hanna birke

knit rescue

Some of you might remember the Lacy Bowed Skirt I knit two years ago.

A lot of the knitting was done during a winter holiday in Arizona where I spent days by the pool swimming and knitting.  Not a good idea it turns out when knitting with plant dyed yarns.

I went to wear the skirt a few months ago and discovered that the pool chlorine from my hands must have rubbed off on the cotton when I was knitting and yikes over time the yarn faded in a spot on the front of the skirt.

The skirt went back in the closet but I sad about it because I really liked wearing this skirt.  

This week I pulled the skirt and a bottle of bleach out and attempted a rescue.  First I soaked the skirt for 20 minutes in a sink full of water so that all the fiber was evenly wet.  Then I ran some lukewarm water in the bathtub and added some calgon and bleach.  About 5 parts water to 1 part bleach.  I carefully laid the skirt flat in this mixture.  Not much happened.  

So I emptied the bathtub, took the skirt out and started again.  This time with straight bleach.  I laid the skirt flat in the straight bleach and rubbed it with my hands.  The dyed started to come out evenly so I kept rubbing and flipped the skirt around a few times.  Within 3 minutes the logwood dyed cotton was evenly bleached to a cream color and the Habu merino held it's dark brown color.  

It's not the look I had in mind when I knit the skirt but it's now back to wearable.  I hope to wear it this week.

Almost no progress to report on the yoked variegated sweater.  I''ve been working on the sleeves but have had to rip them back a few times because of messiness and not having quite enough stitches on the needles.  Hopefully I have my issues sorted out now and I can make some progress.  

recent dyeing

I'm behind on posting about dyeing.  If I wait much longer all details will have escaped me as I don't keep dyeing notes anymore. 

First up is some cashmere I ordered last winter and dyed this summer.

I have a shoe box and a half (close to 5,000 yards) of thread weight cashmere from Colourmart.  If you haven't heard of Colourmart I highly recommend them.  Ordering was easy and delivery fast.  If you do order from them I recommend having them ply up the yarn for you.  I ordered a cobweb weight cashmere and will hold two or three stands together when I knit this.  

The original color of the cashmere was a silvery tan and at first I thought I would indigo dye it for a dusky blue.  Then I thought maybe some madder for a deep orange.  By the time I got to dyeing it though I was feeling like something lighter in color so I did a 3  day cold mordant with alum and myrobalan mixed together followed by a week long soak in the sun in marigold mixed with a bit of osage.  

When I first dyed this it reminded of the color moss turns during a dry summer.  I loved it.  Now I'm not so convinced - it feels a little more green than I would like.   The plan is to knit a wrap with it at a later date.  If I don't love the color after I've knit the wrap I can leave it in the sun for a few months and perhaps I'll be happy with how it fades.

Next is a group shot on my messy table.

I started off with one dyepot going in September and kept finding more yarn I could dye.  By the end I had 5 dyepots going.  From left to right:  

the peach yarn is some 3 ply Pony merino ordered from Catnip Yarns.  It was mordanted in myrobalan for 2 days mostly a cold mordrant but I did heat to less than boiling for an hour on the second day.  It was then cold soaked with a mix of cochineal and madder.  I have something like 1,400 yards of this and I'm thinking maybe a shrug, maybe a loose knit and then felted jacket.  Not sure yet.

the lavender cake is lace weight alpaca that I dyed with indigo 2 years ago.  It was a beautiful soft blue but I've been trying to move away from blue lately so I mordanted it with alum and then soaked it in a strong cochineal dyebath for a few days.   I have maybe 900 yards of this.  Not sure what it will become.

the golden cotton is some mystery cotton I've had for a few years.  It was grey and I bleached it a few years ago and it turned light peach.  Then I mordanted it with alum and then tannin and back in the closet it went.  Here it is after a 5 day soak in some fustic.  Must say I'm really happy with this color.  I have only 4 or 500 yards of it.  It might become a shrug or it might be used for the bodice of dress.

last is 1500 yards of crochet cotton that was mordanted with alum and myrobalan and soaked in cochineal for 5 days.  It might join some other left over dyed crochet cotton I have on had and be used for the skirt of that dress I have in mind.  

I also dyed about 3,000 yards of fine Habu merino.  I started it in a weld dyebath for a very pale yellow - then put it in an alum mordant followed by a 3 day soak in a strong fustic bath.  Wet it was a wonderful light tobacco color and I was really happy with it.  When it dried though it turned a brassy yellow - not pretty at all - and even less pretty when I started to cake it.  So it's gone back in the closet and I'll try dyeing it again - but not right away. 

progress photos

What to say?  

I've been wrestling with this sweater.  It's too small at the front and I didn't want to frog it so I'm adding extra wide bands at the front.  Then I'll go back and finish the sleeves. 

There's pooling and also skein variation and I'm not bothered by this - I think it's part of knitting with a variegated yarn.  

I am having second thoughts though about the wisdom of a yoked cardigan for my figure.  

noticed

I've been meaning to do more 'noticed' posts for ages.  Sometimes I just don't have the time to get to them and other times the inspiration is not there.  But I've seen a few items lately that have either been inspiring or have furthered my thinking about color.  

I think I've long had the assumption that black, grey and tan were the only sophisticated or chic colors.  

And certainly when fashion gets whittled down to the average small town mall level colors like pink and purple are often lifeless or uninspiring.  But what I hadn't noticed is that there are a good number of designers doing beautiful work with color.  The dress above is Oscar de la Renta, photographed by Chris Nicholls in the Sept 09 Flare magazine.  

Of course unless you're a celebrity it's purely a fantasy piece but I love the color, the pleated top and the whispy leaf or feather motifs on the skirt.  

Tia Cibani at Ports 1961 is one designer who did some lovely things with color in her Fall 09 collection.  

I was in Vancouver for a few days in August and when I'm there I always go to the Holt Renfrew store.  It's one of the few places I can actually see and touch designer clothes.  It feels like an hour in heaven and I usually take a few notes after I've been in.

This year in Holt Renfrew I saw a lot of dolman sleeves both in sweaters and jackets.  Sometimes the sleeves were brought in to a tiny wrist or 3/4 length opening and other times the sleeves were left wide giving the garment a bit of a kimono-like feeling.  Either way the look was really appealing.

Here's a sweater by Piazza Sempione with a mild dolman shape featured in the August 09 Bazaar.  I like the waist shaping in this and the sideways rib.  It would be nice in a lightweight cashmere wouldn't it?

progress photo

Luisa asked if I was doing short rows on the yoked cardigan.  Indeed yes. 

Although I'm not sure if I've done them correctly.  

I want the back of the collar to rise nicely so I used some of the madder merino I have to create a little section at the back of the neck.  I wasn't sure if I should start with the longest row and knit shorter rows or start with the shortest row and knit up to the longest row.  In the end I decided to start with the shortest row centered at the back of the neck.  

I've taken the whole thing off the needles and it seems to fit fine so far so I'll keep going.  I have 6 inches of the yoke done.   Four more inches to go before putting the sleeve holes on holders and carrying on with the cream alpaca body.  

For increases I started doing M1's but these look nasty in garter stitch so I've switched to knit f&b which is better.  I'm doing my increases every 6 rows.  I'm also knitting in tiny buttonholes as I go.  Which is huge progress for a button-commitment-phob like me.  

There's a helpful post on knitting top down yoked sweaters over at Whitney's blog whitknits.

And other stunning news - I looked at the cutest pink suede shoes on Zappos today and thought - hummm.  Haven't quite pulled the trigger yet on these but ... I'm thinking about it.  

knitting now

August wasn't my most productive knitting month, in fact August never is a big knitting month for me.  I think I'm too distracted by our fleeting summers and thoughts of only so many more 'outdoor days' to concentrate too hard on knitting.  This week I really started to miss knitting though and found myself day-dreaming about blizzards and white outs and cozy weekends spent on the couch knitting.  

The day dreams were enough for me to get cracking with some knitting.

I started with what Gay so beautifully calls 'smalls'. 

Our daughter-in-law is expecting her first baby so I thought I'd make 2 of the little mice from Mel's Mouse Family in the book Knit 2 Together.  This is Mr. Mouse and eventually he will be joined by Mrs. Mouse.  He'll also have some pants knit in pale blue and a shirt sewn from the plaid fabric he's sitting on.   Mrs. Mouse will have a dress in the variegated cotton on the right.  Making him was great fun and I'm looking forward to starting on the clothes.  

I've been flipflopping around with ideas for a new sweater.  How I got to my most recent sweater cast-on is a long story - I'll spare you the details and just give you two pictures and a few references.

The idea is for a garter yoke cardigan inspired by Katie Himmelberg's Kaliedoscope Yoke in Pam Allen's book Simple Style and also inspired by Naganasu's TDGstY cardigan.

The idea is to use the Atacama variegated alpaca and some leftover madder dyed merino for the high collar and yoke and the cream alpaca for the body and sleeves of the sweater.  I'm  not entirely convinced I'm on the right track here but I'm giving it a go and hoping for the best.  

You might have noticed I'm not knitting a black, charcoal, navy or blue sweater.  I'm sticking with my desire to wear cheerful color in the warm end of the pink, red, yellow and purple color families - but I also want to look stylish - and not look too young or too old - so I'm feeling my way around this.  Black and neutral colors were easier for me - color takes a lot more thinking - but right now I feel so much happier in color so I'm making the effort.  

FO

Last spring Luisa sent me some yarn from Portugal.  She chose undyed yarn so I could dye it myself.  You might remember the yarn - I wanted a very pale pink and got exactly that with a weak Lac dyebath.  

Then came the decision of what to make with it.  

Wristies - for when it's cold out and I want to go out with my camera to take winter/snow photographs.

I did them in a 1 x 3 rib and didn't put any thumbholes in - they are just simple tubes.  This way it will be easy to pull them down over my fingers or  back up my hands when I want to operate the camera.  

The top edges were finished with some crochet chain stitch and the bottom edges with crochet shell stitch.

Sometimes people say they admire my willingness to experiment with knitting.  Self doubt is something that pushes at me too when I venture away from a pattern.  With these when I started doing the crochet shell edging I thought it looked too feminine for that tough 3 x 1 ribbing - but I kept going with it - telling myself to just try it and that a band of shell wasn't much to undo if I didn't like it in the end.  By the time I got all the edges finished I was pleased with the results.  

Sometimes I think we just have to get the self doubt to quiet down a bit and give ourselves a chance.

Big thank you again to Luisa for the yarn.  

felting for a jacket

Summer ... not enough hours in the day to do all the things I want.  

But I've been getting a few things ready for winter projects and winter wear.  I would like to sew a white felt jacket this winter and as I prefer to felt outdoors making the felt for the jacket is a summer project.

I've just finished 5 mornings of felting to produce 6 pieces of felt which should be enough for a jacket.  

The top photo to shows how few supplies are needed for felt.  Some bubble wrap, a dowel, rubber gloves, soap, water, roving and a surface to work on.  Pretty basic stuff.

Instructions for felting can be found anywhere so I won't list them here. Experience teaches though so here are a few things I've found helpful.  I was taught to use nylon and bamboo matting instead of bubble wrap for felting but bubble wrap is much easier and cleaner to use. 

I was also taught to use almost boiling water and to use soap sparingly.  But I prefer to use a lot of soap and to use lukewarm and cold water.  My favorite soap to use is Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap.  I dilute it and then use it liberally.  The felting books say more soap does not lead to faster felting and less rolling and pounding but I disagree.  Use lots of soap and the felting goes faster.

Also many people say you need to use hot or boiling water to felt but in my experience really hot water gives the fibers a brittle or itchier feeling.  Merino roving will felt with warm or even cold water and you'll have a softer fabric in the end.  

I prefer my felt pieces to be soft felted and even a bit sheer in places - some of these pieces still have a few holes or thin spots in them - that's by design.  Once I start assembling the jacket I will reinforce the felt pieces with some hand sewn running stitch in the cream-colored DMC thread in the photo .

I had the felting supplies but wasn't sure whether I would get to this - then one morning last week I woke up and thought - today's the day to start.  When I checked Flickr that morning I found Kat had posted this photo the same day.  Looks just like my felt does.    

I have some dyeing to show you and even a bit of knitting.  Hopefully I'll get to those posts soon.

me and bobby mcgee sweater

You might remember this.  The cotton gima cardi that I knit a few years ago.  And was not happy with.

Now it's this.

My original plan was to frog the whole thing but I had woven the ends in really tightly and once I got the gold crochet cotton off the bottom I couldn't get any further with the frogging.  So the whole thing went in the cupboard until a few months ago.  

When I finally pulled this out of the cupboard again I felt like giving it another go.  This time I decided to use the bit of cotton gima I had left to knit a loose right front side.  With this knitting I just let go and did completely random purls and yo's and k2tog for a few inches.  Then I switched to even larger needles and did a vague variation of Old Shale stitch for the last few inches.  

For the back and left front I used a crochet hook and did something resembling a half double crochet stitch for wonky sections.  

One of my issues with the original sweater was that it was tent shaped so with the redo I made sure to bring the crochet pieces in for some waist shaping.  I worked the crochet directly on the sweater and tried it on every few rows to see how it was coming along.  The whole process felt a bit sculptural.  And made me wish I had a dress form.  

I'm not entirely sure about that dark section in the back.  I may take it out and replace it with more of the lighter color.  I also wish I had made this v-necked as I'm not wild about that flopping at the top fronts.  But other than these two things I'm pretty happy.  This is soft, lightweight and easy to wear.  

The name of course comes from the song Me and Bobby McGee because once I started working freeform on this I did feel very much like there was nothing left to loose.  

Gossamer Stars ombre dyed

The Gossamer Stars scarf was ombre dyed with my daughter last week and I'm happy with how it turned out.  We used Procion MX powder dyes in scarlet, fuchsia and navy.  

I should have taken photographs of the process but it was a bit busy so I'll just have to describe it to you.

The night before dyeing we mixed up a solution of soda ash and hot water and soaked the undyed scarf in this for half an hour.  Then we gently squeezed the scarf out and without rinsing it put it in a plastic bag overnight.  

My mother's place doesn't have a suitable spot for dyeing work so the next morning we took the dyeing supplies, a roll of paper towels and 3 spray bottles to the parking lot across the street.  We spread out a long row of plastic and paper towels and put the damp scarf on top of these.  

Next we mixed some scarlet dye powder with hot water and salt in a spray bottle and just sprayed the dye on 1/4 of the scarf.  My daughter decided she wanted the sequence the colors scarlet, purple, lavender and pale pink.  So for the purple we mixed navy and fuchsia dye powder and then sprayed that on next to the scarlet.  For the lavender we added more water to the purple dye solution and for the pale pink we poured a lot of the lavender dye solution into another bottle and added a lot of water to the remaining dye solution to create the pale pink.  So in the end we only needed 2 spray bottles not 3. 

The set up and spraying took about 40 minutes. 

After the spraying we used some paper towels to carefully blot up the excess dye and then we used more plastic wrap to cover the scarf and rolled it up into a little package.  Back in the house we steamed the scarf for a few minutes over some boiling water and then left the package overnight to set. 

The hardest part was waiting for the next morning to unwrap the package and see how it turned out.  

Kat just finished a Gossamer Scarf in the prettiest orange alpaca -  if you haven't already seen her GS be sure to go take a look.  I really like how her version emphasizes the horizontal aspect of the lace.