Stripes

About to Turn the Corner….

Posted on March 13, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

I never thought I would do it, but here I am knitting Entrelac. Here’s my progress, I’m about to turn the third corner of my dishcloth. How did this come about?

As you may know from reading my blog, I’m a gadget girl and I’d rather figure out how to do stuff on my knitting machine than to knit by hand. Although you can do a faux entrelac on the machine, you don’t get the cool color changes like the hand done version. And regular entrelac is more time consuming on the machine than by hand. I had been determined to admire but not attempt.

However, at Sheep in the City, my neighbor was Linda Loeffelholz, who does a bit of designing and was there selling patterns with her son (who is a sock machine guy, and had an old Studio hat knitting machine there…..COOL!!) So I had a very long time to admire her Entrelac Shawl….it was made of her handspun….one ply subtly shifting colors, the other a nice brown color. It was quite stunning.

Over the course of the weekend, Linda helped me seal a sale (Entrelac is a great way to show off variegated yarns, especially my rainbows). It was fairly substantial, so I offered her a yarn she had been admiring as a thank you. Well, the gracious lady that she is (or perhaps good marketer!) came over with her dishcloth pattern in hand, and proceeded to give me a mini-class in knitting Entrelac. Turns out that it isn’t as hard as I thought, and the little squares really help you feel like you are accomplishing something!

Linda’s pattern is unique in that the border is knit with the squares so that you don’t end up with blatant stripes from a knit-on-later border. For the dishcloth, you also do not have to knit any little triangles, which makes it nice for beginning. I had to trust and follow the pattern for the first corner and couple of rows, but I’m getting the hang of it now and think I can adjust the technique for different stitch numbers if I wanted to fit a yarn repeat in a square.

Of course now my mind is spinning with possibilities for variegated yarn….and just imagine how great a Fillet would work up in this technique….guess I’d better get making some more! Not sure I’m up for a shawl yet, but I may dye up some cotton in long shifting colors and do another dishcloth. This one has been claimed by one of the cubs to be a blanket for her doll.

Have you been learning any new techniques lately? What got you to finally try it?

Posted in Knitting Projects | Tagged entrelac, knitting | 5 Comments

It’s time for lace!

Posted on March 11, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

With the Spring Mystery Shawl underway (last day to join is Saturday), I’ve been able to allocate some Zephyr lace yarn to dyeing in other colors. Here’s the latest, perfect for knitting or weaving a pretty new spring shawl!

Posted in Fresh From the Dyepot | Tagged hand dyed, lace, merino, silk, wool | Comments Off

The Sheep were in the City!

Posted on March 2, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

Whew! I’m back and somewhat organized and rested from an exciting weekend at Sheep in the City in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. It was my first show, and what a friendly and fun one!

Here’s my booth…..

I debuted a new yarn at this show, Bengal Twist, which was a big hit. I’ll tell you more about that when I’ve got them in the shop. I also have many new colors of Panda for you. I got many compliments on my bright colors, which made me feel better…..everyone else there had mostly darker moody colors.

Now for the fun……instead of us vendors being segregated off somewhere, we were arranged around the ‘circle’. Here’s a shot of the circle on Saturday morning.

And here is our hostess, Jan (of the bright hair), starting off the Sheep to Shawl demonstration (it was supposed to be a guild war, but the local guild pummelled the others so badly that there were no challengers this year).

Everyone contributed some bits of yarn and fluff, and a fun art yarn was made and turned into a little shawlette.

At the end of the day Saturday, there was a fashion show. Many amazing projects were paraded down the runway. Here’s a shawl that took this lady much of the summer to make…..you can’t see them, but there are gold beads all over it.

And to give you an idea of the fun of this group, here’s another ensemble that strutted about……….

From there, the group launched into a full blown pajama party with lots of fun, laughter, and singing. Oh, and crazy wigs!

In all, I had a great time….this was the perfect show to start out vending. I learned and laughed a lot, and made many new friends. If you are in the area (or even if not….the hotel is right next to the airport), I’d encourage you to come next year. Jan puts on a great show!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged show, vending | Comments Off

How to make a striped art batt on a drum carder

Posted on February 15, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

Hello! I’ve been busy busy busy dyeing between the Mystery Shawl Along, and getting ready for Sheep in the City (which is next week already, yikes!). I’ve also been making batts while the skeins of Zephyr for the shawl along have been rewinding (1200 yards at speed slow…..zzzzzzzzzz). I’m particularly proud of these (so much so that I made a set for myself), and thought I would share how I made them.

Here’s the starting materials…..a pile of wool in two shades of purple, a bit of black, and a shiny streak of mohair.

The first task is to divide this pile into the number of batts I want to do. I’m using my Big Tom drum carder by Fancy Kitty, and it can make batts of 2-3 ounces pretty comfortably, so after weighing I decided to make 3 batts.

I started by eyeballing it, and then finished up by weighing each and evening out.

So here’s the content of one of those tubs. A large pile of dark purple, a streak of black, a silky bundle of mohair, a medium pile of pale purple, and a few bits of dark purple with blue streaks. I don’t want to lose the contrast between these, so I’m going to put all these on the carder…one pass and that is it.

Here’s my pattern. I planned the stripes based on the proportions of materials I have. I fed each strip in separately, if you want to feed all in at the same time, you really need to get the fiber fluffed and feed thin bits. Otherwise the swift will grab all these strips and once and yank them whole off the licker. Not pretty. I could feed them one at a time as shown, though, and the carder did a marvelous job of carding and distributing the fibers.

Here’s after a bit of feeding in. You will note that there isn’t much overlap. I have to correct this, since the batt won’t stay together if the different stripes don’t meet each other. I have limited black, so I decided to overlap the adjacent stripes over it, and add the black in intervals so it is through the batt. It’ll make a nicer blend when spun that way.

Once I was near the end of my fiber, I added the mohair in one even layer. I wanted it near the top layer for the shine, but in enough that it’d be easy to spin and keep the mohair fairly evenly distributed.

Another light layer of my stripes, and here’s the batt ready to come off the carder.

To give you some perspective on how large these batts are, I’ve included a 12 inch ruler in the picture.

I did the same with the remaining two bins, and here’s all three batts together. And I had a bunch of lace yarn rewound and ready to ship. Yay for multi-tasking!

Posted in drum carding | Tagged batts, drum carder, Tutorial, wool | 12 Comments

At Last…

Posted on February 5, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

Well, I’ve finally finished the scarf that was on my Beka rigid heddle loom. This was woven from my handspun, as I showed you in this post. I hovered over those last few inches forever, just tossing furtive glances at the loom propped up over there. Why? I knew I’d need a dedicated bit of time to cut it off the loom and do the knots. So, success at last!

I learned quite a bit about controlling my selvedges and keeping my beat even throughout the scarf on this one. The color shifts make it look pretty cool. My cub declares it scratchy (overspun beginner yarn made with mohair content….look Ma, I made burlap!), but I’m hoping it will soften with a bit of a wash (and perhaps a drop or two of Milsoft). It it doesn’t become soft enough for wear, it’ll make a cool runner to drape over a shelf. Either way, I’m really pleased with the rustic open weave look of it, and the shifting colors brighten up the grey weather we’ve been experiencing here in Iowa.

Anyone else weaving? What are you working on?

Posted in Weaving | 6 Comments

Spring Mystery Shawl KAL

Posted on January 28, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

There be yarn in the house. To be exact, 100,800 yards of yarn! This is Zephyr Lace that I am dyeing for a Mystery Shawl KAL that I am doing with Goddess Knits. Renee is an amazing designer (her Ravelry designer page….check out Eye of the Storm!), AND she lives in Iowa, too. Here are the colors exclusively for the KAL:
Hawthorn Rose

Rosewater

Wan Blue

Each of these yarns is individually hand dipped multiple times to achieve this subtle pale and delicate semi-solid shading.

If you are interested in joining the Spring Mystery Shawl KAL, you can sign up here. Once you join the Yahoo Group, you’ll receive the password you will need to order the yarn. The first clue will be sent on March 6th. If you enjoy lace, I hope you’ll join us!

Posted in Fresh From the Dyepot | Tagged KAL | Comments Off

Reality continues to ruin my life.

Posted on January 22, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

The title quote popped up on my iGoogle today, it’s by Bill Watterson who wrote the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. I thought it pretty fitting!

You may have noticed that I’ve been away from the blog. I certainly have not been taking a break, however. January brings the time of year that all self-employed people hate…..end of year paperwork and taxes.

Inventory comes first. I had to drag all of my yarn and fiber, dyed and undyed, out of my studio and put it back bit by bit….counting each and every one, and weighing out the fiber. The good news is that I had a great chance to clean and reorganize in there so I’m ready for another year of work.

I’ve also been ordering new supplies, since I let stock get low so inventory would be easier to do. The problem? Two of my sources are having mill issues, so I’m doing some interesting juggling to make this all work. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal to wait a few weeks since usually have plenty of other things that need color, but this time I’m making all new stock for Sheep in the City at the end of February. It will be fine, but I may not have much Tiger Twist there….or I’ll pull some crazy hours in the days before to get them dyed if they arrive.

Speaking of Sheep in the City, I’ve also been spending January buying shelving and figuring out how my booth will look. I have it set up in the basement (well, as much as I have room for), and now I just need to fill it all up. I’ll get some pictures going once it isn’t so bare.

Today, I’m doing some dye experiments, and ordering mundane stuff like shopping and shipping bags. This afternoon I will continue to slog through all the orders from last year to be sure I’ve done my accounting correctly. The state of Iowa wants their sales tax.

Hope your Friday and weekend are great ones!

Posted in Business Stuff | 2 Comments

A New Year

Posted on January 4, 2010 by ThePaintedTiger

Here we go, with a fresh shiny new year! Wonder what it will bring?

So far, wildlife in the back yard. What is under the trampoline?

This is some smart deer. Why melt a spot in the snow and get snowed on top of when you can bed down under a trampoline?

This is the whole group the next day, about 9 am which is a bit late for deer to be out from cover, but I guess they feel safe here. This is a doe and her two yearlings. I’m guessing it is the same doe that had the twin fawns here a couple of years ago, if you’ve been following my blog that long! I’m sure they were all enjoying my black raspberries. Grrrr.

After my first rigid heddle loom success, I decided that this long languishing hand spun deserved some weaving love. I split it roughly in half using my ball winder and a postal scale, then warped until I ran out of the first half of the yarn. Somehow it came out so that the selvages will match!

This is what I’m working on tonight. It is slower going, and it is going to be ‘holey’ when done, since the sett should really be closer. But, I think it will be ok. I’m really enjoying the slow color changes and can’t wait to get it off the loom to see the whole thing together.

Posted in Weaving, Wildlife | Tagged deer, hand spun, Weaving | 3 Comments

How a New Coat Led to a New Hobby

Posted on December 23, 2009 by ThePaintedTiger

Last fall (not this year, 2008) I found the most wonderful Anne Klein coat. Deep green….mossy and brown, A-line, elegantly simple top stitching, chunky buttons. Oh, and get this…..60% Angora and 40% wool. Soft, very warm, simple, and on an incredible discount.

The problem? No scarf, hat, mittens…..worthy of this fantastic garment. So the coat spent its first winter in the closet. Insane, perhaps. My intention was to dye something fabulous to go with the coat. Never happened.

Earlier this year, I stepped into a crafty type store to pick up some goodies to go with a fiber club shipment, and here was the Paton’s Shetland Chunky. Although I thought the bright green was perhaps a shade too bright, I bought it. Surely, now all I had to do was knit it up, right?

My first attempt was just a simple 1×1 rib scarf on the knitting machine. Bleah. Frog. So hand knitting it was……here’s the Wave drop stitch scarf I tried:

I didn’t much care for that either. How about crochet? I consulted my books, and making a 5 chain net from it seemed like that would work. I worked on this while we were on our Thanksgiving travels.

Seems ok, right? Mr. Tiger and the cubs deemed it just dandy. The picture below really shows the problem though……

Yes, we have the dreaded blobby side and then the diminishing helix side. Argh!!

Which then led to something I’ve been putting off for a long time……..

This here is a Beka frame loom. I picked it up at an auction a few years ago, along with many many back issues of Handwoven, tons of books for ‘big looms’, plus a variety of bobbins, a winder, and a Schacht shuttle. Why did I get all that? Well…..in the lot was a big handmade cherry warping mill, and I was very much at the time into dyeing striping yarn (still am, but always searching for a more efficient way of doing it). So I dutifully shelved the books and mags, and tucked the loom away for a rainy day. The bobbins and winder have come in quite handy with my spinning….letting me wind off of my wooden wheel bobbins and redistribute the twist by winding it across the room.

Anyway, I’ve been lurking on the Rigid Heddle group on Rav, and by chance saw a link to direct warping. Eureka! Surely the yarn would look better woven, and direct warping looked so easy!!

So here’s my start. I actual un-wove all this, added a few more warp strands, and started over. Overall, I spent about 6 hours on this project, which I think isn’t bad considering I was learning as I went.

So here it is. My selvedges are wonky here and there (more noticeable when that pesky light green was on the edge), and if held straight it has a bit of a curve, but over all good enough for me to wear with pride. Now I’m looking for a sewn hat and mittens pattern, since I have enough yarn to fabric for that, too.

So now I’m trying to decide why I resisted this fiber craft for so long. It is easy and quick, makes great results, and will be a fabulous way to use the yarn I spin. Perhaps I didn’t want to follow this new weaving trend, or felt Mr. Tiger wasn’t ready for a new hobby to appear in the house. Either way, the breakthrough is going to cause some serious damage to my pocketbook. I’ve been thinking our living room needs a nice 20″ Flip.

It all started with a coat.

Posted in Weaving | Tagged projects, Weaving | 3 Comments

Flowers and Rainbows and Chilly Colors, Oh My!!!

Posted on December 18, 2009 by ThePaintedTiger

Here I am, all finished with the Christmas scarf rush, so I had a chance to photograph some yarn and fiber and do an update today! Stop by the shop to check them all out.