I’m knitting up my green yarn into leaves for my Green Man. The leaf patterns are from Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Flowers, though I’ve altered the pattern slightly.
I’m going to use up all this handspun making these. It won’t be enough for the piece because I want a forest of leaves on him. I’m pulling out most of the green in my stash for this project.
I started spinning up the periwinkle roving I bought from Lonesome Stone. It is lovely to spin. A girl could get spoiled spinning their stuff. I’m hitting their booth first thing at next year’s Wool Fest.
I’m challenging myself by spinning pretty thin which will eventually become a 2 ply.
I’ve started a fun hat for my friend Grant.
It may look normal now but when I add the chicken legs you’ll see. Well, turkey legs in this case. I’m making the Chicken Viking Hat.
Anyone that knows Grant knows that he’s the type of guy who will wear a hat resembling a plucked turkey proudly. I can’t wait to give it to him.
I took his head measurements while he was visiting in the summer. He’s a very tall guy so I’m going with a custom fit.
The yarn is Knit Picks Swish DK superwash. I figured that way Grant won’t have to fiddle with special washing instructions. It’s nice yarn-soft and pretty with good stitch definition.
I’m working on my woven piece for next year’s Beyond The Fringe. It’s going to be a long narrow strip with felt and needlework on top. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough blue yarn so I recently spun up more.
This is stash yarn that I plied together. These two skeins are a little over 250 yards.
I started the Green Man back in April, full of inspiration from the Beyond The Fringe show. I cut out the felt background and then let it sit while I formed a vision.
This month I picked it up again. So far my art has featured Goddess images. I wanted to shift gears and focus on the Pagan God. The Green Man has long been one of my favorite incarnations. This piece is going to be big.
The first layer is the Earth’s mantle.
The brown and gray represent rocks and dirt.
I’m adding green now which is the forest, leaves and grass.
Prana has inspected my work and approves. He doesn’t sit on it like he does the mother piece though.
The yarn I dyed will be made into leaves for this piece.
This piece is very fun. I’m loving it so far. It’s satisfying because so far it’s turning out exactly as I’m envisioning.
My yarn and socks are rinsed and dried. I’m very happy with the results!
I used Jacquard Acid Dyes in Kelly Green and Chartreuse.
The natural heathering makes the dye job heathered.
I’ll be using these for a fiber art piece. I’m making a Green Man and will be knitting a ton of green leaves.
I’m working on the background now and will post pics soon.
Here’s the original natural gray for comparison:
Awhile back Thebes bought several pairs of kilt hose. One pair ended up being too small so he gave them to me. They’re a wool, angora, nylon mix. But they were white. I’m clutzy and avoid white clothing because I just end up staining it.
I put them into Laura‘s purple dye pot.
They turned out pretty cool. One of the fibers must have resisted the dye or reacted to the dye differently.
These socks are toasty warm too.
While doing the photo shoot Sieben came over with his toy bunny. How can I resist such cuteness?
Recently Laura and I got together for a dye day. It was so fun! I brought my gray heathered yarn and some commercial socks to dye. She had yarn and roving to kettle dye and handpaint.
Laura gets ready to mix up dye:
Here’s me filling up a pot for kettle dyeing:
Presoaking the fiber:
We both used Jacquard Acid Dyes. This is Chartreuse.
Laura dyed silk roving and Knit Picks bare yarn. My white socks are in here too.
I brought Sieben along for a doggie play day. He was SO excited to play with her dogs Bobo and Didi.
Our dye prep area:
Here’s Laura handpainting some mohair roving:
Our friend Meredith had suggested dyeing darker colored yarn. I decided to try it with my gray yarn. Here’s the Chartreuse:
From the left-my socks, Laura’s bare yarn and silk roving.
From the left-her handpainted mohair roving and bare yarn.
I split my yarn into two batches. I’m dyeing the second batch in Kelly Green.
Her metal grid table worked great for laying out the wet yarn.
We learned some things that day. We ended up using too much water and too much dye while kettle dyeing. For the Kelly Green I used less water but forgot to use less dye. Laura liked the way her handpainted roving turned out but didn’t like the look of the handpainted bare yarn.
We also forgot to rinse out our fiber. The smell of vinegar was pretty strong! I rinsed out mine yesterday. More pics in the next post.
The weather was wonderful for a dye day. Sunny, warm, no wind-a wonderful fall day. We had such a good time and will definitely do it again!
I finished spinning up my gray fleece that I bought at the 2008 Taos Wool Festival.
Here’s what I started with:
I got a bit over 300 yards.
That seems kind of small considering the huge bag of fleece I bought. I did spin it into a bulky two ply. The mini skein was leftovers on one bobbin that I spun up Navajo style.
This fleece was scratchy and full of veggie matter so a bulky weight seemed best.
A close up:
How much veggie matter was there? Here’s a pic of my lap while I was spinning this stuff.
I was listening to the Sticks and Strings Podcast. It’s a good show.
Prana is still as cute as ever. Here he is sleeping:
As a Pagan I could have celebrated Samhain on the calendar date Oct. 31st, also Halloween. But the full moon was only two days afterwards. Plus the vibe today felt more like Samhain if that makes sense.
Anyway, I finished my green lace socks today so am naming them my Samhain socks. A new pair of socks for the new year. I like it!
This is the Lace And Cables sock pattern from Wendy Johnson‘s book Socks From The Toe Up.
These are the best fitting socks I’ve made yet. Side views:
I altered the pattern some. I did short row toes and heels and did a sewn bind off. Wow, does the sewn bind off ever kick some serious ass! Most of the time my sock cuffs are too tight. I have to bind off about three or four times before it’s right. That clearly wasn’t working so I tried the sewn bind off. It’s elastic and stretchy and perfect.
The biggest alteration was putting the lace pattern on the back of the leg.
This is the first time I’ve used Tofutsies yarn. I like it. It’s soft to work with and feels wonderful against the skin. The yarn is somewhat splitty and slippery on needles. I enjoyed this yarn so much I bought another skein of it before these socks were even finished.
Sieben’s fun to model with:
Pattern: Lace And Cables Socks
Source: Socks From The Toe Up
Yarn: South West Trading Company Tofutsies, green
Needles: 2.0 mm
Size: custom
Modifications: several, see above
Started: May 2009
Finished: November 2009