap over this summer, while I have some more time.
Good luck with your paper research; is this for England? I'd love to hear how that's going sometime -- it sounds like it's going to be a really interesting paper.
The Nightingale Socks are looking very, very pretty. Will you be bringing them to the Camp? I hope so! Your dyeing is also lovely - the blues are nice but the orange and green and beautifully alive and vibrant; so what the weather is not, at the moment!
cant wait to see your nightingales finished!!!!!!!!!! i have never done colour work ebfore but im sure these will be the first i try!
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