Just Add Colour

Today's topic in the Spinning Certificate class is dyeing. We're told to bring "lots of small skeins". Here's my little collection: I've wound them off this morning on my medium sized niddy-noddy. There's about 10 metres in each skein--just plain white wool. I'm not sure exactly what the plan is for today, but if it involves dyeing, it's got to be good.

Meanwhile, Back at the Armchair

I've finished the red wool-alpaca capelet. Now I've started knitting a little neck warmer out of mint green bamboo-cotton. It's a perfect Spring project and designed to limber up my circular knitting skills:
But I still have two major "armchair projects" requiring attention. The Bushfire blanket is all finished, except for one of the fringed edges. I can do that as soon as I manage to clear my big table. Clearing the table is a challenge. The fringing is easy enough. The Engagement Gift blanket needs a few more rows of crochet. I'm not sure how many because I have plenty of wool and I could really go on for ever. I need to decide how big is big enough. Then it too needs to have the fringes tied and cut. That project is going to wait for the next cool morning. Meanwhile, I could pull it out and measure and plan how many more rows it needs. Maybe I could do that when I have the big table clear . . .

A Friend is Someone Who . . .

The phone rang unexpectedly yesterday morning. It was L from the Neighbourhood House. She was ringing because someone had brought a bunch of Irises from their garden to cheer up the House kitchen. The purple ones were dripping colour--literally--all over the kitchen floor. Did I want to try dyeing with them? And the others were just irresistably gorgeous. Would I like to come down with my camera to capture their beauty?

Yes, and Yes!

Here one pic of the intact irises:
The purple ones are in my dye pot on the stove as we speak. From my hurried research, I'm doubtful of getting a good colour from them, but what the heck, it's worth a try.

Knitting on the Tram

One more advantage of using circular needles--it's so much easier to knit on a crowded tram. When I knit with my long straight needles anyone who sits on my right is liable to be poked in the ribs by a stray elbow or knitting needle. Turns out that's not very socially acceptable. With my circular needle my knitting sits neatly in my lap and my neighbours are safe.

I had to catch the tram into the city yesterday afternoon. I was accompanied by my bag of knitting, of course. Here's where that project is up to:

I'm pretty much guaranteed a conversation with a stranger when I knit on public transport. At the very least, a glance and a smile, or an enquiring look. Yesterday was a bonus. A young man got into the tram a stop or two after me. I was sitting, knitting away. I felt him watching my knitting and caught his eye. How to describe him? I'm guessing, in his early twenties; hair: half pitch black, half fire-engine red, style: straight up!

"What are you knitting?"

"It's a little cape. I've started from the top and I'm knitting down, increasing as I go", I said, holding it out for him to see. Somehow his 'what are you knitting?' question sounded knowledgable.

"Oh," he said, "I like to start at the bottom, and do my shaping with decreases"

"Mmmm, yeah,", I said, "except this is a handspun yarn and I have no idea how far it will go."

Intelligent nod . . . "Did you spin it yourself?" . . .

. . . turns out he's a spinner too. By this time the tram has reached Lygon St and we're just about level with the Guild rooms.

"Do you ever come to the Guild?"

. . . I told him about our Experimental Spinning group and invited him along. As he was about to jump off the tram, he confessed, that he has a loom as well.

I kept on with my knitting with a smile on my face.

Knitting Style

I'm usually a "pit knitter"--I tuck my right knitting needle under my arm to support the weight of the knitting. That leaves my hand free to flick the wool over the needle. It's not the fastest way of knitting in the world, but it's comfortable. Above all, it's the style that my muscles have learnt to consider as "normal". Usually I'm happy with that style of knitting. But there are a few situations when a different style works better. If I'm managing lots of stitches--a scarf knit sideways for example--it's easier to use a circular needle to distribute the bulk of stitches more evenly. And then of course to actually knit in the round--that just can't be done with a needle tucked under my arm. So, I've been practising a different style of knitting. The only way I can do it at the moment is to actually use a circular needle: I'm getting there, but it feels wierd and I'm still rather awkward at it. It's a bit like writing with your non-dominant hand: the logical part of your brain knows what is wanted, but the part of your brain responsible for movement control takes extra time to process, and then the movement doesn't flow as smoothly. I'm working on the assumption that practice is the only solution. So I currently have two projects going on circular needles. The red alpaca-wool in this pic, and the variegated wool-silk I featured a few weeks ago. When I'm feeling a bit more confident I want to have another go at socks.

If you're wondering about my weaving sample, rest easy. I finished the threading yesterday and have started the next step. I seem to have mis-counted the number of warp threads, so I'm checking and double-checking as I go along. Worst case scenario I can just drop off some extra warp threads at one end of the weaving. I guess mistakes like that is one reason to do sampling--better make the mistakes now than with the real thing.

Progress Report

Here's where I'm up to with my double weave sample: I've worked out my threading on paper, made my warp and am half-way through threading it. So far, no fatal errors. Even though it's a 24-thread repeat sequence that I'm working with, I'm not finding it too hard to keep track of where I'm up to. I guess that's because I spent so long on mapping it out, that I have a mental image of the two different layers. Even so, I won't be answering the phone until I've finished each sequence--they can ring back!

Planning

Well, I didn't get to sampling yesterday. Here's what I did do:

I guess it's a question of approach. My basic training is in science, so before I set up my experiment--sampling--I wanted to test my theory on paper. I'm planning to make a double-weave tube. My goal is for the folds between the two layers to flow seamlessly. So I spent several hours yesterday with pencil and paper drafting out the weave structures for my top and bottom layers and checking how they interact. I think I've got it. Now it's time to test my hypothesis on the loom.