hanna birke

mr and mrs mouse finished

I'm in finished mode at the moment.  Maybe it's that the year is rapidly closing.  

Also finished this week are Mr. and Mrs. Mouse for the upcoming grandbaby.  

Once again the photograph is fuzzy - that's because it was really windy this morning when I took this before work.  

The pattern is Mel's Mouse Family from the book Knit 2 Together.  They were knit completely from left over yarn.  

These little toys have to be the most fun things I've knit this year.  I've named them Eddie and Lila and truth be told I'd rather not part with them.  They aren't really a baby gift anyway but I hope they will be kept on a shelf in the baby's room and perhaps played with when the baby is a bit older.  In the meantime I'll also knit a hat and booties in newborn size for the baby.  

The clothes were the really fun part of this knitting.  For Lila I used some variegated cotton and crocheted the skirt part of the dress and then knit the body of the dress and crocheted the little straps.  Eddie's sweater is knit with some left over Koigu and the cable on the front peaked my interest in more cable knitting.  

On another topic I usually do a 'year of knitting' photo in October where I pile up everything I've knit in the year and photograph it.  I didn't get to this in October but will try to collect the things I have knit (and haven't given away) in 09 before the end of December and photograph them.  

 

finally finished!

Finally some finished knitting so show.  Although the photographs are out of focus as I've yet to figure out how to combine auto focus and the self timer in an effective manner.  

The yoked cardigan is finished though.  For now.  

I may frog it. 

Or donate it to charity.

There's just so many things about this one that make me wonder what-was-I-thinking.  I could list them all but really do you want to wade through it all.  

Let's just say that a yoked cardigan does create a lovely shoulder but you really have to build in chest ease.  

And let's also say that DK or worsted weight is just not my thing.I much prefer to work in lace or fingering weight.  And variegated sweaters?  What-was-I-thinking?

Especially when my original idea was to create a cream colored alpaca sweater.   At least it's done.  

But I do also have something done that I just love.  

It's a mohair Shippo Scarf.  Using some Sweet Georgia Yarn that I've had around since I started knitting again.  I finished this at the end of October and it's been in use almost every day since then.

Ummm it's so fluffy.  And so easy.  And I love the little tails.  

meeting Kat and Felix

I was almost as nervous as I would be going on a blind date.  

But I was in southern California for two weeks and asked Kat Coyle if she would like to meet.  She drove down from LA to see me and we went for lunch and then to The Black Sheep yarn store in Encinitas.  

There was nothing to be nervous about - it was so easy and joyful to be with Kat.  We talked about knitting and hard decisions we'd made and how blessed we feel in our lives.  Kat gave me a small jewelry piece she crocheted with Habu cotton - I love it and wear it wrapped around my wrist.  If you check Kat's latest post she has a similar piece on her wrist - it's the pale yellow one without the beads.  

A week after Kat drove down to see me I caught the train up to LA where Kat and her son Felix picked me up at the train station.  Felix has been sending me little cards and I've been watching him grow so it was wonderful to meet him.  

We went for sushi lunch and to the japanese bookstore to look at japanese knitting books.  Felix was so patient while Kat and I talked and looked at books.  Kat showed me her design sketch book and our idea sketches didn't look all that different except hers were neater and more detailed and in color. Well maybe the only similarity is that we both sketch our knitting ideas in books.  I can't say enough though how much fun it was to see how Kat works and to show her some of her designs that I've knit like the Lacy Bowed Skirt and the second Gossamer Stars Scarf that I've started.  Kat was so warm and open and encouraging.  

I'm sorry the party wasn't bigger.  There are other fabulous knitbloggers in LA who would have been great to meet but meeting Kat and Felix was a big enough first step for me.  Next time I'm in the area I hope to meet more of you.  And then there are so many of you in other parts of the world that would be fun to meet as well.  We are too far away.  But in our enthusiasm for knitting, in the things we love, the things we worry about, the things that inspire us we are really just around the corner from each other.  

On the knitting front I'm still knitting - there are a bunch of things I'm trying to finish up - yes the yoked cardigan is still not finished.  But I hope very soon to post a bunch of finished knitting.  

knit rescue

Some of you might remember the Lacy Bowed Skirt I knit two years ago.

A lot of the knitting was done during a winter holiday in Arizona where I spent days by the pool swimming and knitting.  Not a good idea it turns out when knitting with plant dyed yarns.

I went to wear the skirt a few months ago and discovered that the pool chlorine from my hands must have rubbed off on the cotton when I was knitting and yikes over time the yarn faded in a spot on the front of the skirt.

The skirt went back in the closet but I sad about it because I really liked wearing this skirt.  

This week I pulled the skirt and a bottle of bleach out and attempted a rescue.  First I soaked the skirt for 20 minutes in a sink full of water so that all the fiber was evenly wet.  Then I ran some lukewarm water in the bathtub and added some calgon and bleach.  About 5 parts water to 1 part bleach.  I carefully laid the skirt flat in this mixture.  Not much happened.  

So I emptied the bathtub, took the skirt out and started again.  This time with straight bleach.  I laid the skirt flat in the straight bleach and rubbed it with my hands.  The dyed started to come out evenly so I kept rubbing and flipped the skirt around a few times.  Within 3 minutes the logwood dyed cotton was evenly bleached to a cream color and the Habu merino held it's dark brown color.  

It's not the look I had in mind when I knit the skirt but it's now back to wearable.  I hope to wear it this week.

Almost no progress to report on the yoked variegated sweater.  I''ve been working on the sleeves but have had to rip them back a few times because of messiness and not having quite enough stitches on the needles.  Hopefully I have my issues sorted out now and I can make some progress.  

recent dyeing

I'm behind on posting about dyeing.  If I wait much longer all details will have escaped me as I don't keep dyeing notes anymore. 

First up is some cashmere I ordered last winter and dyed this summer.

I have a shoe box and a half (close to 5,000 yards) of thread weight cashmere from Colourmart.  If you haven't heard of Colourmart I highly recommend them.  Ordering was easy and delivery fast.  If you do order from them I recommend having them ply up the yarn for you.  I ordered a cobweb weight cashmere and will hold two or three stands together when I knit this.  

The original color of the cashmere was a silvery tan and at first I thought I would indigo dye it for a dusky blue.  Then I thought maybe some madder for a deep orange.  By the time I got to dyeing it though I was feeling like something lighter in color so I did a 3  day cold mordant with alum and myrobalan mixed together followed by a week long soak in the sun in marigold mixed with a bit of osage.  

When I first dyed this it reminded of the color moss turns during a dry summer.  I loved it.  Now I'm not so convinced - it feels a little more green than I would like.   The plan is to knit a wrap with it at a later date.  If I don't love the color after I've knit the wrap I can leave it in the sun for a few months and perhaps I'll be happy with how it fades.

Next is a group shot on my messy table.

I started off with one dyepot going in September and kept finding more yarn I could dye.  By the end I had 5 dyepots going.  From left to right:  

the peach yarn is some 3 ply Pony merino ordered from Catnip Yarns.  It was mordanted in myrobalan for 2 days mostly a cold mordrant but I did heat to less than boiling for an hour on the second day.  It was then cold soaked with a mix of cochineal and madder.  I have something like 1,400 yards of this and I'm thinking maybe a shrug, maybe a loose knit and then felted jacket.  Not sure yet.

the lavender cake is lace weight alpaca that I dyed with indigo 2 years ago.  It was a beautiful soft blue but I've been trying to move away from blue lately so I mordanted it with alum and then soaked it in a strong cochineal dyebath for a few days.   I have maybe 900 yards of this.  Not sure what it will become.

the golden cotton is some mystery cotton I've had for a few years.  It was grey and I bleached it a few years ago and it turned light peach.  Then I mordanted it with alum and then tannin and back in the closet it went.  Here it is after a 5 day soak in some fustic.  Must say I'm really happy with this color.  I have only 4 or 500 yards of it.  It might become a shrug or it might be used for the bodice of dress.

last is 1500 yards of crochet cotton that was mordanted with alum and myrobalan and soaked in cochineal for 5 days.  It might join some other left over dyed crochet cotton I have on had and be used for the skirt of that dress I have in mind.  

I also dyed about 3,000 yards of fine Habu merino.  I started it in a weld dyebath for a very pale yellow - then put it in an alum mordant followed by a 3 day soak in a strong fustic bath.  Wet it was a wonderful light tobacco color and I was really happy with it.  When it dried though it turned a brassy yellow - not pretty at all - and even less pretty when I started to cake it.  So it's gone back in the closet and I'll try dyeing it again - but not right away. 

progress photos

What to say?  

I've been wrestling with this sweater.  It's too small at the front and I didn't want to frog it so I'm adding extra wide bands at the front.  Then I'll go back and finish the sleeves. 

There's pooling and also skein variation and I'm not bothered by this - I think it's part of knitting with a variegated yarn.  

I am having second thoughts though about the wisdom of a yoked cardigan for my figure.  

noticed

I've been meaning to do more 'noticed' posts for ages.  Sometimes I just don't have the time to get to them and other times the inspiration is not there.  But I've seen a few items lately that have either been inspiring or have furthered my thinking about color.  

I think I've long had the assumption that black, grey and tan were the only sophisticated or chic colors.  

And certainly when fashion gets whittled down to the average small town mall level colors like pink and purple are often lifeless or uninspiring.  But what I hadn't noticed is that there are a good number of designers doing beautiful work with color.  The dress above is Oscar de la Renta, photographed by Chris Nicholls in the Sept 09 Flare magazine.  

Of course unless you're a celebrity it's purely a fantasy piece but I love the color, the pleated top and the whispy leaf or feather motifs on the skirt.  

Tia Cibani at Ports 1961 is one designer who did some lovely things with color in her Fall 09 collection.  

I was in Vancouver for a few days in August and when I'm there I always go to the Holt Renfrew store.  It's one of the few places I can actually see and touch designer clothes.  It feels like an hour in heaven and I usually take a few notes after I've been in.

This year in Holt Renfrew I saw a lot of dolman sleeves both in sweaters and jackets.  Sometimes the sleeves were brought in to a tiny wrist or 3/4 length opening and other times the sleeves were left wide giving the garment a bit of a kimono-like feeling.  Either way the look was really appealing.

Here's a sweater by Piazza Sempione with a mild dolman shape featured in the August 09 Bazaar.  I like the waist shaping in this and the sideways rib.  It would be nice in a lightweight cashmere wouldn't it?

progress photo

Luisa asked if I was doing short rows on the yoked cardigan.  Indeed yes. 

Although I'm not sure if I've done them correctly.  

I want the back of the collar to rise nicely so I used some of the madder merino I have to create a little section at the back of the neck.  I wasn't sure if I should start with the longest row and knit shorter rows or start with the shortest row and knit up to the longest row.  In the end I decided to start with the shortest row centered at the back of the neck.  

I've taken the whole thing off the needles and it seems to fit fine so far so I'll keep going.  I have 6 inches of the yoke done.   Four more inches to go before putting the sleeve holes on holders and carrying on with the cream alpaca body.  

For increases I started doing M1's but these look nasty in garter stitch so I've switched to knit f&b which is better.  I'm doing my increases every 6 rows.  I'm also knitting in tiny buttonholes as I go.  Which is huge progress for a button-commitment-phob like me.  

There's a helpful post on knitting top down yoked sweaters over at Whitney's blog whitknits.

And other stunning news - I looked at the cutest pink suede shoes on Zappos today and thought - hummm.  Haven't quite pulled the trigger yet on these but ... I'm thinking about it.  

knitting now

August wasn't my most productive knitting month, in fact August never is a big knitting month for me.  I think I'm too distracted by our fleeting summers and thoughts of only so many more 'outdoor days' to concentrate too hard on knitting.  This week I really started to miss knitting though and found myself day-dreaming about blizzards and white outs and cozy weekends spent on the couch knitting.  

The day dreams were enough for me to get cracking with some knitting.

I started with what Gay so beautifully calls 'smalls'. 

Our daughter-in-law is expecting her first baby so I thought I'd make 2 of the little mice from Mel's Mouse Family in the book Knit 2 Together.  This is Mr. Mouse and eventually he will be joined by Mrs. Mouse.  He'll also have some pants knit in pale blue and a shirt sewn from the plaid fabric he's sitting on.   Mrs. Mouse will have a dress in the variegated cotton on the right.  Making him was great fun and I'm looking forward to starting on the clothes.  

I've been flipflopping around with ideas for a new sweater.  How I got to my most recent sweater cast-on is a long story - I'll spare you the details and just give you two pictures and a few references.

The idea is for a garter yoke cardigan inspired by Katie Himmelberg's Kaliedoscope Yoke in Pam Allen's book Simple Style and also inspired by Naganasu's TDGstY cardigan.

The idea is to use the Atacama variegated alpaca and some leftover madder dyed merino for the high collar and yoke and the cream alpaca for the body and sleeves of the sweater.  I'm  not entirely convinced I'm on the right track here but I'm giving it a go and hoping for the best.  

You might have noticed I'm not knitting a black, charcoal, navy or blue sweater.  I'm sticking with my desire to wear cheerful color in the warm end of the pink, red, yellow and purple color families - but I also want to look stylish - and not look too young or too old - so I'm feeling my way around this.  Black and neutral colors were easier for me - color takes a lot more thinking - but right now I feel so much happier in color so I'm making the effort.  

FO

Last spring Luisa sent me some yarn from Portugal.  She chose undyed yarn so I could dye it myself.  You might remember the yarn - I wanted a very pale pink and got exactly that with a weak Lac dyebath.  

Then came the decision of what to make with it.  

Wristies - for when it's cold out and I want to go out with my camera to take winter/snow photographs.

I did them in a 1 x 3 rib and didn't put any thumbholes in - they are just simple tubes.  This way it will be easy to pull them down over my fingers or  back up my hands when I want to operate the camera.  

The top edges were finished with some crochet chain stitch and the bottom edges with crochet shell stitch.

Sometimes people say they admire my willingness to experiment with knitting.  Self doubt is something that pushes at me too when I venture away from a pattern.  With these when I started doing the crochet shell edging I thought it looked too feminine for that tough 3 x 1 ribbing - but I kept going with it - telling myself to just try it and that a band of shell wasn't much to undo if I didn't like it in the end.  By the time I got all the edges finished I was pleased with the results.  

Sometimes I think we just have to get the self doubt to quiet down a bit and give ourselves a chance.

Big thank you again to Luisa for the yarn.