Scrap projects

 At the November Vogue Knitting live, one of the vendors showed a very pretty scarf/cowl that she made out of small amounts of colors.  I can not remember which vendor nor can I remember if I took a photo.  I'll try to update this blog post later.  But I didn't want to loose the thought.  

The Vendor actually sells bags of yarn that are random and many colored.  And she suggests that one purchase a neutral color of yarn that goes well with the bag of yarns.  Her version used grey as the neutral color.  

One knits with a color and counts the rows....then one knits with the grey the same number of rows.  It was very pretty.  I think perhaps she did a tube?

Halloween Cowl in Oink

I had bought yarn at Rebelle in Lexington on my way back from a genealogy conference in Frankfort....not sure when I bought it.  But it was serendipity that the woman who dyes Oink yarns was having a trunk show when I arrived at the shop.  And I chose this particular yarn and asked her if she had ideas for it.  She not only had ideas, but she had made a cowl from exactly this yarn and I had admired the cowl on my way in.  So it was meant to be....of course, I had to buy the yarn!

The pattern I am using is Citroen by Helena Bristow.  It is a fun knit and I like the way that it is turning out....however, it is not surprising that Halloween has come and gone and I have not yet finished it!  I have filed the pattern in the kitchen file in cowls and scarfs.

I finished the project winter 2021.  

Superwash Wool

I just finished my fourth Vogue Knitting Live.  It is interesting to me how much better some of the Vendors have become as they have honed their skills on camera on Zoom.  I have learned a lot.  But I have one huge burning question that has emerged from my shopping:  How do I feel about superwash wool.  The consensus of opinion seems to be that the process that gets the wool to this place is NOT ecologically friendly.  But at the same time the superwash wool takes dye in a much more vibrant way.  Thus many of the independent dyers use it to produce the wool that has such spectacular color.
 
I took a class in either June or July in which this question came up.  And one of the students asked if she was trying to avoid superwash where might she get colors that were as vibrant.  And the teacher suggested Sweet Georgia.  I will look at their yarn.

So here is a URL for a post about the superwash system:

http://consciouslycrochet.com/truth-superwash-wool/

The Sharon Show by Casapinka

So Dar and I have chatted many times about how we are not interested in taking part in a Mystery Knit Along!  She was very disappointed one time in what she made and I love the dreaming of the project almost more than I like knitting it....Why would I succumb to missing the dreaming and just executing the project?

There has been a lot of publicity about Casapinka's newest project and I do tend to like Casapinka's designs!  And then Stevenbe sent an e-mail showing kits that he and his shop had put together for this project and one of the color ways grabbed me.  So here I am starting The Sharon Show today with the first clue.

The colors are

The Blue is Stevenbe Blackwattle in color Lone Light:

The Purple is Madeline Tosh Light color Moxie




The background color which is very light is:

I'll have to look to see if I kept the labels or if the colors are on my order history at StephenB.  I finished the shawl last week and blocked it....and I LOVE IT!  I had the perfect sweater to wear it with among my winter clothes:

Panda Pearl Yarn

Yesterday was one of those funny days when I ran out of mindless knitting.  So this morning I am trying to start a few projects while I finish these projects that take some thought.  I finished my your slip is showing shawl and plan to block it when it gets too hot to sit on the porch this afternoon.  I picked up a very pretty blue shawl that I am knitting Wendy's Fern Shawl with....but I am in a spot in which there seems to be a glitch in the pattern.....So I need to pull up the original pattern and see what happens in the chart....And I made a mistake in my Nyphalidea shawl and need to spend some time on it....but the biggest thing that happened is that I ran out of black yarn on my Panda Pearl wrap.  So I spent an hour looking for another skein of Panda Pearl Black yarn with no success.  The few people who have this yarn in their stash on Ravelry say it is not for sale or trade and Ravelry gives no way to contact them to double check.  So I put the wrap on in front of the mirror and OH MY!  I absolute LOVE IT!  Ok, I see what to do.  I will finish it by binding off where I am now and adding a solid band of the rust color to the other end.  It will be just fine.

Ok, it is August and I am editing this post.  First, I failed to put the labels for this yarn into the original post.  So here is one of them:





But in the process of making this decision, I looked all over the place for Panda Pearl yarn and actually found a few sites.  I can't get the yarn out of my head this morning, so I am going to put the ideas in this blog so that I don't loose them, but also don't jump in and buy "stuff" I don't need.

I ended up buying one skein of the below while working on what I was going to do.




9002 Nutmeg


and the below project on Ravelry mixed Panda Pearl with a Knit Picks Gloss DK ....I might choose a more vibrant color such as black or one of the bright colors in the Zimbabwe as the background color.  But the Zimbabwe has VERY pretty colors in it.  And perhaps the rust would work as the solid.



The spice market would blend very well with the light color that I have left.  And the nutmeg color that is left is probably my favorite.  However it has to be mixed with a solid....knitted alone it is too splotchy for me from looking at projects on Ravelry.

Also as I edit in August, I will explain that Sally and Dar helped me figure out how to go to people who say they do not want to sell their yarn and message them to ask if they might....and it turned out that several of them were happy to sell me their black Panda Pearl.

So I did indeed find the black Panda Pearl yarn.  And I was very happy because when I looked in the full length mirror in the closet, I decided that the original pattern did not make a scarf long enough for my taste....so I have added more rows.  And finally in November here is the finished scarf!

Montana Yarn

I listened to the podcast on the Interweave site

https://www.interweave.com/fiber-nation/black-sheep-wyoming-wool/

this morning.  I will put more information about the two people who make these podcasts when I listen to the next podcast in the series.  Although I am not really doing these podcasts in any kind of order.

Join host Allison Korleski as she talks with people from all corners of the yarniverse: designers and dyers, shepherds and spinners, publishers and pathfinders.

However, because Sally and Roger are roaming around out west this summer looking for the perfect 70 degree weather, I decided to work on my geography this morning to see where Wyoming wool is milled.  Wow!  Is my geographyof the north west TERRIBLE!  The red marker marks the spot that is Buffalo Wyoming where Mountain Meadow Wool Mill is located.  Be sure to read the article about Peter John Camino and watch the video that shows the mill as well as listen to the podcast at the site!

Nymphalidea

I suddenly found myself in a place where I had to think a bit on both of the projects I was working on.  I had finished the face mask.  I decided that I needed to start a new project so that there was no chance that I could find myself in the terrible predicament of having nothing to knit!  The pattern and yarn that were yelling to me are:

Nymphalidea by Melinda VerMeer

The Yarn is Ellyn Cooper's Yarn Sonnets  Jenny in colors Chasing Autumn and  I'll have to look....
I have 225 yards in each color.  It is fingering Weight.  I am using size 6 needles.  Oh, Phooey.  I just pulled the work out to double check the needle sizes and I have been knitting it with the brighter color in the lace and the duller color the welts which is not what I meant to do at all.  I guess I am going to rip out and start again.  It was not hard to start.  And I had not done that much knitting.








I finished the project in October 2020.  I really do love this scarf/shawl!