How Now Brown Cow

A friend close to my studio…wax and gouache on board

Etsy Update 2014 Limited Edition Silk Yarn!!

 

Come check out the lovely new silk yarn at Riverside Studio. It’s a great price! Perfect for luxurious shawls.

Need. More. Hands.

I’ll have all kinds of things in this post, dyeing, knitted presents, future knitted presents, current knitting, even some future sewing (don’t worry I’m not one of those knitters who will go down the quilting black hole).

First up, the presents I made for my grand-son’s first birthday. I made a much larger version, in thinner yarn (Berroco Comfort DK) than the pattern here. I also knitted the back in large stripes  (which I of course forgot to photograph) and made a different a border. I basically just used the graph. This was knit in the round and steeked. Since the yarn was very slippery, I used a sewing machine to reinforce the steeks. Then I picked up stitches around the entire blanket and knit the border, bound off on three sides and then knit my way down the back and sewed up all the sides.(By the way, the pottery statue on the shelf – a sleeping figure with an overturned book – is from sculptor Raymond Warren.  I gave it to my fairly recently retired hubby since I imagine that is what he does most of the day, read and snooze, snooze and read, repeat. I am exaggerating of course but can’t a working girl be bitter?)

But back to my cutie-pie sleeping with his blanket (and it even matches the sweater I made him!):I also gave him an old toy that used to belong to my sister and me, it is a bit hideous, but kids these days have too many cute things:

My mother reknit him a body long ago and sewed pants and crocheted feet because otherwise all that would have remained of him would have been his head and his hands, which would have been way more creepy, don’t you think? Finn actually makes faces at it, sticks his tongue out at it. I think he is trying to imitate the expression on the toy’s face, but I could be wrong and maybe he’s trying to tell us to get this thing away from him. Have I traumatized him? Somebody’s got to. At least it’s not a monkey dressed as a clown. That would be traumatic.

Since I love colourwork, and love knitting for this little guy, I bought this pattern, Walking on Dinosaurs, which is a sock pattern but I plan on knitting it as a pullover for him.

Last week I went to Kathryn’s studio to dye up some roving for myself, superwash merino and 20% nylon, and to help with other dyeing. Here is Kathryn hard at work.Kathryn has piles of fingering weight silk (that is just what she has skeined, there are piles more), and it dyes up beautifully! 

And here is a mix of yarns drying, some silk, some merino:I really like this yarn that she had already dyed, the colour reminds me of copper when it is turning green, which needless to say my camera did NOT capture:I dyed roving which  I am spinning up for socks. I am using a spindle and will spin three plies and then ply them on another spindle. The strongest socks I have are from yarn I spun in this way. I tend to overspin on the spindle and am better at spinning very thin yarn, so the resulting 3 ply is super strong and hardly wears out at all. Then I will knit my hubby some socks which should last longer than the other pair he wore to death (no picture, but his entire heel was sticking out, ersatz yoga socks?) I am spinning the blue/grey and gold, the green and gold roving will also be for socks, for the both of us. I figure it’s not too crazy to have matching socks, sweaters would be to cutesy, and we don’t do cutesy.I am also working on 3 sweaters, one for a friend, the pattern is Reverb, in merino from Colourmart. I’m holding one strand of the merino (dk weight) with a strand of laceweight to get a worsted gauge:And two for me! (Because the ratio should always be, 1 to give away, 2, or even 3, for me). I am knitting with my friend Robin’s yarn, Polwarth, super squishy beautiful yarn:And I am using up stash yarn (from at least 5 years ago) for a casual cardigan called BlueSand: (the brown is more grey than this picture suggests – bad, bad camera)So I am lugging some of this to Guelph next week, where I will be visiting my mom. And much to my delight I have discovered another yarn source in Guelph. It is actually a quilting shop, but carries Jamieson & Smith, among other brands. But it also has canvas fabric with Charley Harper prints, my absolute favourite illustrator. There is a tutorial on another fabric website for sewing a tote bag, which I have decided to make. I am thinking of using these two prints:

Lastly, while I am romping in my new sweater (Green Mountain Spinnery Wonderfully Wooly, pattern – Pippin – a fantastic pattern, interesting construction, love the cowl, finished in about 2 weeks!!):Frankie and his buddy are romping in the piles of snow we have – with more to come I’m sure  😦And Henry says, you have got to be kidding, I am not getting out of bed: