sweetgeorgia

Diamond Fantasy

Vancouver is seriously lacking sufficient light to take photos right now. These were shot at 6400 iso. 6400. I can’t even believe it.

The Diamond Fantasy Shawl is done and blocked. Knit out of the Silk Lamb Lace yarn, I followed Sivia’s instructions to the letter — the shawl is 10 repeats with the icord edging. The perfect size. Divine and soft, I love it. If you are in Vancouver and want to see it up close and personal, it’s actually at the three bags full shop right now. I’ll probably leave it there for a couple weeks… and I doubt I’ll need to wear it anytime soon!

Here and there.

There’s a coolness in Vancouver that is beyond crisp now. Yep, it’s downright chilly today. Feeling the need to have warm, comfy and cushy Zara sweater NOW.

I’m making progress, yes, I am…

In light of the fact that I seem to have zero spare time these days, I’ve been taking a tip from various knitters who encourage knitting a row here and there throughout the day… That’s three rows in the car, two rows before a client meeting, three more rows while waiting for dinner… It’s amazing what a few minutes here and there can do.

Similarly with my weaving, I was able to warp up my loom with the new handpainted silk log cabin scarf project during the daylight hours. Since I haven’t had time to move my work computer down into the finished (yahoo!) office, I’m still sitting three feet away from my loom… which means that when I have to upload a file that takes 10 minutes, I can turn around and fuss with my loom for 10 minutes.

This is 144 ends (72 purple threads and 72 black threads) spread out neatly through the built-in raddle that is positioned on top of the Spring loom. I’m being extra careful by running a thin strip of painters tape over the top so that stray threads don’t pop out of their spots… or that I don’t accidentally pull a chunk of threads out of the raddle. Yeah, been there, done that.

Those are two lease sticks that I’ve tied to the back beam of the loom — they keep the warp nice, neat and tidy… The last warp I put on was, well, shall we say, put on haphazardly without a tidy cross or lease sticks… and well, let’s just say, it got a little messy back there. So, I’m being good and conscientious here… hopefully it will pay off in terms of a better-tensioned warp and less mess.

And this probably should be filed under “too much information” but, yeah, I’m crocheting the bikini from last summer’s issue of Knit.1. Now, to figure out how to properly do crochet decreases…

Retreat

I need a vacation. Yeah, I know this is technically the end of summer vacation but… but… Astor is hosting a knitting retreat this Fall at Hollyhock on Cortes Island. Hollyhock is an educational retreat centre that hosts programs, camps, and workshops about everything from Tibetan Buddhism to Sea Kayaking to Poetry to Ashtanga Yoga… plus they also offer massages! That would be perfect… do a little knitting and then go for a massage… The retreat is called “A Pull of Wool” and runs from September 29 to October 2.

Unfortunately, I can’t go because I’m taking the three-day Colour Institute workshop with Michele Wipplinger as part of the Maiwa Textile Workshops. Actually, I’m taking dye workshops nearly every weekend in September, starting this Friday… I’ve got “Introduction to Dyes” with Anne Babchuk which will give an overview of all different kinds of dyes — including fibre-reactive (procion), acid (washfast and lanaset), and vat dyes (like indigo). I’m also taking “Natural Dyes” with Charllotte Kwon which should result in a reference book of 80 different natural dye samples. The class I was really hoping to take was “Precision Dyeing” which is all about using Procion MX to create a complete colour wheel… but the class falls on the same weekend as my five-year wedding anniversary… So it was celebrate my wedding anniversary or dye, celebrate or dye…

And there is weaving to do… I finally finished dressing the loom with some leftover silk warp and started this little stole. It’s 20/2 silk in a block twill. I basically threaded groups of twelve ends on shafts 1,2,3,4 or 5,6,7,8 somewhat randomly. This is really a test for a bigger silk shawl I plan to do and I just wanted to see how big the blocks might be and how it would look overall. But I was up until about 1 am last night fixing a couple threading errors and had to fashion my own string heddles to do so… very cool. I feel kind of empowered now. And using all eight shafts and ten treadles? Also very empowering. I like.

Oh, yes. And there is also knitting. In fact, I finished Sizzle. But there are no photos. Taking photos of yourself by yourself is hard work. So instead, I have photos of the Diamond Fantasy Shawl in progress…

Mmm hmm. And deadlines. And work. And more work. I’m tired. I think the very best news that I’ve heard in a long time is that we are returning from Hong Kong a couple days early (the travel agent’s mistake) and we’ll be able to squeeze in a surf trip to Oregon. It’ll be the very last weekend in October. The water will be cold but I can’t wait.

The Golden Fleece

Nothing says “it’s time to finish washing your fleece” like an upcoming fleece sale. That’s right. This Saturday, June 10, there will be a fleece sale in Langley. I was really considering driving down and buying a nice local fleece — maybe something mohair — but then thought, “hey, maybe I should finish using up the Gotland fleece I already have on hand”… so, out come the dyes…

I had just over 1 1/2 pounds left of the fleece, so I washed it, mordanted with alum and dyed it up with Pomegranate and Osage Orange natural dyes. Pomegranate dye is made from rinds of pomegranates and is high in tannin — it is supposed to give a gold/brown/yellow kind of colour. I think it’s better described as “caramel”. The Pomegranate comes as an extract, so all you need to do is add water and go. Here is the dye extract with just a bit of water… it looks just like chocolate ganache… and smells sticky sweet like port and maple syrup…

The Osage Orange, on the other hand, comes as sawdust… It’s cheaper this way. You can buy the liquid extract but Maiwa happened to be sold out when I was there. The Osage dyebath is easy enough to make though — put the sawdust in a pot with enough water to cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Decant and repeat. Since I was waiting for the fleece to finish mordanting, I simmered and decanted the Osage dyebath three times, straining it through an old nylon stocking each time.

Unfortunately, I ran out of alum and so the fleece that was dyed with Pomegranate only had half the amount of alum that it should have. That probably affected the final colour. The Pomegranate dye pot had lots of sticky scum on top, so I was anxious to get the fleece out of the pot and rinse it.

The final colours on this fleece… honey and lemons. That’s what I got. Caramelly honey colour and light lemony yellow.

I’ve separated the darker fleece from the lighter fleece so that when I card and spin the Osage Orange fleece, I’ll get a beautiful, clear lemon yellow yarn and a darker grey/green yellow yarn. The darker yarn will then go into an indigo bath to turn it mossy green. Yeah, sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll do an indigo day and overdye a little of everything I have in the stash — yarn, fibre, wool, silk, whatever.

The colours turned out very much lighter than what I expected, and I have to admit I was a little deflated by that initially — but now when I see that caramel-coloured fleece in the living room light, I love it. It’s subtle and gorgeous — I could dive right in. So this Saturday, instead of buying more fleece, I’ll be playing with this beautiful golden fleece!

Oh, and while I was dyeing on Sunday, Michelle dropped by to show me her first spindle-spun handspun. This is before setting the twist… so wonderful!

And we reviewed my second attempt at getting the right purple on silk…

The Lanaset worked so much better on these skeins of silk. They were immersion dyed in a big pot and the colour is quite even throughout. The skein on the right, the dark eggplant purple, is actually a mix of five different Lanaset dyes to give a colour that is deep but vibrant and glittery.

The Good Girl

I went to Fibre Fest and didn’t buy anything.

Well actually, I did. I bought Michelle and Jo each a “Topknot” from Aurelia Wool & Weaving to see if it would push them over the edge and get them spinning. Heh. They both attended the drop spindle demo and then we spent much of the afternoon going from booth to booth to test the different spindles. The girls finally settled on a couple spindles made by Dave Smith/Shari Hamilton (similar to the one I bought in November at the Langley event). Michelle’s spindle is made from Jatoba. Sounds cool to me.

Over the five and a half hours that we spent shopping, I was such a good girl and didn’t buy anything. But Michelle bought me a ball of Bamboo yarn from Jane Stafford’s booth. Beautiful stuff. Laura Fry’s Weaving Studio was also offering a number of handpainted skeins of Bamboo yarn and I saw it woven up — lovely, soft and drapey fabric. And I heard it doesn’t pill!

I didn’t buy anything because, well, I have lots of stuff to play with already. So, on Sunday, I spent some quality time with my carder and some bombyx silk/merino top that I dyed a couple months ago. I’m in love with the carded batts at The Silkworker, so I decided to take my crumpled looking top and fluff it up with the drum carder.

I took one batt, stripped it vertically a couple times and spun it up from end to end. Andean plied the whole thing and washed the yarn. By evening, it was dry enough to knit up. This is going to be yet another Flower Basket Shawl (Evelyn Clark, Interweave Knits Fall 2004). I love how it feels kind of powdery and crunchy all at the same time — like fresh snow.