My New Lovely

While at my parents last week I went to my favorite yarn shop in the Finger Lakes, Finger Lakes Fibers.  It's on the main street of a little town called Watkins Glen, which is located at the southern end of Seneca Lake.  This shop has some really beautiful items and I could spend hours looking at everything they've got, but I usually have an impatient Hubs with me so I look for the yarn that my LYS doesn't carry to find something special.

What I found was some lovely Malabrigo Lace.  I've heard many a knitter rave over how wonderful this yarn is, and while I can't say anything for the Lace weight (yet!) I do love their worsted weight single ply merino.  This is like the worsted weight's little sibling, it has the softest hand I've felt on a wool that isn't a cashmere blend and the dying is to dye for.  (Horrible pun intended!)

The color is right up my all with soft sea blues and greens some sandy taupe and drift wood brown.  I may be falling in love, and am starting to hatch a plan for my newest little lovely.

The Dye Pot

I got my new dyes and my base yarn and I got down to work dying some fab yarn.  Here are three of my latest lovelies.

Here is one of my first hanks of yarn.  I still had a couple hanks of sock yarn to dye and this is one of them.  This hank has browns and pinks in it and it reminds me of the cherry trees on our block.

Right now I'm just experimenting and getting my bearings with the new dyes.  I purchased a kit that came with yellow, black, a warm blue, and a cool blue, a warm red and a cool red.  Then I purchased two extra dye colors, purple and brown.  I've heard stories of blue and red separating and not creating an even purple so I thought why take the chance and I don't want to be bothered to mix brown especially if the dye company has already done it for me.

This hank is the lace weight yarn that I purchased and wow, this color was amazing to dye.  This was the first hank I dyed with my new dyes and wow, I can't even begin to describe how excited I was when I saw this come out of the dye pot.  It was also the first time I used black and I may have fallen in love.  This was a combination of the cool blue, the purple and of course the black.

Now this hank of yarn is for me.  I purchased some Ahimsa silk from my LYS it was the natural color so I thought why not dye it and see what these dyes could do.  Ta Da!  I wanted a cool watery blue that reminded me of the water in Forster in NSW Australia and I am pleased with how it came out.  I think I want to dye more of this base for Alchemy Hour so I will be looking into finding more.

Stash Share!

I just got a bunch of new yarn, to design a bunch of new patterns. It's very exciting.  Here is a little taste of what I got.

This is a lovely gray blue heather.  It's just a plain worsted wool, but with the weather getting colder here in Philly I figured another wool sweater would be just fine.

Another heather only this time a nice soft brown and it's a sport weight merino wool.  I've been dreaming about leg warmers this fall.

I have an interesting idea for a cardigan and some lace weight merino wool I think will do the trick.  I love the green color.  What I didn't realize at the time, is that all the yarns I got were all heathers. 

This was an indulgent purchase and will be made into a similar cardigan as the above yarn.  I couldn't pass up the color or the fiber.  Midnight blue heather (it has blues, blacks, and greens running through it) lace weight baby alpaca.  It's going to be super warm. 

I also finished the baby alpaca vest I was knitting.  It's blocked and has it's buttons sewn on.  I can't wait to wear it and get some better pictures of it.  Now I'm itching to get swatching.

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Fear Based Procrastination

That's right I'm procrastinating, and it's because I'm scared, or at least nervous.  Sewing the muslin was easy, if I screwed it up it was no big deal the fabric only cost me $4, but if I screw up on the "real" jacket I'm out ten times that.  I guess it's this worry that is causing me to doubt my skills and my confidence.  I mean I made the Muslin with few difficulties and it came out pretty good.  I know this is all in my head so I took one step toward sewing this amazing garment.

I cut it out of the wool. 

 You have to start somewhere and If I am going to sew this jacket then I have to have the pieces to sew.  I was super mindful when I was cutting out this fabric too.  Making sure my grain lines were all lines up and parallel to salvage.  I even made sure I gave the right seam allowance to the back neck yoke piece. 

Taking my time and not hastily cutting out the pattern pieces really helped me feel better about starting this project.  I'm hoping to start sewing some of it today.  I know this fear is all in my head and once I start sewing I will get more confident with each seam.

Sewing the Steffi Jacket: Muslin and fabric Choices

Burda Style

I am in love with this jacket and have been for about a year.  I even bought the pattern and the fabric to make the muslin, but after Simon and I got married I was sewn out after making three dresses two ties and a bunch of other crafty bits the idea of sewing a tailored jacket with buttons and a lining seemed a bit daunting.  But with the weather cooling down and my desire to make clothes instead of buying them I pulled the pattern out of storage and the muslin fabric and I am going to do it I am going to sew this jacket. 

Here it goes, the pattern all laid out ready to cut the fabric for the muslin.  I am a bit of a fearless sewer (and Knitter) and I usually jump in with both feet, but I want to make sure I know how this pattern is sewn and how it fits before I cut the wool and silk for the real one.  I have expensive tastes and I don't want to f-up really good fabric.  It's not like yarn where I can frog it if I don't like it or if it doesn't fit. 

All the muslin pieces waiting to be sewn my poor little tomato is empty of all its pins. This will be today's project, start sewing the muslin together.

Before work I went to the fabric store yesterday, I had some Brithday money from my mom and decided that it was going toward my fabric. 

My original thought was to make it out of navy wool, but after seeing this forest green I hemmed and hawed about it for a few minuets. 

I finally decided to go with my original plan and make it in navy.  There was even this great lavender gray silk on sale that I got for the lining.  I do really love the green and if this goes well maybe I'll make a second in green. 

Cozy Clothes Treasury

I am excited to say I am in another treasury on Etsy. My Hand Dyed Wool in Berries is included in a treasury called Cozy Clothes and is curated by AbbeysArt. Thanks AbbeysArt!

Check it out there are a lot of great things in this treasury, including Lavender Marshmallows.

Hand Spun Cowel

I knit up that hand spun of mine into a cowel. It came out really nice. This is the first time I ever knit with my own hand spun. I love the way it the silk slubs in the wool. The silk is from nepal and is recycled fibers from the sari looms in India. the colors in the silk are so vibrent.

I'm going to spin more of this combo up, because it is so much fun to spin and to knit.

Hand Spun Yum

Here are some better pics of that green hand spun I posted.
It's so beautiful, I took a ton of shots and none of them do this yarn justice.


This one was the same wool only undyed and spun with rycycled sari silk fibers

I used mostly red and purple silk its a double ply. I spun a single with the wool and sari silk together and then I spun a lace weight single of just the wool.

Then I plied the two together. It was a wonderful experiment and i feel that the result is beautiful and exotic looking.