Sunday, March 8, 2009

Therapy knitting & spinning

My former work mentor is out of the hospital & his pain is medicated appropriately. He's started radiation -- and all we can do is hope that it'll shrink (and hopefully destroy) the tumor in his brain. On top of this, my current work partner has to have emergency surgery. So, my workload is about to double. Fabulous. Time for some therapy knitting and spinning!

Last fall at Yarn School I dyed pounds and pounds of fiber. I've only taken pictures of production from day one. Above is BFL superwash roving that was crocheted into a single chain braid before dying. It was soaked in water, doused in acid dye, sprayed with citric acid, covered in plastic, and heated in a microwave for about 5 minutes. The color turned out great, and I love the chromatography affect as the color spreads into undyed sections. I've started prepping this fiber to be spun. I'm a little stuck on a regular 3-ply, navajo ply, or fractal method. We'll see.

In the fall I like to knit autumn-looking socks. For some reason the colors above forced me to pluck them from the mill-ends bucket at Needlework Unlimited and begged to become a pair of socks. After a little play on figuring out a toe-up heel flap formula that works for different sizes, I found something that worked.

and finally, here's a pair from last spring that have been marinating in my desk at work. Again these are toe-up socks knit from Koigu mill-ends. Many cousins in my family have received a pair of hand-knit socks. These are destined for Mary!

5 comments:

Guinifer said...

I love your mill-end socks - your pounds o fiber is lovely as well.

Elemmaciltur said...

Sending good vibes for your work mentor and colleague.

As for spinning. I thought that fractal spinning would only work if the colours have definite blocks that repeat themselves. Anyway, would love to see how it turns out.

Holly said...

Hope that all is going well. Lovely yarn - would be interesting as a scarf as well- But one can never have too many socks....

twinsetellen said...

Hang in there. I'll have to ask you about your toe up heel flap. I worked one out once and want to revisit it.

The socks are swell.

Kay-From the Back Yard said...

I think I've said it before, but your socks are awesome.