purple

Rhys [And the Realities of Blogging]

Sometimes you want to talk, a lot, and sometimes you’re just content to look for free ebooks on Amazon and don’t really feel like finding new projects.

I’ve also been low-level ill for close to six weeks now, with a lingering cough that doesn’t seem to want to make up its mind if it’s allergies or not. It makes it hard to do much of anything-dance, exercise, clean, want to make stuff for blog entries. Maybe by the time summer comes on in full force-it was 40 F this morning-I’ll be back up to speed.

Sometimes when I get like this I just fall back on projects I already know and love; in this case, it was a request. I’m knitting the same pattern I used for Doyle for a wedding present [did I mention I’m also maid of honor in a wedding and am planning a bachlorette party? Life’s gotten a little weird for me]. She requested the pattern and the colors.

This is the lightest weight yarn I’ve ever worked this pattern with and it’s making me grumpy. It’s just not moving all that fast. I think I might end up getting my wheel out just to have something to work on that moves.

Alexandria

I name my yarns after words that I like to say out loud. That’s my naming scheme for this year; there’s really nothing more complicated to it than that.

My stress level is through the roof right now, so I’m spinning and dyeing everything I can get my hands on. I just sorted out my koolaide stash; I’m heavy on stuff I thought I would be low on and almost out of the colors I normally have by the bucketful.

Filter actually shifts yarn closer to true color

Alexandria

base wool: heinz 57 from the woolery

ply: n-ply

wpi: 12

yardage: 159 yds

dye: food grade w/ citric acid

This is a completely unreproduceable skein. This is what the roving looked like coming out of the pot:

I’m never going to get it to break like that again.

Colors: purple, red, blue, pink, aqua, cream/natural

Bloggers-I have started a new group board on Pinterest. Open to all DIY, craft, food, or other creative blogs, I would love to have you join. Joining instructions are posted on the board-join here.

Please, stop by this week’s Inspired Weekends!

Linked to-

frugal by choice

the chicken chick

the prairie homestead

mamaldiane

carolyn’s homework

the dedicated house

Purple

The last of the colors on the rainbow, purple is one of the richest, deepest colors in the spectrum. Due to its historical uses by various courts and the Roman Catholic church, purple has become intertwined with the concepts of nobility, royalty, and the sacred.

The word purple derives from the name of a dye that produced the color used in Byzantium. Falling in between red and blue, the historical associations with power and lacking the feelings of aggression that red can sometimes inspire, purple ties have started appearing in the wardrobes of world leaders. Interestingly, the concept of purple shifts from culture to culture, with the amount of blue used to create the color shifting depending on country. The purple that was most sought by royals at one point in history may actually have been much redder than what people may envision by the word ‘purple’.

With regards to usage and associations, purple is connected the Easter season specifically. Purple is a holy color and is associated with both the Church and the concept of the spirit or the soul. However, like most colors, purple also has negative connotations, and is used to suggest vanity or pride.

The Creative Process

I’m planning a fairly large scale project.

That not entirely good photo is the last time I attempted a cabled blanket. I learned a lot of things along the way-it’s going to take a lot longer than I thought, take a lot more yarn than I thought, and I’m going to stop it early out of sheer weight if I do it as a large continous piece.

I’m not unfamiliar with knitting large blankets-full sized bed or larger. It’s easiest to do it in pieces, so that the knitting doesn’t turn into 10 pounds of fabric hanging off of two sticks.

It is however easier to knit long strips and sew them together-I knit my fugly blanket in small blocks then sewed the blocks into strips, and then sewed those strips onto the finished piece. The long strips were the easiest to sew.

The blanket that I’m planning right now-and I have a significant amount of time before I need it to be finished-will probably be knit in what amounts to scarves and then sewn together. The two scarves/strips on either side will probably be narrower seed stitch strips/scarves and each of the other scarves will have seed stitch to begin and end it-built in border around the blanket.

It’ll be done in shades of purple, but I haven’t decided if I want it to be all the same shade of purple or use different shades of purple. That may depend on how long it takes me to do it and whether or not I can get all the same shade purple over the length of time necessary. I’ll probably use acrylic for ease of care.

Each strip, with the exception of the side strips, are going to be different cables or aran stitches. The only thing that may be an issue is length of repeat, so I may go for cables that have roughly the same number rows or are roughly divisible by the same number of rows (they’re all divisible by 10 or some such). Width doesn’t matter but I’m going to stick with worsted weight yarn.

American queen size blankets are roughly 90 by 90 inches but some wiggle room exists in there. I’m guessing I need roughly 50 to 75 ounces of yarn. If I get a ball a month, and knit at least a strip a month, I’ll be done in plenty of time.

I need to start stockpiling Michael’s and Joann’s coupons.

Linked to-

nifty thrifty things i should be mopping the floor simply sweet home

create with joy lines across clairejustine It’s party time!

flour me with love homemaker on a dime the chicken chick

lady behind the curtain trendy treehouse adorned from above

Hampton {Christmas Knitting}

Pattern:Real Guy Beanie (on ravelry)

Needles: size 6

Yarn: Woolease, Hampton Twist

I have a friend who veils with some dedication. I veil too, but after some serious prayer, thought and meditation at this point in my life I don’t feel the call to cover with the same level of dedication that she does. But I feel so blessed to see her grow in her faith the way that she has over the past year or so- I don’t tell her the way that I should, but I really do find her to be an inspiration and I find myself growing deeper into my own spirituality the longer I know her.

Anyway, I wanted to make her a Yule gift that was both somewhat practical but reflected ‘her’ somehow. I didn’t want to just give her a cookbook. That would be much more a ‘me’ gift. I found some yarn in my stash that was very close to ‘her’ colors- I would have prefered that the yarn be black and purple but I’ll work with what I have.

Knowing that she veils, I wanted to knit something that she could adapt to a full veil if necessary. I found a basic man’s hat pattern sized for a good sized head and knit it about 2 inches deeper than what the pattern called for (instead of a 5.5 inch long body I knit so that it was a 7.5 inch body).

Even if it doesn’t have the depth to go over the back knot, hopefully she’ll still be able to use it as a head covering that doesn’t scream ‘full wrap’-which is a trait that I love in slouchy hats because I can cover all of my hair and still be pretty under the radar.

Prospero and Juliana

Moving onto a new naming scheme…

This isn’t my most involved dyeing project ever. That would be either clarity or the faux gradient that i’m working on. But I think that this is the largest one-shot dyeing project I’ve done.

I’ve wanted to try to overdye a varigated yarn for awhile. The base yarn for this skein is…scary. It’s gold, white, red, pink, and green. It’s one of those colorways that I think that you sort of have to love otherwise it’s a kneejerk, ewww type reaction. Now that I’ve got overdyeing a varigated yarn out of the way, I want to try to dye something that’s not a neutral.

Prospero got sent out before I could take a photo, but it's a similar idea.

The second skein started out as oatmeal fisherman’s wool. I’ve worked with this wool before and was really satisfied with the results. I was aiming for jeweltone, but I knew I was starting with a darker base. (Unfortunately, I remembered I should take a photo…after it was already in the mail.)

This felt like it took a ton of dye. I use 1 package of koolaide to an ounce of yarn. The fisherman’s wool alone is 8 ounces a skein. I used 11 packets of grape koolaide, 7 drops of burgundy mccormick’s, 7 drops of blue food dye, and 3 drops of green for the first run. The first run struck really fast, including the blue so I was a little concerned- and while the yarn did dye, it definetly wasn’t the level of purple I wanted so I redyed with another 20 drops each of burgundy and blue.

then i decided it was too red and broke out the big guns for dye dip number 3 (this is why i dye on weekends now, this was a roughly 3 hour process with the original heating, the cool downs between dyes, and regrouping). i disolved a full 1/4 teaspoon royal blue wilton’s with some of the dye bath. i was afraid to move the fisherman’s wool around anymore without it turning into a felt ball, what with seperating threads to make sure the insides had dyed up.

So it works out to be roughly 3 packets of purple, 17 drops of dye and 1/8 teaspoon royal blue total for Juliana and 8 packets, 20 drops, and 1/8 teaspoon royal blue for Prospero.

Hazeltine (Aran Scarf #1)

Happy Halloween and a merry Samhain! I have a treat for you this year.

A basic to intermediate level cable that looks more complex that what it actually it is. The pattern does require that you understand basic cabling techniques.

Elongated Left Slanted Cable

Worked over 4 stitches

All even rows are purled

rows 1, 3, 5, 7- knit

rows 9 and 19- bring two stitches to the front, either air cabling or on a cable needle, k2, k2 from needle

rows 11, 13, 15, 17- knit

Elongated Right Slanted Cable

Worked over 4 stitches

All even rows are purled

rows 1, 3, 5, 7- knit

rows 9 and 19- bring two stitches to the back, either air cabling or on a cable needle, k2, k2 from needle

rows 11, 13, 15, 17- knit

Central Panel- Entwined Lozenges from Mon Tricot’s Knitting Dictionary*

worked over 16 stitches

all even rows are worked as presented (k the knit stitches and p the purl stitches)

Rows 1- k2, p4, k4, p4, k2

Row 3- k2, p4, work right leaning cable (leave 2 to the back, k2, knit 2 reserved stitches), p4, k2

row 5- cross 2 left (leave 2 stitches at front of work, p1, k2 reserved stitches), p2, cross 2 right (leave 1 stitches at back of work, k2, p1 reserved stitches), cross 2 left, p2, cross 2 right

row 7- p1, cross 2 left, cross 2 right, p2, cross 2 left, cross 2 right, p1

row 9- p2, work right leaning cable, p4, work right leaning cable, p2

row 11- p2, k4, p4, k4, p2

row 13- p2, work right leaning cable, p4, work right leaning cable, p2

row 15- p1, cross 2 right, cross 2 left, p2, cross 2 right, cross 2 left, p1

row 17- cross 2 right, p2, cross 2 left, cross 2 right, p2, cross 2 left

row 19- k2, p4, work right leaning cable (leave 2 to the back, k2, knit 2 reserved stitches), p4, k2

row 21- k2, p4, k4, p4, k2

Detail of the central panel–the best my camera wants to let me do right now!

Scarf

Cast on 34 stitches with yarn of your choice (gauge doesn’t matter). The scarf shown was knit on size 8 bamboo needles with 1 skein of red heart super saver in dark orchid.

Work 3 rows of garter stitch.

next row: k3, place marker, work row one of elongated right slanted cable, place marker, p2, place marker, work row one of central panel, place marker, p2, place marker, work first row of elongated left slanted cable, place marker, k3.

continue working in pattern until scarf is desired length. Work 3 rows of garter stitch and bind off.

*I believe the book was published in 1986 by the editors of Mon Tricot. All I can determine online is that it’s out of print. The pattern is found on page 77. I don’t claim ownership of this particular stitch.

Linked to these parties (scroll down the page)

ghoulaide (blackberry koolaide)

i tried a picture search and came up with nothing.

the seasonal halloween koolaide flavor this year is supposed to dye up a deep clear purple ranging on the indigo end. it does look more blue to me in the pictures that i’ve seen, but i’m not sure what base fiber it was over.

i guess that it’s fairly hard to find. i managed to find it at tops and picked up 10 packets. i’m not sure how much longer it’ll be out though because most stores seem to be flipping into christmas already- though maybe that means that they’ll have a green color for that season? a dyer can only hope anyway.

i’m hoping that this will be a decent indigo range purple for my faux gradient once i get to spinning and dyeing again. it would be fun to see what this would do with solar dyeing.

some of the yarns that i’ve seen dyed up also look to be vaguely steel grey. in that case i think that if you wanted to replicate the color, using a 2 to 1 purple to orange ratio may work, just being sure to use at least twice as much purple to orange.

Tour de Fleece update- through July 9th

my scrap/recycled wool project, now dubbed ripley. i finished the singles for this batch on the morning of the 5th. as of that morning, i had half of the singles left to ply. (i’m using my blackberry for the pics, which explains both the clearer images because it doesn’t shake as much but the fuzzier photos). the yarn lightens up a lot when plied with white wool.

i got all of the ply balls that i have made for ripley so far spun on the 6th (the bottom two photos). i’ll weigh and solar dye it at sirius next week.

i started, well continued, a project i’m calling iris on the morning of the 5th (it was laundry day). it’s a unmarked purple wool batt that i got at rhinebeck circa 2005. i had about 2/3 of it spun up already into these lovely slightly thick and thin singles. i overdyed half of the singles with a darker purple and the other half with blue. i’m going to ply them into a 3 ply once i finish this set. it’s a really fast spin and it turns out into a lovely subtly multicolored single with a soft luster. i’m spinning with a modified long draw and semi woolen like normal.

okay i should say that i hate merino. at least this braid. the color is beautiful and i think i’m going to like the end result (i’m fractal spinning, split half the braid and put aside to be plied with a solid red, then split the remaining half into half again, then one of the quarters into smaller strips so i get a ply with long repeats and a ply with short repeats. i’ve wanted to try it since i saw it on hello yarn) but the spinning is make me want to pull my hair out. i have to constantly pay attention to it and i’m not getting an even single. though it’s vaguely thick and thin in a uniform way so it’s not too horribly outrageous…i think i’m the only spinner who doesn’t like merino. if this wasn’t for a much larger (and more expensive) project i would just say the hell with it- pun slightly intended since it’s going into my inferno shawl.