hanna birke

update

i'm in the midst of some changes but knitting is still happening.  right now mostly gift knitting.  still fulfilling promises - although i have tons of ideas for things i'd like to knit myself.  soon ...

at the moment i'm working on an adaptation of a Shiri Mor sweater from Vogue Knitting Winter 09/10 for my daughter.  she asked for pink sweater so i dyed some organic wool with the ever-easy and reliable cochineal.

i've used the word adaptation because my daughter wants a longer back on the sweater and also because i've substituted cables for the main stitch pattern that Shiri Mor used.

this is my first time using organic wool and i'm pleased to stay it's really soft but it also feels like it has substance.

also on the needles are another pair of socks for my husband who badly needs another pair.  the speed at which his and my mother's socks wear out has me switching to sock yarn with 25% nylon.  it's not nearly as soft as 100% wool but i'm hoping the socks will last longer.  

here's a detail photo of the first sock.  it's the Riff pattern from Knitty.  don't look too close though okay - so many mistakes!  my knitting concentration hasn't been what it should be lately.  the yarn is Cascades Heritage.  after knitting the first sock i did a search for long lasting sock yarns and found out most sock knitters concerned about wear suggested knitting with a tight gauge.  they said their socks last much longer this way.  i'm knitting the second sock a size up but with much smaller needles.  have you tried knitting socks with a tighter gauge and have they lasted longer?  or do you have a long-wearing sock yarn you recommend?

part of what's had me distracted lately is that after a dozen years here in southern Alberta i'm moving out of Alberta and back to British Columbia.  i've been offered a job on the north end of Vancouver Island in the village of Port Hardy.  i finish my old job in a week and start my new job in two weeks.  so i've been busy packing up boxes once again.  i've moved a lot in my life and it seems every time i move it's an introspective time with lots of memories and conflicting feelings rising to the surface.  

i have a feeling my new job will be rather intense.  i'll also commute over 12 hours a week - so free time will have a bite taken out of it.  i plan to keep knitting of course - but i've put away most of my cameras for now.  film photography takes time that i don't think i'll have for a while.  

it feels important to have a variety of creative outlets though so i've gone back to drawing - it's easier to squeeze some drawing in with a few minutes here and there.  lately i've been working on long multi-week drawings - i'll post a poor quality 'in-progress' photo below.  at the moment i'm just drawing for myself and they're a mix of random mark-making and more carefully rendered images from source material.  i tape pieces of 24 x 36 inch paper to the wall and add more sheets as i like.  i can't say exactly what the drawings mean - they look narrative and yet not at the same time.  anyway for the moment they're satisfying to do and i hope i can keep them up.

 

 

wrist pain, dye consistency and other knitting challenges

Usually in October I post my Year of Knitting photo but not this year.  Partly because I haven't knit much this year and partly because most of what I have knit has been happily gifted.  

Instead of the Year of Knitting photo I'll post about 2 sweaters I have on needles and also discuss some other umm ... knitting challenges.

Before starting the Pentagon Aran Cardigan for Jane's boy Connor I hadn't realized how unnerving it would be to knit for another knitter.  Let me say the problem is all in my head and I'm sure Jane and Connor will be happy with whatever I send.  But you know, knitting for another knitter you want to send your very best.  

The first issue is sizing.  I tried knitting what to me seemed a baby-sized sweater and the cables were too busy for baby wear.  So then I decided to knit the small size.  Which will fit Connor when he's 10 or maybe not until he's 15.  

The next issue is that the yarn is indigo dyed by me.  Even though it's from the same dyelot it's hard to get color consistency between skeins with natural indigo.  There is a clear color difference between my yarn cakes and you can see the top of the back and the front are darker than the bottom sections.  Indigo should fade or this should wash out.  It's not fading fast though.  I'll wash the sweater a few times when it's finished and this should take care of evening out the color.  Hopefully ...  

I was really upset about the color changes until I e-mailed a two kind knitting friends about it and they suggested I relax about the whole thing.  They said probably Jane and Connor won't mind or probably the color issue will resolve itself with a few more washes or some days in the sun.  

The next problem has been recurring wrist pain.  I've been icing my wrists and trying to be careful with them.  But I'm also beginning to wonder if the pain is due to arthritis.  I've started taking some bone medicine my husband brought home from the health food store.  It seems to help.  My days of knitting worsted weight though maybe limited.  As there is no hurry with Connor's teenager day's sweater I've pulled the Ardent Jacket out again to work on and give my wrists some rest from the heavier yarn.

The photo below is of the back of the Ardent Jacket.  Even though the trellis pattern is mostly twisted stitches it's a pleasure to knit this pattern and watch the trellis pattern emerge.

Now I think it's a good thing I have many thousands of yards of thread weight Habu yarn. 

The other thing nudging aside my knitting is I'm taking a photography course again this fall.  This isn't a problem - it's a happy choice.  But it is time consuming and knitting takes a back seat to photography these days.  I have another assignment due in 10 days.  Can't say much about it right now other than it involves clothes and water.  Here is one shot from the assignment.  Credit for this photo goes to Sky Martin.

 

 

 

 

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. 

Gossamer Stars ombre dyed

The Gossamer Stars scarf was ombre dyed with my daughter last week and I'm happy with how it turned out.  We used Procion MX powder dyes in scarlet, fuchsia and navy.  

I should have taken photographs of the process but it was a bit busy so I'll just have to describe it to you.

The night before dyeing we mixed up a solution of soda ash and hot water and soaked the undyed scarf in this for half an hour.  Then we gently squeezed the scarf out and without rinsing it put it in a plastic bag overnight.  

My mother's place doesn't have a suitable spot for dyeing work so the next morning we took the dyeing supplies, a roll of paper towels and 3 spray bottles to the parking lot across the street.  We spread out a long row of plastic and paper towels and put the damp scarf on top of these.  

Next we mixed some scarlet dye powder with hot water and salt in a spray bottle and just sprayed the dye on 1/4 of the scarf.  My daughter decided she wanted the sequence the colors scarlet, purple, lavender and pale pink.  So for the purple we mixed navy and fuchsia dye powder and then sprayed that on next to the scarlet.  For the lavender we added more water to the purple dye solution and for the pale pink we poured a lot of the lavender dye solution into another bottle and added a lot of water to the remaining dye solution to create the pale pink.  So in the end we only needed 2 spray bottles not 3. 

The set up and spraying took about 40 minutes. 

After the spraying we used some paper towels to carefully blot up the excess dye and then we used more plastic wrap to cover the scarf and rolled it up into a little package.  Back in the house we steamed the scarf for a few minutes over some boiling water and then left the package overnight to set. 

The hardest part was waiting for the next morning to unwrap the package and see how it turned out.  

Kat just finished a Gossamer Scarf in the prettiest orange alpaca -  if you haven't already seen her GS be sure to go take a look.  I really like how her version emphasizes the horizontal aspect of the lace.  

dyeing, knitting next and inspiration

A mixed post with some natural dyeing, my next knitting and some knitting noticed and knitting dreaming.

Luisa sent me some merino and milk fiber yarn from Portugal.  The color I wanted to dye it is hard to describe - not rose - not tan - not salmon - something I can only think to call Skin.  It's not always the case that you get exactly what you're after with natural dyeing but this time I got exactly the color I wanted on the first try.

Was thinking of using this to knit a hat but I really like the idea of handwarmers in this color.  And  I need new handwarmers because I gave my Koigu ones away.  The yarn was mordanted with Alum and dyed at very low heat with Lac.

But first I have to knit a promised pair of socks for my husband.  He's not a sweater, scarf or toque guy so he's not been interested in having his own hand knit anything.  Until recently when he mentioned a pair of socks to wear in the house would be nice.  We sat down in front of Webs one night and he chose the Modern colorway from Sheep Shop.

A friend recommended I find something to reinforce the toes and heals so I'm using some left over Coats Opera Cotton from the Flower Power Scarf for reinforcing.  Lets hope it adds longevity to these.  

It's been a long time since I've done a "noticed" post.  Here's a photo of cabled vest found in the January issue of Lucky magazine.  I don't wear vests but I know people who do and so thought a few of you might enjoy seeing this.

It's by Another Important Culture.  Not a handknit but easily could be.  Apology for the fuzzy photo.  One of the things I like about this vest is the unfinished edge at the top.  I think it makes the vest look more modern.

From the Bazaar Runway Report (Fall/Winter 08) I've been eyeing the black sweater below from Yigal Azrouel.

The image in the magazine is quite small so not easy to get a clear look but I really like the loose shape, the big collar and of course the asymmetrical closing.  

I think it might be a while before I launch into another sweater but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about them.  One last photo.  This is Nell from Kim Hargreaves book Amber.  I've long liked this sweater and have been looking at and thinking about sweater/coat patterns.  I'm not sure about those cabled sleeves though.  That's a lot of sleeve for me.  And a lot of cables all round.  I wish I liked knitting cables more.