Wallace butchered and now complete..Phew !

Wallace was very closed to completion, knitted the 2nd sleeve and ran out of yarn 5 rows before bind off. I decided it would be silly to order one ball of yarn plus postage (not that I haven't done that before..) for few rows and anyway was unhappy with the length of the jacket so decided to chop the whole thing, back and 2 fronts and the bottom , re knit downwards , re-seam and use the leftover yarn to finish the bloody sleeve.

 And this is how you do it- Measure where you want the cardigan to end, I preferred it to be on my hip bone and then go up 1.5 inches (to allow for inner side hem shaping). Insert a different color life line, as straight as possible and then take sharp scissors and cut parallel underneath the life line, not to close , about 2 stitches far. Then ,with a smaller knitting needle pick up stitches from the lifeline, pull it out and carefully pull the shreds of yarn away . You should have a whole row of stitches on your needle waiting to be knitted downward. Chances are ,you did not insert the lifeline straight and jumped up/down a row..doesn't matter ,just tink back the stitches until you will get a full undisturbed row.

Here is a close up, decided not to knit the upper pockets and used brown shell buttons. More close up pics here.

I and Henry. He lost one of his wives last week. Natural causes..Hmmm It is surprising how friendly chickens are on an empty stomach :)

Lima is an aran weight which I've knitted as double knitting so the fabric is extremely warm and dense, perfect for those chilly spring morning before the sun is high up.

Awaiting Marion Foale's knitting collection book

Here is a book I'm really eager to get-

Marion Foale Knitting Collection: Book 1 

Marion has an eye to supreme fit and cut, here are my favourites;

Classic ! will be one very happy lady when this book will arrive to my door step...Long wait though, amazon will only release it in about July here in the UK. :(

Bits of Wallace..

I'm engaged in lots of small pretty details at the moment. Although it looks like an easy stockinette it has magnitude of interesting details; the sewn-in hems, picot at the bottom, double buttons holes at the sewn in button bands, gaping cuffs with a shirt like closures, interesting pockets..I'm taking my time with this one. Again one of Kim Hargreaves classical gems.
 I'm using Rowan's lima which is a chain type of yarn and if knitted tight like in this cardigan it results in a soft to the touch ,channel-y fabric. The color in brown with soft tones of reds in it.
Spring has sprung and I'm itching now to complete it. Will keep you posted ! :)

wrong side of bottom & front hems



cuff




picot hem



Echo flower photo shoot

This is my Echo flower shawl, my first shawl in a knit along.

The yarn is 4 ply alpaca , natural white and soft with some Little straw stuck here and there. It was harvested from Fowberry Hera.

 I had 2 hanks of 660 yards in total. After finishing the first hank, I made one more repeat (one more than a shawlette) and then started on the edging. Those nupps are yarn guzzlers so switched to beads and even omitted couple of rows. I was left with 40cm of yarn in the end. Oh the stress of it all..

Very pleased !! :)

The magic in blocking

Sea of  white flowers...

The craft of natural dyeing

I've been interested in natural dying for quite sometime. It appeals to me the fact that you can go and gather dye materials from nature like mushrooms, tree bark, berries, flower heads, leaves.. food leftovers like onions skins, tea bags, black beans brine..oh and do you remember my beetles ? Also I tend to prefer hues and gentle coloring other than bright strong colors.

I had in my stash few hanks of this soft undyed loopy mohair so when my friend Mary, a keen natural dyer offered to teach how to dye  in exchange for some advanced knitting techniques from me ,I gave a big Yes.

There are few methods to dye with cochineal beetles , Mary's method is first to soak the whole beetles in water to soften them . That makes it easy for their crimson juice to drift into the dye bath later on. The mordant for all our experiments was alum 8% (of wool weight) plus cream of tartar 7%, the white wools and fibers were soaked in that for about hour.

Mary brought her own dye stuff; chamomile flower heads which gave light yellow, and logwood bark which gave a beautiful dark purple.

After mordanting, the pots with the wool , dye and cold water were very slowly starting to warm up, it should take about half an hour to warm to gentle simmering. The Chamomile and logwood dyes stuck to the wool quickly but the beetles dye (9% in weight) was very slow to appear . Only after hour of simmering the dye started to come out nice and red but the shade was pink, not my favourite colour . We left it to soak for about 4-5 hours more and its become even more vivid shade of pink. When buying the cochineal beetles , I saw samples of colors achieved and it ranged from deep purple, crimson, red, pink and even orangy, I need to experiments with other type of mordants ..

I gave the pink wool to a friend who was enthusiastic about the color but kept the  lovely purple hank which was dyed in the exhaust bath.

This is just the start :)

My stitch markers

I'm knitting lots of lace at the moment of which will be written later on. I needed lots of stitch markers to separate the repeats and it is so much nicer to use some pretty sparkly glass beads. It even nicer to know that you made them yourself ! All credits my talented friend :)