Dye Another Day

Pre-amble-type-disclaimer:

In 1946 my mother’s Aunt returned to Ireland to retire, having spent all her working-life in England. This Aunt gained a reputation for prefacing any anecdote with the words: “When I came home in ’46” and, in our family, the phrase became a coded by-word for anyone who tended to go on-and-on about an event in their life. I say this, because I’m about to post – yet again – with a mention of my trip to the I Knit Weekender last September.

So… when I was at the I Knit Weekender last September my purchases included Alice Starmore’s book “Fair-Isle Knitting” and a book by Helen Deighan and Linda De Ruiter “Dye one knit one” as well as a few un-dyed hanks and dyes from Linda’s stand “Tall Yarns”.

And… the day I returned from the I Knit Weekender last September was one of the few beautifully sunny days we had all summer. We went down to one of our local beaches with the dogs (and the kids, but that’s a given). We were joined later in the afternoon by my sister and her kids, who were also on the look-out for the perfect place to spend a rare, sunny day here.

As I lolled around in the sunshine, re-counting my tales of “when I was at the I Knit Weekender” to my sister’s sardonic ears – and my slightly more tolerant nieces – I was also mulling over Alice Starmore’s chapter on “Colour”. In her own words:

“I live on a wild and windswept island, very similar to Shetland. The moors, hills, locks and sea are my main sources of inspiration, but inspiration can come from anywhere. Nature, of course, provides us with endless beautiful colours, and art and textiles offer a similar wealth of inspiration.” quote from Fair-Isle Knitting by Alice Starmore

On the pages that follow the above quotation there is a beautiful array of Fair-Isle knits alongside the images that inspired the colour selection.

    

Naturally, I was thinking: “I can do that!” Only… not in Fair-Isle – at least, not yet! In hand-painted yarn. And, as I was thinking all this, I was lying there – on a beach of my adopted hometown, basking in glorious September sunshine – admiring scenes like these:   So when Clarabel and Bootie and I decided to crack open the dyes and undyed hanks from Tall Yarns the following weekend I knew exactly what I wanted to create: a colourway that captured – in yarn – the glory of a sun-drenched day spent on a beach in North County Dublin. I think I was successful. I love the colourway that resulted. I call it “South Shore Rush”. I believe I found the perfect pattern to show off the subtleties of the colours – Rainbow Socks from Magknits.

Colourway: South Shore Rush by: me

The “Dye one knit one” book contains instructions on how to dye self-striping yarn. Being a technique-geek, that’s what I had to try my hand at. I’ll give you the details of what I did on a Thursday-Tour post some Thursday soon – most likely when I set about my next dying session, as I neglected to take photos on this occasion.

Ravelympics Tournament

The Events List for Ravelympics 2010 was posted up the other day. It’s got me all excited about what medals I’m going to try for this year. So your Tour this Thursday is all about my plans for the Ravelympics Tournament (see what I did there?). 

(Don’t know what I’m talking about? Take a look at this link and it might give you more of an idea.) 

So you might remember from my knitting list for 2010 I was thinking of three main projects over the 17 days. 

Blackberry Socks

WIPs Dancing Queen?

Events: WIPs Dancing and Sock Hockey 

Pattern: Adirondack Socks from Interweave Crochet Fall 2009 

Yarn: ShoppelWolle Zauberball in Blackberry 

This project has been languishing since The Knitting and Stitching Show last October, when a certain colour purple caught my eye and a whole new Glenvar got started. 

I absolutely love working with this yarn, so I can’t wait to get started again. 

 

 

Stella

King Cole Merino Blend in Pink

Events: Designer Bi-athlon and Hat Half-pipe 

Pattern: my own 

Yarn: King Cole Merino Blend in Pink 

The thing to bear for Ravelympics is “The One Rule To Rule Them All: Challenge yourself by starting and finishing projects during the 2010 Winter Olympics.”

 Writing and publishing a pattern of my own on Ravelry will be quite a challenge for me. I’m planning to give the pattern to P/Hop if I do manage this.

 

 Ishbel

Ishbel and Dazzle

Events: Short Track Shawls and Lace Luge 

Pattern: Ishbel from Whimsical Knits by Ysolda Teague

Yarn: Dazzle BFL by Natural Dye Studio 

I bought the yarn at I Knit Weekender in London last September with Ishbel in mind. Then, later that day, I won a copy of Whimsical Knits in the raffle that P/Hop were running. 

My Knit-night knitting buddies laughed heartily when they saw I had only allowed one week in my knitting calander to knit an Ishbel – one challenge too far, perhaps? 

Perusing the Events List I’m like a child in a sweet-shop. I want to enter into so many events: 

• The Aerial Unwind Event could be a good one to pick up a few medals and I have two projects in need of frogging. Ravelympics might be just the thing to recapture some lovely yarn from the claws of defeat.
• I have a skein of undyed cotton – also bought at I Knit Weekender last September – that I could enter in the Downhill Dyeing Event. I’ll need to organise myself with the proper dyes for dyeing cotton, however.
• I might try for another WIPs Dancing Event. Below you’ll see a jacket that I’m wearing to death these days even though I don’t consider it to be finished. I feel it needs an additional collar all around the front edges. Again, the impetus of Ravelympics might be just the motivation I need to get the hook out again – if I haven’t collapsed in a heap by the end of February.

I have to be honest and admit that the overall challenge I’m setting myself is to collect as many medals as I can. By the above reckoning I count ten.

To Dye For

It’s probably 18 months ago that I went to a dyeing workshop at This is Knit and I never posted about it.  The class was given by Elana (Elana on Ravelry) and Charlene and it was a blast; I couldn’t believe how quickly the time went. I was joined by some lovely people taking the class: Geraldine (Gerryberry); Mara (she’s on Ravelry, but she couldn’t remember what her name is) and Mary (Fezzik) whom I also know from the Swords Knitting Group.

We started by practicing on two small hanks of Aran-weight wool. The dyes we used are Gaywool Dyes from Austrailia, supplied by Derryaun Crafts. There was a wide seleciton of colours to choose from. For my first effort I used Iceberg (light blue), then Tomato (red) and finally Mulberry (purple). I over-painted one dye on another, to get some interesting gradations. My second effort was Wattle (lime green) and Mulberry – zing!

   

We then graduated to our sock yarn. I decided that I would attempt to do something semi-solid, in honour of how I always buy madly variegated sock yarns but yearn to do heavily patterned socks. I find it’s the knitting equivalent of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”: the colour variations kill the pattern. I used Iceberg with Meadow (light green) and Lily (dark green). I’m not sure if I was successful from the point of view of semi-solid but I absolutely LOVE what I made. I’ve decided it’s destined to be Pomatomus.

I tried to make a Calorimetry with one of my practice hanks but was halfway through the ball after only eight rows or so. DD and DS have requested butterflies – I have no idea where this notion has come from. I also have no idea of how to knit a butterfly. I have an inkling of how I might crochet one. One of these days a chrysalis may form…