Colour and Spinning

Today during our spinning class I shared the toque and booties, both knit in part with wool I spun. There is a great deal of satisfaction sharing this work with people who really understand what goes into the creations. And like all fiber artists I know there was the appropriate amount of ahhing to keep me happy. As we discussed them I could name the toque pattern but because I hadn´t written about it I forgot the name of the booties pattern. Alas, I was remiss because I didn´t have the name of the most important element. But first let´s have another look at the now two completed booties.

This is close to the actual size of these booties. The handspun in the neutral on top

These crossover booties were designed by Saartje de Bruijn, who must be Dutch since the pattern is available in English and Dutch (and Spanish as well, but de Bruijn doesn´t sound Spanish to me.) The pattern is available for free on Ravelry here .

There was a question about the buttons, to which I have few answers. Years ago I was spending time on eBay and bid on lots of crafty stuff, losing most of those bids. But the buttons were purchased and I remember them being referred to as antique. Perhaps that was a fancy way to say they were used. All have a shank and most seem to be covered with leather, looking something like what would be worn on the old style shoes, like these.

I have about 50 or so of them and have had little chance to use them. These booties were the perfect excuse to pull the collection out again and have a good look.

Everyone was busy in class doing their own spinning

As for the class, we did discuss colour and were given an opportunity to page through several books. I photographed them and have an idea of locating a few in the Vancouver or Minneapolis library. It would be great fun to read about the history of colours. There are many stories about how they came about or what a colour meant.

Oh, and we spun roving and plied them with different colours to see the impact. This is what I put together. (If I haven´t said it before I will say it now, this spinning stuff is really a lot of fun. I might just becoming addicted to it.)

The blue-green is plied with green thread, the orange with orange thread and the orange is again plied with a Noro yarn for which I didn´t care much about the colourway. IMHO it is improved.

Comments

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! Sure but what about the remaining 4

Flagel Knitting Files

Search This Blog