Sun and shadow

Hurrah! The sunburst vessel is finished - only it isn't quite a vessel any more! I've been crocheting away like mad this week to get this finished, confidently happy with my idea of a lovely wide, platter shaped vessel, and watching it slowly emerge. When I thought of these organic shapes, I realised I would need a simple form that would show them off to their best advantage so the previous bowl shapes were dropped quickly, and a shallow, broad expanse of curly swirly happiness sounded just the thing!

Putting them all together on the flat - ahhh:)) Now that is nice and bright, and yummily swirly. Kind of looks like very ornate script lettering in places..... But what about into the vessel shape??

Looking good I thought. Took a bit of time to get things placed just the way that looked best but I got there in the end and packed up another evening to get some shuteye. I had a niggling feeling I still wasn't showing this off to its best advantage but decided to sleep on it and hope for a fresh perspective in the morning. Luckily for me I didn't have to wait quite so long! You know how sometimes when you are very tired, your conscious mind has pretty much switched off and you're working on automatic pilot? Yup? Well, I was switching everything off for the night (including me) and heading up the stairs, passing the bowl dimly lit by the stair light, and it hit me. What if it wasn't a bowl?

I have been so locked into thinking 'vessel' that I had missed the obvious - a FLAT piece. Oh, the irony:)) Having a lightbulb moment when that fatigued doesn't do much to promote a restful night's sleep so I gave up and tried hanging it on the wall instead. Tah-da!

Oh, I like! Then I noticed the shadows it was creating....... ooooh! Off the wall it came and back up it went about a foot away, suspended quickly with some cotton from the ceiling. TAH-DA!!

Oh now, what would this be like as a ginormous circle? (Forgetting the fact that this has taken about two solid weeks to make and is only about 45cm/18" in diameter...) Looking at this impartially, the units are a bit too large in scale for the present diameter and would balance a lot better in a larger circle but I will have to have enough dyed yarn and patience to make such a big piece - as well as somewhere to hang it when its finished:))) But I'm thinking I'll have to have a go, somewhere in the near future. Until then, I'll reduce the motif size and stick to a more manageable scale - for now.....:)))

But on to the more practical aspects of the making. The wire is a total success. It bent so easily, maintained the shapes and as long as the spaces between didn't get too large, held together well. The units were stitched together as invisibly as I could make them and I tried to make sure there were enough joins for stability, without compromising the flow of the pattern too much.

The crocheted units have two distinct sides as well. There is the 'right' side which looks nice and smooth and the back which has more visual texture due to the form of the crocheted slip stitch. Again, I fully intended to have the right side facing out but when it was lit up for the photos, the reverse just came to life and it seemed really obvious that it should be the front. Happy surprises all round!

And lastly, the ends! Thank you everyone for all your very helpful and creative suggestions here, on flickr and on ravelry. I tried out a good few ideas but none seemed to gel well with these curly shapes. I eventually decided that any form of disguise was only drawing more attention where it wasn't wanted so I ended up exposing a bit of the lovely copper wire underneath and bending it into a small loop at each end. You can just see the loops in the close-up picture - little glints of copper (aaah, lovely!) - whilst practically helping to keep the stitches on the ends! It works for me till I can think of another solution.

So, it's all finished. I feel a little strange that this baby I've been working on has now been completed. It feels like I've been living with it constantly for so long that I don't want to start anything new quite yet. Maybe I need some quiet time to savour this little achievement and then get back into things tomorrow..... :)

Let's twist again

Goodness, Sunday already! It's been a bitty week - a little bit of doing this and that but nothing really finished, so to speak. I worked a whole day on Vivian and will take some more pics to show you how the cabling is looking - very nice:-) But I had to take a break as it was taking over everything! I was getting far too absorbed with it. I think all my conversations were absentminded '..... yes' and  '.......no's' about five minutes after the question was asked - oops! And I had that kind of abstracted feeling you get from reality when you concentrate too hard on something, which took ages to go before I could rejoin the land of the living.

But I do have some progress pics of my green limone sock for you - one down and one to go. I especially like the rib pattern in little groups of three along the top cuff. And you can see what a clean gusset shaping this has at the heel too. No holes here at all and it has a very professional finish - which makes me feel all the more accomplished - thank you Karen:-)

I'm usually last to finish test knits:-) - I like to think I am being thorough rather than being slow!  - so I think this pattern will soon be released. I'll let you know as soon as I do. If you are already familiar with cables and a bit of shaping but haven't ventured into the world of socks yet, this pattern would be an ideal starting point. There are lots of visual aids and online links to technical info if needed so you feel supported all the way. And you get a lovely pair of socks as well. Now I just have to cast on sock no 2 before I fall foul of the second sock syndrome..... Which reminds me I have another cornflower sock to finish at some point, after the Vivian, the little minx socks and baby knits.

Yes, hopefully more on baby knits soon......:-) Have soft yarn, just have to decide what to knit. It's a baby pattern jungle out there!

Luiza Shawl

Remember the shawl competition that Jane was running last week over at Colours from chaos? Y'know, the one I said I'd never win as I was comment no 1? Yup, I WON!!!! I won this lovely shawl pattern - isn't that so cool? Totally amazing as I never win these things. There was a lot of happy dancing going on yesterday:-)) AND a lot of stash rummaging, hunting for the perfect yarn to use.

But I didn't find anything I thought was going to do this pattern the justice it deserves. So, I've decided I'm going to dye some especially for the occasion - maybe I'll call it 'Lucky Luiza' :-)) I'm thinking a lovely deep rich colourway, slightly variegated but only subtle tonal variations, and I think I may even push my limited shawl skills to work with 2ply laceweight instead of the safer 4ply/fingering! (I will dye some fingering too - just in case!) I'm also going to make extra long skeins of fingering (150gms) so I don't run out like I did with the nightsongs shawl - about 2 rows from the end.

I do love the cobweb look and feel of the finer gauge but I'm a bit dubious of my ability to achieve that quality - but if you don't try, you don't learn and this is so nice, I just have to try!!

This is going to be good for me as I really needed to get my ass in gear and start dyeing some more yarns for the shop. It's been languishing a bit so it could do with a revamp for spring. And of course, I may even have a little yarn giveaway nearer the time......:-) I have some new types of yarn to try out - silk/wool mixes in lace and fingering weight as well as some worsted weight wool, so lots of playing will be going on soon!

Thank you Jane for the opportunity to knit up your lovely shawl!

Cornflower socks

Taking up a most of my time on the needles right now are these lovely cabled 'Cornflower socks' designed by Karen Scott. These aren't out as a pattern yet as I'm test knitting them but you may recognise the cable pattern from the grey and purple cornflower cowls I've been knitting. I love how this pattern looks so different on a much smaller scale - so intricate and detailed, lovely!

This sock pattern is for top down socks - a new thing for me as I've just kind of stuck to the toe ups really so far. So I was all excited to learn a new technique:-) The instructions are so easy to follow and the cable pattern is now becoming quite familiar to me. I can even watch tv now without losing my place in all the left and right twists! It's taking quite a bit longer than I expected to make progress with a full cabled pattern in sock yarn but I really think this is worth it as I love how its working up -and I'm also not the fastest cable knitter in the world. I really should learn how to cable without a needle as it would probably help the speed issue!

Anyway, back to the pics - I love these cables:-)) And I'm glad I decided on such a definite colour for these as it gives a decided punch to the sock I think. The yarn is one of my hand dyed semi-solids called 'flame red' but for some reason only weighed 98gms so I decided to keep it for myself:-))

Knitting all went fine till I came to the heel. Now, I generally understand the principle - you knit a heel flap, turn to get a base to the heel and then pick up stitches to shape your gusset so you can carry on with the cables down to the toes.

Nice close-up of the heel  so you can see it a bit clearer. It looks lovely and perfect now but I had a bit of a song and dance to get there - let's just say it was definitely a learning curve;-) I must thank Karen for patiently answering my frantic and confused e-mails over the weekend:-)) You're a star! And I've now got heel flaps 'sorted'. Whew!

So now I'm back on cables for the front of the sock and knitting away on the home run down to the toes where I feel I can manage the decreasing and grafting ok:-) I like the feel of going downhill though, that's a novelty! So right now, I'm in the happy state of free-wheeling down the hill, wind in my hair and enjoying myself till I get to the bottom and then I get to start again with the second sock. Yay! :-)

Knitting testers

I've just finished knitting up the little yarn testers to show you.  Did you think this was how they would knit up? For some reason, I thought there would be more room between the stripes so I'll show you bigger bands next tester session:-) I always think it's amazing how so highly contrasting colours like the purple with the coral and orange can knit into something much more subtle - contrasting stripes but overall they blend well.

The one pinky/orange semi-solid I knitted using the cornflower cable pattern from Karen's cowl pattern I've been knitting. I'm due to test knit this pattern as socks so I thought I could have a tester here first. Now I just want to carry on and make me some bright pink cabley socks - yum!! So now I'll have to get some more yummy yarn dyed for me to use.

I also promised to show you the two skeins of silk I dyed as well. These were dyed with the same tones as the supersock yarns but they have come out a lot paler with more subtle colour variations. Despite that, I do like them but I think I'll need to practice with the silk base a bit more to get a feel for the yarn as well as getting the colours I intended:-)

You may have noticed a few blogless days here this week but I'm glad to say it's all been towards a very good cause - electrics in the shed:-)))) How happy has this made me? Happy, happy dance!! We have spent the last two days working on this and I now have power and lights - well, one light but another two to come soon as we ran out of natural light to get the job finished today. And we were so lucky to get two dry days in a row too. But we are all soooo tired!! Running a cable the full length of the garden wall and having to remove years worth of clinging ivy is NOT a fun job. But, it's all worth it, it really is:-) Now I can get the inside of the shed properly dry again after the flood and seal the floor and the walls. So not quite finished but a huge step in the right direction!!

I'll also be able to set up my hot plates and get some kettle dyeing done too! Oh, it's all exciting:-)

I've also finished a few projects - gasp! - and I've started some more spinning too so I'll tell you  all about it this week. Just need some decent light for pictures!!

Knotty sweetgrass

Oh, its been a bit busy this week -unfortunately not as much making as I'd like but then sometimes, somethings gotta give:-) And this week, it's been more about stripping wallpaper and lifting floors than dyeing yarn and watching films knitting.

But last night, I put that right and sat down exclusively to knit and watch a film. Just knit. Nothing else for a little bit. And I managed to get something done to show you.

I've been meaning to knit up some of my variegated yarns to see if they are too 'busy' for cables and lace. Some yarns, like this one, Sweetgrass' are very subtle with the variegations so I was thinking it may just manage a cable if the pattern is definite enough. And these Knotty gloves by Julia Mueller (Laris on Ravelry), are just the thing to test this out.

When I first started in 2x2 rib, I was thinking 'nope, this is just too bitty and broken up,  no flowing lines of colour, but I'll just knit a little bit more, just to see....' Then I got to the cable, made a mistake watching Poirot on tv, ripped it back, fixed the mistake, carried on. Got to end of cable chart and admired my handiwork. 'Nice', I thought. This could work.....

Then oops! Was so busy following the chart I forgot to follow the instructions for the thumb gusset back at row 29 - rip, rip, rip. Thumb gusset now included. Really shouldn't watch tv when I'm tired and knitting something more than stocking st. I really should learn, it's not as if I haven't made that mistake before:-)

And I am now knitting away on st st!! Hurrah! I can just go round and around for a bit until I get to the fingers. And I do like the yarn in st st. The gloves are about 60sts circumference so it's easy to imagine this knitted up as a pair of socks too.

I modified the pattern slightly as I know from knitting gloves before that I need the pinkie lower than the rest of the fingers (stripey tonks). I knitted the pinkie and then knitted about 8 rows till I divided the remaining stitches for the final three fingers. And once the maths was worked out (and re-checked:-) just in case!), I sat down last night and watched 'Pirates of the Caribbean' - the first one - and knitted round and around the fingers and thumb till each finger fitted and then cast off.  

Still have the ends to sew in but technically one glove down, one to go......

Ultraviolet Yarns!

The Ultraviolet Yarn shop is now open for business!! At the moment, I have supersock fingering weight yarns for sale - both semi-solids and variegateds, as well as some stitch markers:-) Each skein is individully painted so if you are looking for more than one of any colour, just let me know as I can paint up a 'batch' for you.

I also want to introduce a wider variety of yarns such as silk blends, 100%silk, and worsted weight 100% merino as well, once I get my new yarn order in. But for now, there is a selection of yarns in the shop and tomorrow I will be adding more.  Hopefully it will be brighter day for photographs because today was a bit of a washout and all my pics have had to be dumped:-(

So, hopefully tomorrow you will see all these yarns in the store. Please do pop in and have a browse around and tell me what you think. I'm just finding my way around Etsy right now and I'm sure I will tweek the shop appearance and blurb as I go but, to be honest, I needed to take the plunge or I'd be 'tweeking' till this time next year:-)

Til tomorrow.... yawn.... time for some shuteye........

Update on shop:-)

Working really hard to get the shop up and running by today - sometime! It may be close to the wire though:-) But for now, I can give you a sneek peek at some stitch markers I've been making. These are specifically for smaller needles and are perfect for socks and shawls. I do intend to offer larger ones in the shop as well - as soon as my larger funky beads arrive.

I am listing a small range of semi-solids and variegated yarns in the shop to start with and will add more during the week. So if there is anything you wanted to see that's in my flickr yarn gallery but not in the shop, just let me know 'cause I'm still dyeing......:-)

Back soon, hopefully with the shop open for business..... see you later!

Purple Cashmerino Cowl

It's been a bit of a busy week this week! I've been working on my christmas presents, playing around with designing new patterns and working towards setting up my Etsy shop. So what can I show you today? Not presents:-) and not everything is photographed for the shop and the patterns are, well, still at the scribbling stage!

But I can show you the next cornflower cowl I've been knitting. As this is probably for me anyway, its no real secret - and its been sitting on the sidebar as a work in progress for a bit now too:-) My Debbie Bliss cashmerino finally arrived and I cast on pretty quickly. After the alpaca its not quite so soft but it does give this pattern a chance to show of its complex twists and cables.

Although I've only knitted a few inches, you can see the pattern emerging and how crisp its looking. Very different from the first grey version but I like it in a different way. For a start the colour is gorgeous - even though it photographs a different colour in every picture! And although not alpaca, you must admit cashmerino isn't bad at all:-) I should have been further on than this but I spent an hour or so knitting this watching tv - fatal!! - and made a mistake which, of course, I didn't realise till I stopped. So, it took me only a few minutes to rip back my hour's worth of work. Ach well:-) Back to the same place I started at! Best not to knit this while being distracted by television, I think!

If you are interested in knitting the Cornflower cowl pattern, its now up on Ravelry here  - free for a limited time only. I was going to knit this in the smaller height but I don't know now. I do like the idea I could cover my nose and ears if it gets a bit too nippy! And the weather here is getting darker and colder now so I'd better get this knitted and off the needles soon!

If the weather is a bit brighter tomorrow for photos, I should be able to give you a preview of a few things going into my shop  - opening 1st November!!  Only a few days to go - yikes!

Yarns for sale!!

Well, I didn't mean to be away so long! Between dyeing and knitting my cowl I've been a busy bee:-) But I've got some new yarns finished, lots more bright semi-solids planned, some designing going on and a finished knitted cowl to show you this week, so its all been happening lately!

But I've also got to the point where I'm running out of blank yarn stock so I'm going to have to use what I have left to sell so I can afford to buy more - and keep dyeing! So, from now on - including today - all yarns I post will be for sale. Each skein will be $28 and I will try and work out a paypal button to make life easier. ETA: yarns now available in my new Etsy shop - Ultraviolet Yarns

Please note there is only one skein of each colourway of today's yarns so it will be on a first come first served basis. 
ETA: All sold now-sorry!

But I'm happy to dye anything in the yarn gallery in as many skeins as you need - just contact me to let me know what you fancy.

'Sweetgrass'

First up, a lovely subtly variegated grassy green I've called 'sweetgrass'. This is a bit yellower than the emerald I knitted my Veyla mitts with but I really like it. I'm thinking nice subtle tonal stripes for socks or autumn mitts would work well.

'Rich Plums'

And my favourite of this bunch, the rich plums mix - definitely my kind of colour palette this one.  It's a more subtle blend of harmonious plummy tones giving quite a soft feel overall. This would go with most of my autumn/winter wardrobe!

'Cranberry and Plums'

And then, using the same colours as the plums, I painted this skein with definite bands of colour rather than blending the tones. Quite a contrast - much clearer and more definite colour sections. It will be interesting to see how this knits up in contrast to the other one.

I've also added a yarn gallery on Flickr which has all the colour schemes I've dyed so far to the sidebar on the right - near the top - due to a request to see them all together. I'll keep adding all my new yarns here so you can find them easier than trailing through blog posts:-)

Oh, its all exciting! I've actually taken that first step!! Wish me luck!