fiery storks’ nests

I finished the flame/stork’s nest scarf! Only…five months, start to finish–not terrible. I like it, too. (This is also, I believe, the project of mine that’s garnered the most “That’s for me, right?” comments and threats of theft, which doesn’t hurt my opinion of it.)  Really, though, orangey handspun bfl is hard to steer wrong.

 

 

Pattern: Stork’s Nest Scarf from Jan/Feb ’08 Piecework (minus one sideways pattern repeat)

Needle: 4mm bamboo circ

Yarn: not quite all of the 5oz of bfl I dyed last summer–I’ve got about a fist-sized ball left, maybe 50 yards?  

 

I’m looking forward to figuring out what to do with the rest of the yarn.  Alas, I will have to wait until next fall to wear the scarf, but I’ll be ready when the cold weather returns.

 

multiple stages

I finished those mitts on Monday night, and I’ve been wearing them in lab since then. So wonderful! Microscopes are such heat-sinks…

Both colors are from Boogie‘s almost-solid fiber sampler–the cuffs are moonflower, and the hands are juniper. I knit them on my Brittany 5″ size-5 dpns, until I lost one of them and subbed a bamboo size-6 for half of the second mitt; 44 stitches; afterthought thumb.

I’ve also been doing some dyeing, carding, and spinning.  I decided a while ago that the brown-and-white blend of cormo that I bought at MDSW last year wasn’t really any fun to spin despite being really soft, so I figured it’d be a perfect candidate for blending.

This is a skein of onion-dyed wool, with two more (smallish) batts behind it–I have a lot more to spin, but my attention has been elsewhere.  I was trying to get a fluffy singles yarn, but there were too many stretches of really fine yarn for me to leave it unplied.  I think it’ll work out well for something that won’t see much wear, but its specific use will depend on what I do with the rest of the wool.

This is a pile of freshly-dyed wool: white wool blend, grey wool blend, and the cormo (same wool inputs as above), which I threw in a pot with Jacquard’s “russet” dye.  I think it might be worth doubling the amount of dye next time, but I really like the color of the dye on the grey.  (Yes, I specifically wanted patchy dyeing.)

The real problem now is that I want to spin both of these, and the corriedale/silk that’s on my wheel, and also knit on Salt Peanuts and the green freeform blanket and my Peacock Feather Shawl.  Maybe this’ll help my buy less at Maryland…which would be a good thing, considering how much the car rental is going to cost.

 

amazing.

If I only actually work on two knitting projects, and they’re both simple lace, I can finish a hat in less than two weeks. Just astonishing. [/sarcasm]

When I finished my mom’s green Fetchings, I had an extra skein of the green yarn that I thought would make a nice hat to wear in the chilly microscope room. I wasn’t sure I had quite enough yarn, even for a lacy hat, so I figured I’d pick a top-down pattern…and Foliage came to mind pretty quickly.

As you can see, I did run out of green yarn, so I added a bit of the russet yarn from the Dashings I knit for my dad.

Were I to knit this hat again, I’d probably actually knit the ribbing on smaller needles, as suggested in the pattern, but I think this will work well for my purposes, even if it doesn’t look neat.

Basic specs: Foliage, on 5mm needles, with two colors of my handdyed Elann Peruvian Highland Wool. More details on Ravelry.

 

sneak peeks

First of all, I need to mention that “sneak peaks” are mountains that creep up on you.  Today’s post is a couple of glimpses of things I’ve been working on.  I’d been planning to wait for them to be more photogenic (i.e. plied/at least half-knit) before posting about them, but I’ve been waylaid by orange things.

The angora/Icelandic lamb is all spun.  However, I finished spinning partway through Frogs, so I started spinning some other stuff, and I’m now in the middle of plying that.  (Oy.  I rather like spinning mohair blends, but plying them is a pain.)

And this is the crown of a Foliage for me, since I decided last week that I wanted a lace hat for the microscope room.  That is, to wear while I’m sitting in the microscope room.  (It’s taken this long to knit the crown because (a) it’s a chart that I had to consult and (b) my knitting time has mostly gone into the flame scarf, which is growing.)

(Y’know, there’s a third orange thing that’s been taking attention away from these two projects.  Knitting or spinning while waving a laser pointer around is a bit beyond my abilities.)

 

over the weekend

I spent the weekend in New York, with my parents. I had a very good time, despite missing the 7:09am train on Saturday by about two minutes and having to wait an hour for the next one. (The train time turned into a bit of knitting and a bit of napping.)

The scarf, which I’m now thinking of as the Flames Scarf, continues to grow. I am still very happy with it, even though the sides have started curling and I know it’ll need more serious blocking than I’d hoped.

My mom likes her Fetchings, and the Lady Hat has found a happy recipient whom it fits. (Not my mom.)

She also noticed this before I did:

Aside from the amazing detail work throughout the painting, that woman is wearing knitted mitts! (The painting, “Pope Gregory XVI Visiting the Church of San Benedetto at Subiaco” by Montessuy, was one of the many things we saw on our trip to the Met on Saturday. We left after six hours at the museum, because our brains were full and our feet were sore…they do have a lot of wonderful exhibits there.)

One of the other especially fun bits of the weekend was finding my grandmother’s old Scrabble set, complete with a crocheted pouch for the beautiful wooden tiles (two colors of them–we mixed the light and dark sets together, since they were each missing four tiles), and then playing Scrabble with my dad. (If any of you want to play Scrabulous on Facebook, e-mail me. I am somewhat obsessed.)

More later, when I hope to have either a new knitting project or some fresh yarn in a nicely photographable state.

 

springy color

Over the weekend, I finished plying this green-and-yellow wool blend that I dyed last summer.  It’s approximately 150 yards of sport-weight, with some fingering bits.  It’s a lovely springy colorway, perfect for the coldest weather yet this year.

I’m thinking maybe I’ll dye up another batch and knit socks…but other suggestions (including trades, perhaps) would be welcome.

I’ve now started spinning the dark grey Icelandic lamb/angora blend I picked up from Frelsi Farm at the Vermont Sheep & Wool.  Oh, how I love spinning laceweight.  The only problem is that I don’t knit it up very quickly…