A Fiber Arts Studio | Weaving & Knitting | Teacher & Purveyor
Well, I’m back to doing the things I do, I just haven’t been posting about them. The photo is a sample for a class I’ve developed and will be teaching at the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati in the fall. I’ll let you all know when it’s scheduled. It is a symmetrical mixed warp scarf that I direct warped, right onto the rigid heddle loom. It’s quite the stash buster.
I bought a new dress to wear for a wedding tonight, it just needed the right accessory to make it look great. So this morning I pulled out one of my silk scarf blanks and mixed up a little Jet Black Jaquard Acid Dye in a jar with boiling water. I made a shibori “donut” by folding the scarf in half and rolling it around a piece of cotton twine on the diagonal. You then pull the twine tightly and tie it to make a little silk donut. Then I wet it and dunked it into the jar of dye. After microwaving it on and off to keep it hot and stirring it with a chopstick, I added the vinegar to set the dye. I microwaved it a little more, then rinsed well with synthopol and ironed it dry. In less than an hour, I had the perfect accessory! Check out my Instagram feed, measuredthreads, for a few more photos.
I finished a WiP (work in progress) yesterday, Hyrna með krónuprjóni is finally finished after 7 years (approximately 6.75 of those years it was in a bag). Now it is a FO (finished object). I will submit it to my Weaver’s Guild UFOFF (unfinished objects finally finished) Challenge Exhibit in a week and it will be on display in the guild gallery for a while beginning in May.
Here is a pic of it before being blocked.
After soaking in a little warm water and Eucalan wool wash, she needs to be shaped and pinned out to dry. I folded it in half for blocking to save space (along with my back–bending over and pinning it out takes a while) andto keep the symmetry.
Wet blocking is a transformative process that softens the yarn, lets the stitches settle into place, stretches out and shapes and opens the lace. When it is fully dry and you unpin it, the shawl keeps it shape.
Have I said how much I love Old Shale lace?
Socks in progress. The pink pair is waiting patiently to be removed from the machine and have the toes grafted closed.
They will be part of the basket my study group is putting together for a raffle at the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati for the Fiber Arts Fair we are having on April 30. If you are interested in buying fiber art or making fiber art (members will be selling used equipment a tools and extra stash yarn) come to the Fair at the Guild House! I will have cowls, sock and some towels to sell.
I also finished up a pair of clogs for my 13 year old son. They were a collaborative effort. I bought the yarn, my daughter did most of the knitting. I finished the knitting, sewed them up and felted them. Here they are pictured with my size 8.5 foot.
He has outgrown two pairs (grown 8 inches in the last year), here is the first pair I knit Pair 1 and a post when I was working on his second pair. (for some reason I didn’t take a pic after they were finished) so the new ones are bigger than his size 10 feet to have a little growing room.
My local weavers guild has started a member challenge called UnFinished Objects Finally Finished. (UFOFF). Last week I dug a shawl in its bag out of a box on my yarn storage shelves. No pattern or notes were with it. Today I located the book and made a copy of the chart and translation page for the instructions. A few years back I was in a lace shawl knitting phase. I had finished a lovely shawl from a book called Þríhyrnur og langsjöl / or Three-cornered and long shawls by Sigridur Halldorsdottir. The book was in written in Icelandic but came with a translation of some of the text in the book. The patterns are all charted.
The first shawl I knit from the book was called Hyrna Herbogar and it was fun, but tricky.
For my second one, I chose a simpler pattern based on Old Shale lace called Hyrna Með Krónuprjóni (or HMK as it will be referred to from now on). Here is the photo from the book. Mine will look different since I chose a striping sock yarn called Noro Kuryeon in natural colors.
Based on my project notes in Ravelry, I began working on HMK March 16, 2009 and sometime in May, 2009, put it down. From the posts in the Three Cornered Knitters group on Ravelry it appears that I had figured out I was going to run out of yarn for the second time. The post says I had 34% remaining to knit and only 32% of my total yarn remaining (checked by weighing it in grams on a digital scale before and during the knitting). Then there was also a post that said I traded some handmade soap for the some Kuryeon Sock color 149 that another Ravelry member had leftover when she finished her socks. The yarn came pretty quickly after the trade was negotiated, but I never picked HMK back up to start knitting again.
How did I know how far I was you ask? I am a geeky knitter and I like to make spreadsheets for shawl patterns to keep track of my yarn usage and percentage completed.
So to document how far the shawl was when I picked it back up to finish, here she is two weeks shy of 7 years after beginning.
Fortunately all my stitch markers were still in place. Based on the number of stitches in the first section of the chart, I figured out I was on row 13 of the 32 row repeat. Then I remembered the spread sheet and counted the total number of stitches on the needle to figure out the actual row I was on and it matched with that row of the repeat. It was a simple knit 3, purl to the last 3 stitches, knit 3. Then I went on to row 14 on the chart and was a stitch off when I got to the center. (The chart is only half the shawl, then you mirror it for the other half as you knit.) Fortunately the stitch markers helped me narrow down that the mistake was in the section closest to the center. I read my knitting, compared it to the chart, and figured out that about 6 stitches away from the center and 3 rows below, my needle had caught a strand and I had knit it as if it were a stitch, increasing by one stitch in that section. It was an easy fix, I just dropped the unneeded stitch down the 3 rows to where I had caught it and can now knit on! I have 168 stitches on the needle (started with 384) and I am on row 76 of 130 and 21,512 stitches out of 26,128 total to be knit therefore it is 82% complete. Each row decreases as I knit, so it should go pretty quickly. I will update my progress on Instagram if you’d like to follow. #UFOFF
I am selling some of my handmade items at the upcoming Fiber Arts Sale at the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati. The sale begins Friday, November 13 at 4 p.m. and continues on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. The work of many skilled artisans of the guild will be available to purchase for yourself or for Christmas gifts that show you care enough to give hand-made. My cowls that are pictured here are hand-knit with luxurious merino wool hand dyed in Uruguay by a family business (Malabrigo Yarn) that hires local women, uses environmentally friendly dyeing practices, and sources the wool from non-mulsed sheep that are shepherded in the hills of Uruguay. They are a warm and cushy fashion statement. If you can’t make it to the sale, contact me about knitting one just for you!
Some of my indigo dyed, shibori style cotton napkins are also in the sale. They are priced for sale in pairs so that you can make a set of 2, 4, 6 or more, and each napkin is unique. Indigo is a classic color and shibori-inspired fashion and home decor items are really trending right now. They sure make a for snazzy table at a dinner party or just for you family meals.
I have a dye day coming up and can make more napkins, along with generously sized silk scarves that flatter everyone.
I also have submitted handwoven cotton and linen towels to the sale. The warp is ring spun natural cotton and the weft is a blue cotton/linen blend. Each has a unique weaving pattern. They are individually priced, so you can buy one, two, or all four if you get there in time! Want to commission a set of towels for a gift? Contact me and I can make something similar to meet your needs.
The Weavers Guild is located at 480 Gray Road, near Spring Grove Cemetery. I’ll be there from 4-8 p.m. on Friday evening. Get there Friday if you want the best selection, there is always a line waiting to get in.