sskal Projects

Oh jeez guys, it's been a while.  Sorry, it's been a busy summer!  As usual, I've been crafting a lot, I just haven't found time to take photos and, more importantly, write up some posts.

I've joined the Very Shannon Summer Sweater KAL again this year in an effort to finish up a few sweaters.  My buddy Margaret has outright forbidden me from starting any new sweaters until I finished up some of the...more than I'd like to count...sweaters I already have on needles.  And since I'm biting at the bit to start my Skogafjall, I'm focusing on some of my old wips.

I'll be knitting it out of some gorgeously rustic wool from Custom Woolen Mills in Alberta (Canadian raised sheep wool, Canadian milled, Canadian bought.  Oh yeah, go Canada!), in two undyed natural shades (grey and dark brown) and some naturally dyed wool from a woman in Atlin, BC (green).  SO EXCITED.

But first, I have to finish the second sleeve and then button band of my Amiga, shown at the top of the post.  It's probably going to be the most wearable sweater I'll ever make, but dear pete is it ever a boring knit.  Stockinette stockinette stockinette in solid black.  UGH just magically be done already.

I've had a couple of other successes in this KAL though.  I'd accidentally cast on a baby sweater right before the KAL started, and finished it within the first week of it.  It's a store sample in Diamond Luxury Fine Merino Superwash Aran and A Simple Baby Sweater.  Quick knit, though I found the instructions for joining in the round after the henley lacking.  I added some notes on my Rav project page to explain it if you're interested.  I love this little green sweater so much, and I'm tempted to swipe it and send it to my buddy who's about to have a baby!

I also tackled a really old wip.  I pulled out my old Reverb sweater to reassess the sweater.  It's so pretty, with this gorgeous yarn and lovely cables, and I was well past the arm divide when I put it down.  But I put it down literally years ago, back in 2013, and my tension has loosened up considerably since then.  There's no way I can finish this without it looking wonky, and the fabric was knit much tighter than I prefer now-a-days.

So I frogged it.  Sad in a way, but I didn't realize how much it was weighing on my mind until it was just a huge ball of yarn again, so I'm glad I did it.  SUCCESS!

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One of the reasons I've been so busy this summer is that I'm spending a lot of time with both friends and myself.  I feel better every day, though I'm still struggling with some parts of our breakup last winter.  I can't even believe it's been nearly 7 months, but I'm relearning myself and I like the person I'm finding.  I feel like I'm finally lifting my head up after being weighed down for the last few years, so obviously this is a good change in my life.  It's taken a while to admit that, but admitting it sure helped.

So did buying myself a new toy.  Friends, meet the Little Guy.  We've gone on a few adventures already, and I can't wait to hitch him up to my little car and go camping again this weekend!

Take care of yourselves, folks.  Hopefully it won't take so long for another update!  <3

Yarn Dyeing Experiment: Lupine

I've been plotting and planning to create my own line of naturally dyed yarn, and I'm now in the experimental phase.  I'm not going to go into too many details yet until I have a better feel of things, but I'm sure I'll share more here as I learn more.

Today's post is about my first attempt at dyeing yarn with lupines.  They grow thick and beautiful here in the late spring/early summer.  I spent a lovely evening gathering a bunch of it the other night with a friend, and have gathered more since to freeze for future dyeing days.

I only collected the flower stalks, and used only the flowers for the dye bath.  If you had to guess what colour that would produce, you'd probably guess blue or purple.  You'd be wrong.

While the dye bath was a lovely burgundy/pink shade, the yarn initially came out looking a sad shade of greyish-green after steeping overnight.  I was disappointed, but figured I'd overdye it with something else.  I toss the first dip yarn into a bath with pH neutral wool wash and an extra skein into the dye bath to exhaust the dye.  I left for work and left it be.  When I got home, the exhaust bath yarn was a paler sad shade of greyish-green when I pulled it out and into a rinse bath.  So imagine my surprise when I reached into the wool wash bath and pulled out a skein of lime green yarn!

First dip yarn on left, exhaust bath yarn in middle, undyed yarn on right.

I'm not entirely sure what caused the change, but I suspect the soap adjusted the pH and affected the colour of the yarn.  The chemistry is fascinating!  I'm so happy with the results - even the exhaust bath yarn.

For a bit of background here, I used Briggs and Little Sport yarn, divided into 25 g skeins for experimentation.  I premordent the yarn with alum, with cream of tarter as an assist.  I forgot to rinse the yarn before moving it from the premordent pot to the dye bath, and I thought that was why the dye seemed so disappointing.  I suspect that my water isn't a pure as I'd like.  I'll probably have to get bottled water to get more control of my results.

I already have a couple baskets worth of yarn in the freezer for future dyeing!

I want to play a bit more with lupine, see what happens when I modify it with iron and copper solutions.  I can see this one making it into my final line of yarns.

Have you tried natural dyeing yet?  I'm fascinated with the chemistry behind it, and have been consuming all of the books I can on the matter.  Know of any good ones to recommend?

fo: Gramps Sweater

Back in February, my wonderful, life-saving employee had a baby - an adorably disgruntled-looking little boy that has stolen my heart.  Seriously guys, I've happily avoided holding any babies since my Mom plopped one in my arms when I was 19.  I like making faces at them, and that's about it.  But this little guy?  I steal him as often as I can.  I've volunteered to baby-sit him, ffs.  He's a little pouty grump and I adore him.

So of course I had to knit something perfect for him.  What's more perfect for a grumpy-old-man baby than a grampa sweater, complete with elbow patches?  Nothing, I say!

Pattern: Gramps, by Tin Can Knits (one of my favourite knit designers)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash
Size: 1-2 years (since they have 12 bajillion sweaters that'll fit him up to 9 months)
Mods: Shortened the pockets a bit, and that's it.  What do I know about baby fits?

This is a clever pattern.  Knits up really quickly, but pay attention to the instructions for binding off the neckline.  To pull the shawl collar in and prevent a floppy collar, you need to do a decrease bind-off around the neck.  I didn't do this at first, and then ignored the sweater for way longer than I want to admit before I ripped it back and fixed it.

It took 30 minutes.  Why do I do this to myself?

ISN'T THIS THE MOST ADORABLE SWEATER?!  I can't get over those elbow patches.

The buttons though, they definitely bring it to another level.  These are buttons made by a woman in Scotland that I carry in shop.  They're not super popular, but I think people just don't know what to do with them.  Might have to make another sample with them featured!

The matching hat was thrown together last minute from left over yarn based on Tin Can Knits Barley Hat, though I just knit the body of it in stockinette.  I love the floppy loose pompom!

Seriously, I'll be knitting this pattern again.  It turned out soooo good, and is a breeze to knit!

Do you have a go-to baby pattern you make up for friends and family when they have wee sprogs?  Haha have you ever had a baby charm you despite your nature?  I can't wait to see little sprogy in this sweater...once he grows up a bit.  :)

fo: Welcome Home Tapestry

This project has been done for a while now, and the pictures taken nearly a month ago.  It's about time I finally shared!

A while back, I mentioned that I'd learned to weave on a frame loom.  I took a class a friend of mine taught at the store, and I'm so glad that I did it!  We built our own looms, and learned a few different stitch techniques.  Or I would've if I hadn't plowed on through and finished my tapestry ahead of everyone else.

This is the one I wove in that class.  I gifted it to a friend that let me stay at her place for 3 weeks while she was out of town and I was homeless after the breakup.  She's a wonderful friend, and volcanologist to boot (that will make more sense when you read the description below).

It's mostly Icelandic wool, either commercially spun (top white and bottom black) or handspun (dark grey and bobbly cream), but the medium grey was Briggs & Little Heritage yarn.  The item attached to the medium grey is actually a piece of vesicular basalt (volcanic rock with gas bubbles) wrapped with silver and sewn onto the tapestry.  I was really inspired by the gorgeous shades of the Icelandic and of the layering that can occur with extrusive volcanism (lava flows).  The whole thing was an ode to Iceland's geology, really.

I really love how this turned out, but the bobbly handspun second from the top intrigued me!  See the little hill in the contact with the white?  That formed naturally from larger bobbles stacking up as I wove.  I really wanted to play with the nature of this yarn, and so the inspiration for my next design was born.

For this one, I just wanted to play with the thick-thin texture of the cream handspun, so I paired it with an evenly spun black commercial Icelandic wool and alternated rows of each yarn.  I messed up the first part of the tapestry since I initially tried weaving the handspun over and under every two strands (called the warp threads), but this really affected the texture and smoothed out the effect that I wanted.  I'd also planned to use some white commercially spun Icelandic wool to try to show off the distortions, but I didn't like the effect (and only realized well after it was too late to pull it out).  Ah well.

It was fun to see how the handspun would stack up.  There was actually a lot more extreme waves in the fat white section above, but the thick sections started to line up to fill in the thin sections, and I wound up with less extreme waves.

On the other hand, there was less chance for the handspun to "fix" itself in the narrower bands, and they formed some cool waves.  I love the texture of this tapestry.

And since it's one of my favourite features of my previous tapestry, I made sure to include a thick rhya at the bottom.

I was a bit lazier with this tapestry though.  On the previous one, I weaved in all of the warp threads at both the top and the bottom.  This time, I just wove in the ones at the end so they wouldn't protrude and hid the rest behind the rhya.  Haha GO LAZINESS!

This tapestry was started before I moved into my new apartment in March, and was made as a "welcome to your new home" for myself.  It was an essential thing to focus on when I was feeling so lost, since I find weaving really captures my focus and attention.  Especially one like this, where I was really experimenting with the material and engrossed in the results.

Expect to see more tapestries from me in the future!  They're so fun to do.  I do need to make some for the store, since my friend has really hooked people into this art form.

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As an aside, this is the first time I really felt artistic in a long time.  Unlike with the majority of my knitting and sewing, I felt like I wasn't just following instructions but actually using my artistic spirit to create something unique.  Not that knitting or sewing can't be artistic, nor that others haven't created works of art in those mediums, but I never felt that way in regards to my own work; I don't consider myself an artist when it comes to sewing or knitting, but I definitely felt like one with these tapestries.  What do you think?  Do you feel like an artist, or at least, artistic when sewing or knitting?  I always feel like I'm making pretty but practical items.  I guess practical can be artistic as well, but I guess it comes from a prairie farming background, where you make what you need because it's necessary - hard to look at those skills as artistic as well.

Briggs and Little kal

This post is probably a little incoherent.  It's late, I'm tired, and I just want to blog, dammit!  Also I swear I wrote a blog post about this, but obviously I just daydreamed that one. 

Back in March, Briggs and Little, one of my favourite yarn companies ever, announced a KAL/CAL for any of their sport-weight yarn.  I've been itching to knit a sweater with their B&L Sport, so obviously I needed to join.  Plus I can't resist KALs.

I'm knitting Rolling Rock by Thea Colman, and I'm loving this pattern.  It has an interesting contiguous shoulder line, which is a combination of a set in and a raglan sleeve on a top-down sweater.  I found it mostly flew off the needles, except just before and the first 6 inches after the sleeve separation, which is always ALWAYS a slog for me.  It has a gorgeous lace detail all over the back of the sweater (which I apparently don't have a picture of just yet), and it's both easy to knit and makes the sweater fun to knit.

Haha you can see exactly which section I steam blocked to see how the yarn relaxed.

Now granted, the KAL ends on in a few days on May 15th, and I'm NEARLY THERE.  I have 1.6 sleeves to knit, and I'll probably be pulling a few late nights to finish it.  Like um, tonight.  I hope I can finish, anyways.  Because I literally have 6 other sweaters on the needles and I should probably finish one or two of them before I start the sweater I plan to start this month.  On top of all of the shop knitting I need to do.  AHA yeah, I might have a problem...

Wish me luck folks!

fba on Darling Ranges Bodice

I'm finally sewing up Darling Ranges from Megan Nielsen Patterns!  I always feel like I'm the last to attempt these popular patterns.  I've been half in love with this one forever, but I'm trying to work from patterns I already own (because I have a lot, and am half in love with most of them too).  Except during Me-Made-May last year, I won a prize through a giveaway (more on that next time) that included this pattern.  It's been on the back of my mind ever since, and as the pattern also came with fabric to sew the dress up in, obviously it was the one I reached for when I was considering a new project!

Except as usual, I knew I had to modify the pattern.  A full bust adjustment was definitely in order.

The first thing I did was trace the front pattern piece.  Since my body measurements are quite different than the pattern sizes, I used my high bust measurement (38", size M) for the shoulders, graded to size L at the underarm after the arm scythe, then graded to an XL at the waist.  My current waist measurement is actually, erm, a bit larger than the pattern fits to, but I also knew that the fba would add some width, so we're going for it.

Since I was pursuing my Fit For Real People (FFRP) book to refresh my memory on how to do an fba, I decided to tissue fit the pattern.  No pics of that process since I was just in my bra at the time, but it showed that I needed a 2 inches added to the piece (1 inch fba on each side).

There's a tutorial on Megan Nielsen's blog about how to do an fba for this pattern, but it was based on her previous design, which had a dart on the side, not at the waistline.  I chose to just go with a normal fba based on FFRP, while adding a dart to the side to redistribute some of the dart width. You can see that adjustment above, though I forgot to add some length on the right side of the fba.

I retraced the adjustments onto a new sheet and tried it on.  (I'm using parchment paper because it's what I have on hand.  I love working with this stuff, but scotch tape doesn't stick to it for very long and that's such a pain, let me tell you).  The fit was better, but the side dart I added was too high.  I chopped that sucker out and shifted it down a bit.


AND here's the final result.  While tracing this version, I raised the neckline by about 1.25 inches as per Megan's tutorial.  I probably should've rotated some more of that lower dart width to the side dart, but ah well.  I think this'll do, and I'll make any further adjustments on the next dress.  If there's another dress.  I hope there is, because this one seems darling - lets see how it works on me!


In case you're curious (I always am), this is how the piece stacked up against the original.  I lined up the shoulder and the front centre edge since that hadn't changed much.  You can see the width and length added to the piece (I'm a little worried about that added length, but the tissue fitting seemed to sit fine on me so we're just gonna give'er on that one), and the changes to the dart location and end point.  I forgot to mention, but at some point I lowered the vertical dart a bit since it hit above my apex.

Yeah yeah, boring post.  I haven't even showed you the fabric this'll be made from!  Mostly I just wanted to write out my adjustments here for future reference.  Hopefully I actually get to sewing this dress up, because I think it's going to be a great addition to my wardrobe, and I'm feeling like I need a change to my style.  But more on that another time.

Geez these are a pain to do, but it's worth the time to adjust the pattern.  What annoying-but-worthwhile pattern adjustments do you have to make?

fo: Birch-Newsprint-Clocks-Whatever Quilt : finally done!

So uh, do any of you remember the quilt I planned out and quickly sewed up back in, oh, March 2015?  The one that I stated in this post that only needed to be bound by the bias binding I'd already completed?

I just finished that sucker last night.  Oops.

To be fair, the mostly-finished quilt got tucked away for one reason or another ::coughIhatebiasbindingcough:: and then forgotten until I moved into my new place.  And then I got into a fight ::coughinstigateditinafitoffrustrationandheartachecough:: with the Ex and basically cut him out of my life while I heal before I could claim the blanket I bought in Mexico.  This meant I had no blanket for the couch in my often-chilly basement suite.  AND THEN I started using the unbound quilt, so now my couch is full of wee little threads of yarn that came off the edges of the quilt, and the thing was starting to get a little ratty.

Obviously it was time to bind that sucker.  The moment that the sewing machine was unearthed, I did so.

Guys, don't look to closely at the binding.  I vaguely used this tutorial and completely machine-sewed the binding on.  But instead of neatly stitching the final side down, I triple-stitch zigzagged that sucker down.  To reflect the triple-stitch zigzag that I "quilted" the blanket with. Yes.

Whatever, I don't care how ugly the edging is, because I now have a cozy and bright couch blanket to snuggle under on my evenings off as I knit and watch unending episodes of Last Week Tonight on youtube and read shoddy Star Trek fanfic.  :D

My life is obviously complete.