Author: denisemor

Anxious to dig in to a new sweater project, I poured over pattern books this week-

The criteria: overall colorwork, small motif, not too angular, many colors, kind of wild and crazy. So many beautiful options. But nothing really clicked. Well, except maybe Hedgerow. That’s the kind of effect I’m going for. But I’m feeling a little too lazy to follow a pattern with multiple charts. ha!

I’ve had these beautiful skeins of Biches et Buches petite lambswool hanging out in the stash for a long time- picked up on a whim years ago at Tolt Yarn and Wool in Carnation, which I’m not sure is still around(?)

Was really taken with the colors, but have found that they are kind of hard to use all together, because I didn’t pick them out with an eye for balancing the light/dark shades.

In the intervening years, I’ve spun up a small collection of yarns of hopefully compatible weight to round out the color palette. But I still want to use all those strong shades.

After a while all that pattern surfing and weighing of options just seemed too much and I wanted to get on with it. So I cast on for a cowl and decided to just play it by ear, making color choices as I went.

I figure, I need to do a swatch anyway, right? This way I can just try out the yarn, see what kind of gauge I’m getting, how the fabric feels, and what kinds of crazy color combos I can get away with. 🙂

It’s been a lot of fun.

Sometimes the way the colors play against each other in the pattern (my go-to circular pattern, of course!) surprises me. While I was knitting it, I wasn’t sure I liked how the green and orange was working out, but now I think it’s one of my favorite bits, especially with the dark purple setting it off.

Anyway, I’m having fun with this for now, and hopefully what I learn from this little color and contrast exercise will serve me well when it comes to knitting the sweater (vest? cardigan?) of the same type.

I love the feel of stranded colorwork fabric, especially in this smaller gauge. Light and lofty but still warm and substantial.

Out in the pasture, I am making progress with shearing little by little. Fiona is now nekkid, and Daphne is part way there. But rainy weather today means I probably won’t make any more headway this weekend.

Fiona was kind of a bear to shear, and seemed pretty badly felted as I was working through it, but I was heartened to see that she’s developed some crimp where there was little previously, and the “scritch factor” seems to have diminished.

Daphne’s wool doesn’t seem to be quite as long this year, but has great color and looks more crimpy as well.

I’m excited to get the rest off of her- maybe later this week (if I can get ahold of the wily girl).

It was a beautiful weekend.

There was shearing (not here, but over at Schoonover Farm)

There was gardening.

And there was dirt moving.

But, sadly, there are no pictures.

I am very pooped, and the sun is going down.

Too late to document the progress.

I am now installed on the couch with Tiny Gus. One thing I can share on the fly is a photo of some newly completed socks

That’s all I’ve got for now.

But I need to get something new on the needles, so will be working on a “next sweater” plan this week!

Cool, rainy weather means none of the sheeps seem interested in being sheared yet. So I’ve been focusing on washing up the last of last year’s wool. I’d almost forgotten that I still had Dottie’s fleece hiding in the laundry room closet!

Also been doing more dyeing- this time Strawberry and Malbec (the lilac is exhaust from the Malbec dye bath)

Juicy, fruity colors. All my recent dyeing has been on white fibers, but I’m thinking I might need to do a round of each color on Dottie’s shades of gray…..

But the breaking news today, under the heading of “working smarter, not harder” is the arrival of a new garden cart!

Still in the box, fresh off the FedEx truck. (We weren’t expecting it until tomorrow)

I’m super excited about this development, as I think it’s going to save me a lot of time and energy

Sorry I missed last week. Had some technical difficulties. But hopefully that is behind us!

Spring is springing, and that always gets me in the mood to play with color. I started by diving into my available dyed stash, and hand carding up some small samples of muted blended colors

I spun those up into a sampler skein, each color bordered by the dark drown Daphne wool

It’s kind of a neat effect, but I definitely underestimated how much twist it needed- or maybe I ended up spinning it a bit thinner than I originally planned. Well, that’s what sampling is for, right? Was much more satisfied with my second attempts-

I think of these kinds of heathery blends as painterly colors. They will be a nice additions to my stash of Fair Isle project yarns. But this round of carding made me realize that I had some gaps in the woolly color wheel. ( the greenish shade above is the result of pretty thorough blending of blue and yellow fibers, as there was no green in the fiber stash)

So this week I did some more dyeing!

I had a few Wool Tinctures standing by, and was originally thinking that I’d get out the dye pot and fire up my propane burner,,,, but the weather wasn’t really cooperating. Not quite dyeing outside weather yet.

Then it occurred to me that I could probably use the Wool Tinctures in the microwave like I do with KoolAid. Just dissolve the dye teabag in a glass jar, add the citric acid (and some white vinegar for good measure), add it to the pre-wetted fleece in ziplock freezer bag, and microwave for 2 minutes or so.

And voila! Clockwise from upper left: Forage, Snap Pea, Pumpkin

So quick. So easy. I don’t know if I would recommend dying yarn this way, as I generally do get some color variation on the fibers,, but I really like that effect on the locks. And then you can blend it back together on the carder, or not. Like so-

They look so Spring-y 🙂

Out in the pasture, shearing has begun with Fiona- who is proving to be a bit of a challenge. Very felted along her back, but hopeful that I’ll get some nice, workable fleece from her sides at least. The wool itself is much softer and crimpier than previous years, so that’s a nice surprise.

She doesn’t look thrilled with her haircut so far. Hopefully phase two won’t be quite as tedious as getting the felted mat off her upper back was!