Hedgehog

I think my blog feels lonely...

Last august I was playing with some yarn and needles and I made this wonderful silly hat, I love something that has a thouch of ridiculousness to it.

Neck warmer too, all knitted with handspun yarn

You can find the pattern for those on Knitty.

Easy cable socks

I enjoy knitting socks with intrincate patterns as much as any knitter, but I also love stockinette stitch, knitting in the round one knit stitch after the next, with those light needles, I find it a mind soothing pleasure, I could go one forever. As almost in everything in life, the smart way to go is balance, these socks fall more on the easy and mindless side, but are a step towards that balance.

They are really, really easy mostly stockinette with a samll area of simple cables thrown in, but they are pretty enough to look at.

Without noticing I made a fading experiment, i knitted one sock almost one year ago and threw it in a drawer, then I started the second at the beginning of summer but forgot about it and let it lay under a window until last week. It doesn't really show on the pictures, but in real life the second sock looks like a poor quality photocopy of the first one.

Jeans

I am becoming a fan of making singles, they respect the colour sequence of the roving, no ugly surprises when two unmatching strands ply together...and so many meters!

100% merino, 100g, 700m. Since the day I dyed it I knew the name I would give it, the colours are perfect to wear with jeans.

I used some to make this cowl, apparently, mixing multicolored yarns with plain ones is a good idea when it comes to jacquards.

Knitted pants

Maybe I make weird things, but I like them:

Knitted pants, if you like them tell me, I can make you a pair :)

Síndria

For some reason I can't explain I had to take the pictures today, so they turned out a little dark. Hopefully tomorrow I'll take more.

Hehehe, I can't wait for the cold to come!

I made it in the shape of an oval, like a long cowl that you can wrap many times around your neck, the rounded parts stay around your shoulders giving you a warm embrace :).

I used 6 balls of noro cash Iroha that I was given by Lía in a Swap in Madrid some years ago, this is the most luxurious yarn that I have ever used, and probably would have never bought it for myself, but I grant you that is a delight to have it close to your skin.

Now If you'll excuse me I'll be in front of the mirror, playing with my new scarf.

Cicada and ant

Enjoying the pleasures that life can offer, such as knitting, but also getting ready for winter

This is going to be a super warm scarf, and it is going to be mine, I have promissed myself that I am not giving this one away.

Where did all the skeins go?

During the time I have been spinning and visiting blogs of fellow spinners I've become acquainted to many skeins of yarn, some have been born from my hands, some from other's. Have you ever wondered what happended to that gorgous yarn you saw long ago on somebody's blog? I mean to rescue my skeins from oblivion, this is the first one that has found an new purpose to it's life, and there'll be more to follow. If you want to remember the details of it's birth, go here (second picture).

It's a small shawl/short scarf with short rows to shape it's rounded edges.

I was pleased to find that the colours of a skein dyed more than one year ago with natural dyes have not faded the slightest.

So we all agree that machine knitting isn't cheating, right? ;)

Playing with clothes

In how many different ways can you wear a garment? Obviously it depends on the garment, but you can always play

You can wear it as it was meant by the designer

Open

With the neck tied

With the neck part as a double sleeve, my favorite

Folded neck

This is the best fitting garment that I have made on the kntting machine so far, we are getting there. Whenever I get a new toy I obsess with it, now it is the knitting machine, but I haven't forgot my old toys, I still hand knit and spin, I have some finished objects yet to show.

Compost dyeing

To dye with natural dyes you usually need dyestuffs from wich to extract pigments, mordants to bind them to the fiber and heat to set it all in motion. This time I left out the last and used the power of mold instead. The technique is called compost dyeing and it goes like this: First you scatter the vegetal matter on the damp fabric, you can use anything, leaves, lichens...I mostly used lichens, because I read that they work specially well with this technique, I also used onion skins and eucalyptus leaves. Then you must wrap it in plastic film to keep the humidity within and let it rot for a couple of months. I left it fo or two months. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to stand the impatience, but I scarcely gave my stinky wrap a thought in all this time. I forgot to take pictures when I prepared the packet, so all the pictures are from when I opened it, with the emotion of a christams morning.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to photograph smells?

Unfortunately at some points the wools itself rot and broke.

I think next time it needs more dyestuff.

The never ending brown

Spun form several tops dyed with different dyestuffs that gave it different shades of brown and russet. Unfortunatly you can't apreciate the colours very well in the pictures.

I don't know why it took me so long to spin it, it was like if the fiber had no end.

100g, 100% merino superwash, 2 ply, 550 m.

Chasing snakes

Have you seen that the new knitty is up? And have you seen that there is a pattern of mine?

The green pair I knitted with this yarn, that I love

check out the beautiful colours on the plain part

The blue pair were born and raised in Brighton, I bought the yarn there and knitted them there. After knitting all day on the machine, the best way to spent your evening is to keep knitting still some more, it looks like I am a little bit obsessed.
As always the photographs aren't that good, I should take a course or give up and let someone help me with this.

Autum in spring

These colours are quite autum-like, but I like the way they blended together

100% merino superwash, 100g, 390m, 2 ply.

Shades

I have some more samples of natural dyes:
Red clover(In Menorca we call it enclova, it was brought here by the british and we took the word from them)

with alum and cream of tartar

with iron

Asphodelus tops. Last year I got a very nice yellow from the leaves

Fennel

with alum and cream of tartar

with iron (I love this green!!)

Eucaliptus barck with iron. I never get the same colour with this stuff...

Together to better see the different colours

If I mix it with my last batch

I get 3 sets of shades from 3 different colours, about 100g each. The question now is how to spin it? Do I mix all the colours in 3 similar skeins? Or do I make 3 slightly variegated skeins with a different colour each? Yarns with subtil variations in colour are very useful, they cheer up plain stockinet and yet don't overshadow more elaborated stitches. Heavily variegated yarns are beautiful too, and I would have enough for a bigger project.