Flowers Ahead

The colour of this crochet flower reminds me of the now ubiquitous high-visibility work wear. It amuses me to think of some-one wearing a pretty blossom to dress up their safety vest.
I made it from a sample of hand-dyed cotton from a colour wheel I dyed a couple of years ago for a class. The yarn has been hanging around waiting to be put to use since then. I'm thinking of using each of the samples this way and I took the least atttractive to try first.

Next?

Having completed the red rock laceweight yarn, I had a look around to see what else I have waiting for my attention. There's this:

100 grams of kid mohair top. I can't remember where I bought it, but the colours are bright and exciting. The alternative is another 100 grams of wool-silk blend, but undyed. The kid mohair has two advantages for me just now. It will require a different approach to spinning and it has the colour variations already there to hold my interest. But I will need to do a bit of extra planning to make the most of the characteristics of the fibre. 

Rocks

I finished spinning the red rock wool-silk yarn.

I had 50 grams. As I wound it off the bobbin I measured 410 metres. That's equivalent to my commercial laceweight yarn, so I'm reasonably happy with my result. And it's a sweet glossy soft, fine yarn. There was a fair bit of variation in the colour of the tops I bought. That has evened out to some extent with the spinning and plying, but it's still going to be a bit of a surprise as it knits up. Now I just need to decide what to do with it.

More Dyeing

I pulled out the dye pots on the weekend. Actually I used the rice cooker, which is one of my favourite dye pots. I still have a fair bit of the alpaca yarns, so I tried a little comparison.

I guess this is a bit of a test of the quality of the monitor's colour display. The differences are clearer in real life than they are on this computer. I've put a scrap of the undyed yarn on top of the dyed skeins: beige on the right, grey on the left. These are both natural fleece colours and the grey in particular look quite distinct to me, but they over-dye remarkably well. There's just a slightly different shading in the colour between the two. Now to admit, they're not quite dry yet, so I'll need to wait a little before I can wind them off and put them to use.

Slippery Slope

I'm still playing with the Christmas stocking idea. I asked myself how far I could simplify the shape before it lost its appeal. Somewhere there's a a line between "too cute" and "too tacky" . . .

For me these crochet stocking shapes have gone too far. They're easy to make, but have lost their appeal. Now I have at least  one more approach to a "real" stocking to try before I decide how to proceed.

Another?

I looked out a pattern for a mini-Christmas stocking. I wanted to compare it with the teeny tiny sock I'd made. 

The patterns I found were knitted flat with a seam down the back, but I decided to knit mine in the round. I don't like sewing up and if I'm going to make a few of these that will be an issue. I also converted the shaping so that it mirrors on opposite sides of the stocking. I don't find it as adorable as the real sock, but it has more of the Christmas look, maybe . . . 

Mascot

Today is the day of the football grand final in Melbourne. Do I care? No, not particularly, but there's something to be learned from every situation. The footy clubs have their various mascots, and I need one too. Here's what I made.

It's called the wee tiny sock and it's perfect in all its parts: cuff, leg, heel flap, heel, gussets, foot and toe. I've been wanting to have another go at sock knitting and this was a fun cute little warm up. And it's helped to cheer me up a bit too. On the strength of it I got going on a few other long-neglected jobs. Ultimately I may make some more as Christmas decorations. Now I don't expect a full-on cheer squad, but I have chores to do before I settle down to some more knitting.