Delirious Diva, Done.

After my exams last year I wrote this blog post, describing my new knitting project and the yarn I spun for it. I worked on it here and there, was distracted by renovating the house, a yarn bombing project, and work, so it took me a very, very long time to finish it. But now it's done, and I already wore it to a wedding. I also wear it regularly at home, as it's so warm and cozy.

The photos were taken after the wedding of our friends in Dublin, Ireland. By the way, should you ever need an apartment in Dublin, I highly recommend this one - it's not only pretty, cozy and located in walking distance to the city centre, but Wayne, the owner, is a fantastic host. He made sure we had a fridge full of tasty things (which I wouldn't expect when renting a holiday flat), tea, coffee, and cupboards full of supplies, he even bought us a small loaf of bread and provided fresh flowers.

But let me get back to the knitting stuff ;-) The pattern I used is Line Break by Veera Välimäki, which was well written and easy to follow once I got the hang of it. The wraps and turns were a bit difficult at first, and I think I ended up doing them differently after searching on youtube. I also made a few mistakes with the yarn overs, making them on the wrong side of the stitch marker on occasion. So it's a bit crooked, but I love it :-) There are more photos on Ravelry, if you'd like to have a look.

I'm currently knitting quite a lot after many months of not knitting at all. When I was still knitting the Diva shawl, I started on a small project of mindless knitting to carry around, a scarf for my grandmother which I called Omis Aubergine (Grandma's eggplant). It's nearly done, and I can't wait to give it to her - but as she lives 600 km away, it might be a while.

 
After finishing the Diva shawl, and while still knitting the scarf for my grandmother, I was already looking for something else to knit, and was very happy when I found the Sea Dragon shawl pattern. This was shortly before we went to Dublin for the wedding, and I decided to look for suitable yarn on our trip. I usually don't buy yarn (except for some colourful cotton yarn for yarn bombing projects), but I didn't feel like spinning so much of the same yarn for this, and I wanted to start knitting. This gave me the perfect opportunity to check out This is Knit in Dublin and to buy some souvenir yarn for myself ;-) (By the way: lovely shop, friendly and helpful staff!). I bought two skeins of hand dyed Vivacious 4ply by Fyberspates in wonderful greens, and a skein of Rialto 4ply by Debbie Bliss, and started knitting the very same evening. I love the Viviacious, it's beautiful and fun to knit, but I don't really like the Debbie Bliss one (too little twist, no "life"). I've made a lot of progress since then, but didn't get around to taking a new photo, so here's one from about two weeks ago:

I am halfway through the pattern now and will start the decreases as soon as I have some quiet knitting time. I've already planned the next two projects - so I can't wait to finish this one and start working on the next! It will be either Verdant, which I have already spun two skeins of yarn for, or Sorceress, which I plan to knit from a beautiful and slightly sparkly black yarn I originally spun for Wa na na na na na na na Bat Shawl! years ago. I started knitting (also years ago), made a mistake, didn't like it anymore and put it in a box - so now I figured I could use the yarn for something else. I think it's a bit too thin for the 5,5 mm needles called for in the Sorceress pattern, but as the shawl is very large and wide, maybe slightly smaller needles will also be okay to use, and I think the yarn might work after all.

I have no idea how long my knitting frenzy will last, it usually comes in phases. As winter is coming, however, and there are more knitting people in the house, I might actually finish some projects this time, without long pauses in between ;-)

What are you knitting at the moment? I'd love to chat about projects, if you'd like to leave a comment :-)

New Knitting Project: Line Break

I have to admit: when I was still studying for my exams, I spent quite some time on Ravelry, having to procrastinate every so often ;-) I used to look for new patterns (especially asymmetric ones), but also browse my favourites and imagine how glorious it would be to have some time for spinning art yarn for myself and starting a larger project.

I decided on the Line Break shawl which calls for about 800 m of fingering yarn. I wanted a simple art yarn - no ribbons or charms, but tiny beads and sequins for a glittery yet elegant effect - and I wanted to spin in from a black fibre blend. I recently got my hands on some (commercially dyed) black Bluefaced Leicester fibre which I blended with glossy black alpaca, luxurious merino/silk blend and black merino wool. I spun in black sewing thread strung with black and silver mini sequins and tiny silver seed beads. I love the yarn, and spinning the first skein was a lot of fun, but I tend to find spinning lots of the same yarn quite tedious... I managed about 1000m nonetheless and now I can knit a really large version of the shawl, yay!

I named the yarn and the shawl "Delirious Diva", still being under the influence of the "Sing-Along Songs for the Damned and Delirious" album by The Diablo Swing Orchestra :-D

I started a few days ago, while being entertained by my husband playing The Walking Dead on the PS3. It's quite disgusting, but fun to watch while knitting (also enthralling), and I'm looking forward to more :-)

I always find it hard to take photos of black fibre and yarn - these could be better, but I hope you enjoy this post anyway :-)

Necromantic Knitting

A while back, I spun two versions of my Necromancer art yarn (one of which is still available in the shop), a thread-plied art yarn made from different kinds of black fibre, hand dyed wild silk, and bone skull beads, as well as other add-ins, varying with the two versions of the yarn. When I spun the basic yarn I thought this would look gorgeous as an unplied, single yarn as well, without add-ins, for a simple warm shawl. Since it's been a while since I spun anything for myself, I decided to do just that :-)
 

My husband and I spent our weekend with his family, celebrating his mother's birthday, and family reunions like that are usually a welcome opportunity for me to take out my knitting or my spindle. My sister-in-law has recently learned how to knit, too, so I even had company :-) I wanted a simple project I could take with me, so I decided to knit another shawl from the pattern I used for my Dark Atlantis shawl.

The beauty of this is: if you use stitch markers, you don't even have to count or pay much attention :-)

I made the stitch markers myself, of course. I made quite a lot for our upcoming crafts fair, and I keep thinking I should take photos and list them in the shop, along with our yarns. What do you think, dear customers? Would you be interested? :-)

By the way - there's also an art yarn in the shop which combines a wonderful single yarn like the one I just showed you (made from a very similar fibre blend, and containing the very last of the hand dyed wild silk) and the bone skull beads from the original necromancer art yarn:

Scathach

To be found here :-)

Snape and the Pirate

Hi everyone, it's been quiet here on the blog for a while now. I've had so much to do I was hardly able to keep up with it all (well, *not* able to keep up with it all, as my absence here shows), but I've wanted to show you two finished pieces by one of our customers for so long now, and now I finally can:

Severus Snape

Heather combined our Snape art yarn with mohair and made this stunning hood. She let her daughter wear it for the photoshooting, and she told us 

"I can't wait for cold weather to see the silk fluttering in the wind!"

 What a wonderful thought! :-)

A Pirate's Life for Me

What a gorgeous piece, and how fitting for the pirate yarn! Here's what Heather says:

"I added a little bit of a gray and black yarn at the top that had long locks spun into it that matched your yarn perfectly! This is the link to the pattern I used: www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hole-y-triangle-scarf
It's a great pattern to use for this type of yarn, I think it really shows the textures and the add ins!"

You can find Heather as ThePinkPirate on Etsy, or visit her blog. Heather, thank you so much again for the pictures!

Made from Art Yarn - Autumnal Shawl

Last week, we got a wonderful surprise: One of our customers shared some pictures of a shawl she made from one of our art yarns - AND she kindly allowed us to blog some of them, too. Now I finally got around to doing just that, so have a look at this amazing piece:

I love the way the art yarn and the fine yarn look together. I'd never have thought yarns of such different weight would look so stunning in combination. 

...and here's a picture of the original yarn itself, just so you don't have to go looking for it ;-)

Autumnal Subtlety

We asked for some info about about needle size and the yarns Heather combined with our art yarn, and here is what she said:

"It was a pleasure to knit! I used size 10, 29" circular needles, and combined your fabulous yarn with recycled silk sari ribbon from designtalentedone in Butterscotch Lace and kid mohair / silk lace yarn in Fern from walkcollection. One skein of each."

You can find Heather as ThePinkPirate on Etsy, and she also has a blog.
Thank you so much for sharing these pictures, Heather!

HELP! Knitting (Book) Advice Needed!

Hello fellow knitters :-)

I've written about a special project a while ago: a shawl/scarf made from handspun ocean art yarns. I have been searching for patterns lately, and I am now pretty sure what I want. I had stumbled upon the Dreamcoat on Ravelry before and I think the basic pattern of longish parts and squares would look great as a shawl. Let me show you a very crude drawing of what I roughly imagine the shawl to look like:

(I know - it's a bad drawing and a bad photo, but I hope you get the idea ;-))

Now, if the book containing the pattern (Dazzling Knits) were just a normal printed book, I'd just order it on Amazon, have a look inside and send it back if it was not what I wanted. But the book is out of print, I can't have a look inside and I don't want to spend $15 on a book I am not sure is the one I need. I have to admit I don't really like the other patterns in it, I only want to learn the basics - making the squares and long parts of the Dreamcoat and use them in a different way.

Now, this is where I need you: can any of you tell me anything more about the book? Can you recommend it even to someone who doesn't like most of the patterns? Can you recommend any other book, website, or explain the techniques I need for this project?

I've already had a look at other books on modular knitting, but none of them seemed to explain how to make the longer parts I'd need. One of the books ("Modular Knits: New Techniques for Today's Knitter" by Iris Schreier) looked good, I thought - but there were many bad reviews saying it contained lots of errors, and you had to join the author's discussion group for help. I also thought "Domino Knitting" by Vivian Hoxbro looked good, but I am not sure whether it contains everything I need.

Please help!
Thanks :-)

Mysterious Project Revealed

A short while ago, I hinted at a secret project I was planning for myself. Well, now - here it is, or at least, here is the plan and part of what I'll need :-)

When I saw some beautiful, drilled sea glass on Etsy, I started day-dreaming about an ocean-themed shawl. I don't like spinning lots of the same yarn (it gets boring far too quickly ;-)), so I thought about spinning a variety of ocean-themed yarns, spun in different styles, textures and colours. I thought a shawl made from them would be marvellous - but then I looked at the prices for drilled sea glass and postponed further thoughts about the shawl.

It came to mind again when the wonderful potzblitz, with whom I had already traded cute toadstool glass beads, offered to make some more glass beads in exchange for a skein of art yarn. I requested glass beads looking like sea glass. I wanted them to be irregular, colourful and frosted - and here they are:

Aren't they wonderful?

After I learned I would get them, I started spinning the first yarns for my project. Before I can spin a yarn containing the beautiful glass beads, however, I'll need time to dye some fibre. I'm thinking dark, stormy grey-greenish-turquoisish, and I won't add much else than the beads, so they will stand out.


So far, I've spun four yarns for the shawl: two small skeins and two regular ones.

The small ones are corespun yarns, the core of which consists of glow-in-the-dark-thread. One is of light turquoise and contains dark sea shells and large peacock freshwater pearls; the other is of dark grey and dark teal, and contains lots of angelina and shimmering sequins.
I spun one of the larger skeins from hand dyed wool/silk blend, adding lots of freshwater pearls, frosted seed beads and sequins. For the last one, I carded and spun up a batt from merino wool of many different shades of teal and turquoise, orange highlights and sparkling angelina. It also contains lots of seed beads, some white sea shells, and commercial eyelash yarn.

Amazing Pumpkins

I've just received word from one of our customers about a beautiful shawl she has made from one of our art yarns. Maybe some of you remember the Wild Pumpkin yarn I spun for myself, and which I've knitted into a gorgeous bag - if not, you can look at it here ;-)

When I posted pictures of the yarn and bag on Ravelry, JumperCables asked me to spin a similar yarn for her and I happily did so. Now she blogged about it and kindly allowed me to use one of her pictures.

Here you can find her blog entry and more photos - I think she'd love you to visit her blog :-)

I am thrilled to see another of our art yarns transformed into something stunning and wearable and I am very happy JumperCables has given me the permission to show it to you, too. Thanks again!

Odds and Ends

There's nothing new, really, I just wanted to let you know we haven't forgotten our blog readers ;-)

I still can't spin on a wheel, but I'm feeling a lot better and can walk again, though not without pain.

We won't be able to participate in the Tour de Fleece this year, because we'll be on vacation. Which reminds me: we will close the shop for about two and a half weeks (starting Thursday morning, our time zone), so if you need some yarn before we leave, be quick ;-)

I'm planning a new knitting project to take with me to Norway (yes, that's where we'll be going :-)) and have decided on the Myrtle Leaf Shawl (ravelry link) from Victorian Lace Today. I'll be using handspun and hand dyed dark greenish/blueish icelandic wool which has been lying around for a few months now. Hopefully I'll make enough progress to show you when I return. But I also need to work on the Scarf of HoRRoR, so we'll see... ;-)

I have taken advantage of my non-spinning situation by creating this beautiful shawl pin from hammered silver wire:

...which I have then bartered for delicious redcurrant and elderflower/orange jelly :-) I had registered for a German trading forum previously, that's where the trade took place. I already have a request for another pin like this and I'll be swapping it for handmade glass beads I can spin into yarn. I hope to show them to you when I get back!

We'll be back at the end of July - take care and be creative! :-)

More than a year ago...

... I had THE idea for a birthday present. I even hinted at it, but then never got around to telling you properly about it.
I had stumbled upon this blog post mentioning silver fox hair and really wanted to get my hands on that stuff, since my mother is a great fox lover. It took me a while to track the source down, and even more to find someone who could tell me whether the foxes were harmed in the process, something which I wouldn't want. It turned out they were semi-domesticated and the hair was obtained by combing them. That sounded fine to me, so I purchased some of the fibre (the most expensive fibre I have ordered yet) and tried spinning it. It was a small desaster, to tell you the truth. Spinning these short hairs was very time-consuming and veeeery nerve-wracking, so I tried blending them with cashmere, which is also short in staple length but kind of gluey. That worked a lot better, but it still took me some time until I had about 700m of silver fox/cashmere yarn. I knew what I wanted to make from it - a simple garter stitch triangle shawl, such as this one. Oh - did I mention I was on a tight schedule? I am not too fast a knitter, and I had less than two months for spinning and knitting (and blocking and shipping) the whole thing. Maybe some of you will laugh now and think that's plenty of time, but not for me ;-)

Anyway, I did manage it in time for April 27th, but there was no time left to take photos of the shawl. I had to wait for that until my wedding in September, and now I've taken until now to show you ;-)

So - here is my mother, on my wedding day, wearing her silver fox shawl:

Knit on 3mm needles in about 3 weeks, if I remember correctly. It's wonderfully soft and delicate, and I like the colour and texture, but it sheds quite a lot. Mum doesn't seem to mind, though. I still have some yarn left (I'm not sure, but it has to be nearly half the amount I spun) and maybe I will knit a small bag or purse to go with the shawl. I still have nearly two weeks left until shipping day for Mum's next birthday ;-)
Oh, the pattern can be found here, by the way. Very easy and fun to knit :-)

I want a Klingon Shawl!

Yesterday it was suddenly very clear: I want a shawl with stockinette Klingon insignia on a lace background. I even have quite a clear picture in my head - but I have no idea how to accomplish this. I am not a very good knitter (though advancing) and I have to learn a lot about knitting until I can design stuff like that. Oh my... Have to plough through a heap of knitting books now and hope to find something that'll help me :-D
Think I'm weird? Well, yes - I am called Weird, ain't I?

Fresh Batts

I am looking forward to spinning these - but somehow I have a lot of dyed or carded fibre I want to use and there doesn't seem to be enough time (as always ;-)). I've also begun to spin some yarn for myself which I want to use for the Wa na na na na na na na
Bat Shawl! :-)

Dark Atlantis (Triangular Shawl) - finished!

I promised pictures of the Dark Atlantis triangular shawl - and here they are! :-)
The shawl can also be worn as a scarf which makes this beauty even better and more practical. I am so very happy with it :-)

Fresh Colours

I have been busy dyeing once again :-) Some of the colours are too bright for my taste, but they will make lovely spring yarns. I absolutely love how the colour turned out on the handspun cashmere (right side, front), it's perfect for me.
Click the picture to see which fibres I've dyed.


I have also finished the triangluar shawl, in fact, it took me only two days and I am very happy with it - but I haven't been able to take good pictures, yet. I will try to take some on the weekend.

Dark Atlantis - Triangular Shawl

Remember Dark Atlantis? Remember I said I wanted to keep it? Well, I sold it to Sigrids Datterdatter and spun a second, slightly different version for myself. It turned out to be quite a lot of yarn (247 m/114 g) and I started searching the internet for patterns. I have wanted to make a triangular shawl for quite a while, but I never got around to spinning enough yarn for myself.



I found a very helpful website containing information about yardage and needle size for a one skein shawl that encouraged me to try it. They used yarn of similar weight and nearly the same amount as my Dark Atlantis (II).
Before I started, I made some matching, extra large stitch markers which I absolutely love :-)