On the Road Again

just can't wait to get back on the road again...

In the last week we were forced to leave our beautiful workspace where previous sock kong citings occurred. The new space is just too depressing to show, although I did get a promotion. (Woo for sustainable, & livable wage!) On top of this, I'm back to traveling 'round the state- and the next few weeks are full of travel days.

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Last weekend I finished knitting the short version of Laminaria. Aside from the first row of the last chart not printing (prompting an emergency rush-hour phone call to Deepa to save the day), it's a stellar pattern. Someday I'll probably knit the longer version. During all of last week I asked friends and co-workers what they thought of the army camo-ish variegation. There were 12 likes and only4 dislikes. Here's a reminder of what it looked like:

Minutes after finishing the shawl I knew I hated it and started drawing up a dye bath. Bright, light lime-y green didn't cover the tan/brown, so I blued-up the solution and darkened just until it covered the variegation just enough for a monochrome green. I tried to maintain as much color intensity as possible, and am really pleased with the results.

The tips were dyed lighter than the center, thus a slight ombre to the finished piece.

Go on, knit one or two Laminaria shawls yourself!

Back to Blogging

Hello dear readers,

Sorry for the recent 2-week blogging hiatus. No, I wasn't on n a fabulous vacation --haven't had one of those for years. We're in the midst of transitioning work spaces, so it's been busy-ish, but I shouldn't have neglected you or the blog for this long!

Before talking about recent knitting projects (I'll save spinning for another post), there was one really exciting event that I was lucky enough to attend last week in my hometown on 6/3/08. Any guesses?

We waited in this massive line for a few hours.

Eventually we walked in serpentine fashion, deposited beverages & umbrellas outside and found seats. Via cell phone texting & mini web page browsing during the wait we learned that Barack Obama was the Democratic party nominee. Wahoo!

Shortly thereafter the headliners arrived on stage.Here's a view of what it's like to see Obama speak from the nosebleeds. The crowd was fired up and ready to.... make lots of noise. At times it was soo noisy that I 'heard' the speech by reading the prompts on screen.

serious yay!

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A co-worker of mine recently gave me a lovely gift - basenji sock blockers. They were patterned after a Fiber Trends blue blocker size medium, although these are thicker and taller than the pattern.

He used oak for the foot/leg, and used walnut to join them together. Apparently he also made the brass hanger, too. (He is not taking orders for future blockers. Sorry.)Here's how it looks in action -

(and yeah, I finished the Monkeyfish socks too. :)***

Since it's summer, I'm back to lace and sock knitting full-time.

Laminaria projects kept popping up all over Ravelry, and I just couldn't resist anymore. Laminaria is a form of kelp, and it seemed to want to be green-- you know?

Last week I pulled a skein of yarn from the stash purchased from an (unknown) etsy seller for a short shawl to match a green wool tulip skirt that I wear in the fall. The yarn itself is a lovely 2-ply. One ply is silk, the other is wool. It does have the dry, papery feeling of some wool/silk/cotton blends. (Think Jaeger Trinity)

Once received, the color was much too bright for the skirt. The more I knit with it, the more this variegated shawl started to look like nasty military camo gear. Uggh.

So, once I finish knitting Laminaria, I'm planning to over dye the shawl via immersion- perhaps ombre green, darkest at the tips?

At lunch-time, I've gone back to a one-time loser project to start anew. So far, so good.