Snowflake photo shoot !

Yesterday I wove in the last thread all in good order for a planned trip to Patricia Roberts yarn shop. The weather typically turned to the worst with snow forecast so the trip was delayed.  A shame as I really pushed on hard to finish it. I feel a big relief  because snowflake demanded lots and lots of knitting in a dense small gauge with islands of intarsia and mountains of fair isles knitting.

I love the feel of the fabric- the softness of the lamb wool with the halo of the angora islands. The colour scheme is pleasing with all that clutter of zigzag lines and snowflakes . The camera just is not capable of capturing that. I adore the dense rows of cables along the neck band and cuffs.

I made a few modifications mainly shaping slightly the waist  and changing pattern sequence on the sleeves- no argyle pattern on the sleeves.

You can see a close up shots in this post.

I was shivering when those photos were taken , where is the spring?? !

Happy knitting....... :-)

Snowflake-progress

Snowflake progress is slow. I'm not that fast on fair isle but I'm even slower on intarsia. There are so many other projects with my name written on them but I'm plodding on and trying to get this one finished.

I'm pleased with my neck and buttons band. I had to redo the cast off of the neck band so there is a nice tip for you- cast off two stitches together all along cable section slipping them over and go back to normal cast off , stitch by stitch when on stockinette sections. The cast off edge is much neater and not at all flared.

The camera does not do justice to the buttons. They are shell with a white gloss with gentle silver swirls. The John lewis haberdashery stocks them at the moment at an extortion price, - but just had had to have them. This cardi deserve the best with all the amount of work going into it.

I love the vertical one by one rib of the buttons band even though needed to be slip stitch to the fronts.

I still need to finish the sleeves, sew in and gentle steam the seams.
 so far so good :)

My Parisian pop spots

The family took advantage of the kids half term and the six of us squeezed in the motorhome for a week of some continental influence in France (Paris mainly) and Belgium (Ghent and Brugge). We all agreed this was a great holiday but absolutely freezing to the bones, snowing and all.. In Paris I dragged everyone to an old favourite knitting spot.

It was still unchanged. You go through the door and long loose loops of yarn are hanged on both walls for you to admire. There is no self service and first after deciding on yarn , color and amount you must queue to be seen by the store 'Madame' in her glass boot high above. English is minimal of course and I have a feeling they all know much more English than they are caring to show..Then you wait whilst your yarn is being wind into balls by some young assistants at the back of the store. I ventured to the back as all yarns were still in cones and this made it easier for me to decide on color pairing. There is a very good collection of buttons but the buttons Madame was no where to be seen and that means going back and queueing for the first scary Madame in the glass boot so decided to give the buttons amiss. I don't know how this store fares in these days of Internet , artisan yarns and ravelry but it is all a bit dated to me and not forth coming..

By the way not too far there is a lovely kitchenware store with some beautiful copper pots and pans. Everything you can think of for the aspiring cook.

Anyway back to knitting- I too succumbed to the pop spots mania :) It is really a lovely shawl designed by Juju from Loop store in London. I already knitted one of her shawls.  Please do have a look in ravelry at other knitter's choices..Now I have a lot of sock yarn to choose from but decided not to knit this shawl to stand out on its own with bold dramatic colors but to be able to blend in with the type of clothes I wear. So my colors are mellow but still bright enough for spring.

(The model is from loop website knitted in Isager tvinni yarn grey and lilac-stunning !)

So in La droguerie shop in Paris I bought two  colors from their alpaca range .I'd say light fingering or 3 ply weight. I wanted to pair yellow and Beige for quite a while . It will look great on grey or navy blue..

The spots are in garter so they do slightly pop out when being squeezed in by the unravelling between them and knitting all the back floating strands at once. I think I'll knit further than the smaller version , the spots effect  look better on a wide fabric ..

Knitting this is very addictive , I'm totally immersed in this one. Do you now have the urge to pop spot ?? :-))

Another slouchy hat - Tod

This hat was born in a school rush, well lots of them. The kids school situated in a rural village with a small car park. Any parent who does not wish to walk some distance to school must arrive early to car park and wait a good 15-20 minutes for the gates to be open. For me this is a pure knitting time and many projects grew like so. By the way the shawlette is Ishbel -such a usefull and pretty little shawl, I may knit a nother one in a lace weight..

I used an easy beautiful rib pattern by Kim Hargreaves- Tod. The yarn is one of my favourites- rowan baby alpaca dk. Its a gorgeous turquoise colour that no longer available. I grabbed 3 balls in the John Lewis sale couple of years ago so this hat is a stash buster.

Remember this hat I've knitted my sister? Well the hat reached its destination and the recipient looks stunning in it :)

Happy !

Indigo Dyeing

I think as much as I love knitting , I love the process of  dreaming and planning , searching and buying the ingredients that makes the garment. I have quite a few kits like that in my knitting studio. Never mind that in time I might change the initial purpose and will shuffle those ingredients to make a new more covetable piece. At times I will see-covet-purchase the wool first and continue from there onward with the help of ravelry.

Here is the story of my Deco to be-
When Kate Davies published the pattern I took mental note, time passed, other things were knitted and then on my trip to Rhinbeck and NYC last year my dear friend happen to wear hers on. This photo does not do justice to the colour and look ,we all fell head over heels for this cardigan.Things started to roll on..
The pattern calls for a thick 4 ply yarn and I really liked the feel of my friend's cardi -real wool, firm yet soft so decided to purchase the original pure corriedale 4 ply by Blacker Yarns . Next thing was the colour, although I liked that gorgeous olive colour I took a brave step. I purchased ( half price hooray !) 6 balls of the undyed material.
Indigo dyeing is something I was planning to try for years , I bought some stuff in Marrakesh spices market and my talented friend Elseline gifted me a kit so last weekend when all my world turn white with snow it was the perfect time to experiment . 

I've used indigo (and some woad) in a dry natural extract powdered form. The wool was let to have a good soak in water with a drop of washing up liquid- you really want to let out the air pockets in the fibres.

The active ingredient in indigo and woad - 'indican' is insoluble in water so in order to dissolve it in water the recipe uses alkali -sodium carbonate. After vigorous mixing for few minutes I got a dark blue paste (photo above). I used 12 grams of indigo and 4 grams of woad to dye my 300 grams of dry wool.
For the process to happen the amount of oxygen in the vat's water must be minimal. An oxygent reducing agent -thiourea dioxide helps to minimise it. You introduce it to the vat when it is reaching 40-50 c and maintain this temperature. Stirring should be ever so gentle as to not cause more oxygen in the air getting into the vat. The yarn should be fully immersed in the water.

So you cook it for 45-60 minutes and the water should be yellow-green (photo above).If not add reducing agent , if it turns yellow you will need to stir the water a bit to introduce more oxygen. Then gently you scoop the greenish yarn ( don't let the water drip back to the vat !) and immerse in warm water then leave outside for half an hour and . The yarn almost immediately will turn into a majestic blue. Then rinse with some water and a dash of white vinegar and then again with water that a gentle pH neutral washing liquid.

I've immersed it again to correct some faded spots and to achieve a deeper , saturated blue and this is the result..

I tell you ,once you do it and get a hang of what's going on, this is really a quick way to achieve a beautiful, variegated attractive blue tones. My skeins are truly beautiful and I feel very smug indeed :)

My project bag in the New York theme was hand made and gifted to me by Elseline as well. Isn't it just lovely?

This stunning grosgrain ribbon was bought in New york to remind me of the trip. I think I have found the perfect place to stitch it on..
Its all coming nicely together . There is still the buttons issue and oh yes the small matter of casting on...

 X

 

Going back memory lane - Patricia Roberts

If you happen to be on a London knitting tour do try to get an inside glance at the Patricia Roberts' knitting shop. Her website does not show case her latest designs. I've been a stoker for her knitting kits for sale link for  few years now but alas apparently its still coming soon...
Patricia Roberts was a big name in the eighties but don't be fooled by all those big oversize multi color tops , here and there you'll find some real treasures.

I've been collecting her books ( see a photo above ) and again and again I see myself  coming back to those loved , well worn books and admiring and getting inspired by the color combination , fit and stitch pattern. Some of the designs definitely in need of toning down but the potential is awesome..

My dear friend the knitting Cyclist knitted  few of her designs and is a regular visitor to her London shop. I'm having a fantastic first class updates from her. This is how I heard about 'Snowflake'. In all honesty the photo below (which my friend knitted) does not do justice to the garment. It is such a pleasing and striking combination of white-grey-black shades with islands of pop out angora.

I straight away phoned the shop and ordered the kit.

My version is slightly different. The main colour is in her own brand- Patricia Roberts lambswool 1  in flannel colour which is light grey. If you wish to sub it go for a very thin 4 ply thickness or a 3 ply yarn. The zigzag lines are knitted in other colours - mid grey and charcoal. Also the pattern calls for her angora yarn which is more like a dk/sport in weight - I chose dark purplish grey and light lemon. I love the grellow look :). The other angora colours are from my stash -Orkney 4 ply angora in white and grey .

You have to have some patience for all that intarsia and fair isle but I'm loving a very minute of it so far.

I''m currently doing the fronts but it is a slow knit .It will take quite some time to finish it - there are other knitting commitments out there of which I'm sure to post later.
Knit on ! :)

My Maxfield !

Maxfield cardigan by the talented Amy Christoffers from Savoury knitting was my last project of 2012. It did not start well at all. First was the yarn issue . I really liked the combination of the original main color in dark blue with the glowing bright stripes but the original colors in lorna's laces Honor could not be found. Instead of waiting for new supplies I decided to sub it with blue sky alpacas- alpaca silk color 140 (blueberry ?) which is a bright  navy blue as the main color. For the stripes I liked the malabrigo silky merino 850 archangel . I bought all the archangels I could find in the UK but had to import one from the states. Unfortunately dye lots did not match at all  :(
The other annoying issue is some pattern erratas and the fact that the pattern instructions appeared to be different from the photo on the model. So I made a few mods mainly to lengthen the body. I got slim arms but still felt the sleeves could benefit from some extra width..

Once I got to the yoke all my grudges disappeared and I started to enjoy the pattern immensely. This is a fantastic fluid open cardigan to throw on. The silk and the aplaca give that fluidity.Those stripes are really eye catching and I love how it all joins together with more intense part at the fronts.
The color is not that electric blue as it appears below but a bit darker like a blueberry.

I also love the extra warmth for the back neck created by grafting the fronts at the back. Its almost like wearing a scarf. I was thinking perhaps to add buttons but it looks much better opened.

A bit of a tip- when picking up stitches for the ribbed band on the fronts try to pick up bit more stitches at the bottom as there is some extra gathering of fabric and you don't want it to pucker.

Choices of colors are endless and there are some pretty combination out there on ravelry. Go on and make a Maxfield !

Happy new 2013 everyone !!