Spin and Knit: 2013

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Daffodils in green

Another wheel of fiber from this post spun up.

Certainly reminds me of the spring daffodils in our garden at the moment.

Purple yarn to gift

I used another lot of the fibre from this post;

A bit of Diversion

in a beautiful purple;

To spin and ply this yarn;

Then I used this pattern;
Wandering fingers

To make these;

And then put that together with a modified headband from this pattern, and some little trinkets into a swap parcel for a birthday girl;

Royal Baby vest

I belong to the New Zealands Creative Fibre National organisation, which is a group of people inspired by fibre crafts like spinning, weaving, felting and other things like that.

A member of this organisation was chosen to spin and knit a shawl for the new royal baby Prince George.

You can read about that here;

royal-baby-gift

Also as the Duke and Dutchess of Cambridge are very supportive of charities it was decided that members of our organisation should knit for them to donate to a charity of their choice.

That resulted in the 'baby singlet project' which is running for a year. Members of creative Fiber have responded by knitting baby singlet of newborn size and these are being donated to local hospitals, maternity units and midwives.

The pictures are of my little set of a baby vest, some socks and a bonnet.

I knitted them using the fiber I named "Reef" in this post;

Reef

Farmers market bag

One of those projects that is cool to make with some odd bit of yarn, to decrease the stash.

This one is done with some commercial green wool I bought probably twenty years ago (yes I'm getting old, surely!)

This bag stretches forever!

You find the pattern here, though it is not free.

february-market-bag

Autumn tones

I received some Fawn Merino.

Plus I had 100g of dyed fibre in rose colours.

Spun a single of each and plied into this subtle combination.

After Dinner Mint.

I can't describe this dye effort any other way. It is "After Dinner Mint" for me.

Dyed during an afternoon of playing with colours with a friend, that only produced surprisingly disappointing results.

No matter what we did, which tecnique we used or which colours we chose we ended up with unexplainable colour effects that did not please us.

It was so bad we ended up in giggles every time one of us revealed their dye results and in the end just gave up.

This was one of them;

A white sliver of Anisha's wool went in the pan followed with Acid dyes of Chocolate, Turqoise and Green hues.

It looked gorgeous and then all fell to bits.

The photo isn't great, due to the light, but it wasn't pretty.

I spun it up, what else to do?

And while spinning it actually started growing on me.

It seemed the colours became a bit more intense and defined.

I chose not to ply this single as I wanted to retain this improvement and felt that with plying I would actually even the colours out again.

Washed and fulled it has become a soft and fluffy yarn for needle 4 to 5 mm.

I think I'll make a cowl with it.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Summer surprise processed.

Remember this; My summer dye activity in which I dyed some white fiber with the aid if the sun into some gorgeous multi coloured wheels of plaited fiber.

Well in the mean time I have spun this lot after thinking hard about how to process these colours into some interesting combinations of yarns to be used in one garment.

Below you see the whole selection of colours, devided up into lots to be seperately spun as singles then plied together. On the first photo you see that the first lot is already spun and plied. A combination of two singles of verigated fiber out of that lot;

As you can see here more up close;

Then I spun 1 green and 1 verigated single

Into this plied lot;

Next I spun 1 single in pink and 1 in verigated yarn and plied that together;

Another combo was the pink and green singles plied into a barberpole effect;

Left was the plain green 2 ply to make;

And lastly the pink;

It is not that great a photo, but here you see it all together.

Because it is Barney's wool Kiki wants me to knit her something and wishes for a shawl she won't outgrow.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

felted slippers

During a workshop day with "Creative Fiber" classes, I experienced wet felting for the first time.

Boy that was a lot of fun!

I haven't got photos of the process but this is the result;

Aren't they gorgeous!

Fire in the pan.

One of those projects done because of a "Dye along" chalenge on Ravelry.

This time by the dutch dyers group

Here is the link;

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/dutch-dyers/2495668/1-25

The theme was Fire, the method "In the pot" and the colour "orange"

So thats what I did. Fibre in the pot (soaked in vinegar/ water).

Added dye (yellow in the middle, bright organge, red orange, cherry red and russet red around)

Then I left the pot uoutside in the heat of the day. Look how dry it was. I was desperate for some colour with all that brown, beige and yellow around.

I got colour alright! Above it is still wet.

Below it is dry.

And here it is spun up;

And then knitted up into this cute little Milo top for a 1 year old.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Natural scarf

I had all this yarn still lying around in my stash baskets. Naturally dyed some years ago.

What to use it for???

I chose this pattern;

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/simple-triangular-shawl

Which is very simple in garter stitch with no stipulation for yarns used or gauge as they don't matter. It will work with any yarn.

It is a nice size, warm and soft.

What else would one want????

Morning has Broken

This shawl I crocheted as part of a 'Swap' I took part in.

A swap is fun to do.

On Ravelry there are many "swap" communities and I belong to the "New Zealand and Australia Swaps" group.

Within this group Swaps are organised all through the year.

A swap is a themed exchange of gifts. Often a price value is set along with expectations for content.

If you parttake, you are allocated a partner, (sometimes a 'secret one') by a moderator of the group. And each of you put together a parcel according to the swap rules and these then get send to each other by a certain date.

This shawl I made as part of an Autumn themed swap that needed to contain; a handmade item in Autumn theme, some yarn/ fibre or fabric and two treats.

This is the pattern I used for this shawl.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/morning-has-broken

I am rather pleased with how it turned out.

Now I just hope my partner likes it too.

Swaps are fun and full of surprise. You never kow what you are going to receive. And you are always anxious to see your partners response to what you send.

Can be nervewrecking. But that keeps life entertaining.....

Anyway my partner has received it now, so I can let you share let you know she loved the shawl and the parcel.

Here is what I send;

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/new-zealand--australia-swaps/2523528/51-75#58