First Custom Order Part II

My custom order is complete and is being sent off today.  I'm excited to send these lovely hanks off to their new home and hope that the client loves them as much as I enjoyed dying them.  These pictures don't do the colors in the yarn justice, but I figured you could at least get an idea of how awesome this yarn is. 

Here's a close up of the original hank of yarn .  The color is called Night Watch.

This is a shot of one of the custom hanks. 

  

First Custom Order Part I

I just recently landed my first custom dye order from a client.  It's been so much fun to dye a sweaters quantity of yarn and I've been taking photos to keep the client updated so I figured I'd share them here and let you see what's in the dye pot.  

Here are the five hanks of DK merino bare naked.  How scandalous!

The yarn took a nice relaxing soak in my bath tube before being tossed in the dye pot. 

My tools of the trade.  I will only be using three colors of dye for this order. 

Steeping in the dye.  This is the first of three rounds of color for this dye lot.  

As soon as the hanks are dry and ready to go I will post the final product.  My client also said that they would send me a photo of the finished sweater.  I can't wait to see it and will hopefully be able to share it here on the blog. 

Fall Surfing

That's right I'm off surfing today.  Simon and I both have today off so we took advantage of the warm weather and the fact that the beaches will be less crowded to go catch a few waves.

I have mixed feelings about fall surfing.  Right now I'm totally fine with surfing the water is still warm and the air temp hasn't dropped too much.  But in a few brief weeks the water temp will cool and so will the air temp.  The water will be warm than the air and getting out of the surf will be difficult.  The waves however will be getting better and better.  The winter is peak season, but we don't own winter wet suits (which I've read have a lining of merino wool in the).  So as soon as the water temp gets down below 54 F, and I can't get warm when I get out of the water I hang my surf board up on the wall till Spring.  Does this mean I'm less core than other surfers? Probably.  Does it concern me? Not really.  I surf because I enjoy it and I have a sneaking suspicion that I would not enjoy winter surfing up here on the Jersey Shore.

A Dress for an Opening

There will be a lot of dresses for openings this year and by this year I really mean this theatre season.  This season I will be going to at least 4 openings and maybe more who knows so I get to really hone my dress making skills.  I used my Anda pattern to make this dress with many many tweeks.

First off the Anda directions are silly.  Ok not all the directions, but the one where you finish the neckline and sleeves before attatching the front and the back of the dress together.  Now that is silly.  I also used french seams.  I figured why not there are only 4 seams on this entire dress I might as well make them nice and pretty.

Finished the sequence, and started the embroidery. 

The piece de resistance is the waist detail.  I dilagently sequenced and embroided myself.  Lets be honest the Anda can be a great dress, but it's just a sack for a dress till you give it a little something to add intrest.  It is also highly recomended that you wear this style with a belt or add the drawstring waist or a tie.  You need something to show you've got a waist in this thing.  Over all I find that the Anda is a great canvas for a wonderful fabric, a fun detail, or even to try a new technique.

Finished waist detail. 

One thing I do LOVE about this dress pattern is that I only need a yard of 50" fabric to make one.  I am wearing mine to the opening of Theatre Exiles Edge of Our Bodies.  I'm only working the front of the house, but I'm going to look good doing it.

September's Knitting Update

I have been knitting away this month and have lots of projects on the needles and off the needles.  Up first is my Carnaby Skirt.  I am almost done and am truly loving the construction of this knitted skirt.  Short rows are my new favorite thing to use for shaping. 

Oh my a BSJ!  What does that mean?  It means that a lot of my friends and family are having little ones.  My bestie from back home is going to be a dad to twin girls.  That's the prefect excuse to knit one of my favorite Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns in some fun stripping sock yarn I've been wanting to try.  The girls are due very soon so I better get knitting

This is my lace weight Abalone.  I started this a about two weeks ago and I'm about 2/3 of the way done.  The yarn is a merino lace weight in a heather taupe color.  There are flecks of red and blue, yellow and pink. It gives the finished project a lot of interest and depth of color with out being garish. 

Now on to some FOs! Finished objects are always exciting.  This is the Prim scarf all blocked and buttoned.  This pattern was great to knit and it's simple with out being boring.  The button that is sewn on is from my friend Antea's shop the Ceramery.  She has some really lovely items, but I'm a sucker for buttons.

And finally my Boneyard is blocked.  I tried a picot bind off to give my edge some interest, to learn something new, and to make my scarf a bit more feminine   

Stitch Guide: Feather and Fan III

In our last installment of the feather and fan stitch we added a purl ridge to our stitch pattern.  Today we are going to add a purl ridge every 7th row.  This breaks up the pattern into an eight row repeat instead of a four row repeat, and gives the stitch pattern a whole new look.  Lets take a look at version II and Version III next to each other.

Version II on left, version III on right.

Spacing the purl ridge out over 8 rows instead of 4 gives the pattern a whole new look and feel.  There are more rows of stockinette between the purl ridge which makes the ripples look wider.  It also makes the swatch look longer because there is more space between each purl ridge.  The fabric created also has more drape than in version II which is constricted by the purl rows and has less stockinette.  

Now on to the stitch pattern.  Remember feather and fan is worked over a multiple of 18 stitches. 

Worked Flat

R1: *(K2tog) 3x, (YO, K1) 6x, (K2tog) 3x*

R2: Purl All Stitches

R3: Knit All Stitches

R4: Purl All Stitches

R5: Repeat Row 1

R6-R8: Purl All stitches

Worked in the Round

R1: *(K2tog) 3x, (YO, K1) 6x, (K2tog) 3x*

R2: Knit All Stitches

R3: Knit All Stitches

R4: Knit All Stitches

R5: Knit Row 1

R6: Knit all Stitches

R7: Purl all Stitches

R8: Knit all Stitches

Feather and Fan, Feather and Fan II, Feather and Fan III

An Unexpected House Guest

Recently I noticed that some of my plants look like something was munching on them.  Well, there was a hungry hungry caterpillar living among my window boxes.  He scared the bejeebers out of me when I found him ascending my curtains.  I'm not sure what type of caterpillar this is or how it got into my window boxes which are behind a screen, but he was really big, close to about three inches.  As much as I like wildlife and nature I decided that having him in the apartment wasn't the best idea.  Simon liberated him to the outside world.

Upon looking him up I discovered that this is a yellow stripe army worm.  They turn into a brown moth and the larva can do serious damage to plants.  I only found one so hopefully he is by himself.