Ballet wrap yarn samples

I've been sampling for my proposed ballet wrap.

First I dyed fiber. I looked through books of color samples and decided on a pastel pink with a little bit of black to tone it down. Unfortunately I didn't check my calculations carefully enough, so I dyed it at 1% DOS when I had intended to dye at .1%. Just a simple decimal point, but oh, the difference! You can see the oh-so-vibrant results here:


This was all in the same dyepot. Clockwise from upper right: Superwash merino wool, tussah silk that was interleaved with superwash, merino wool (not superwash), angora, tussah silk that was interleaved with the regular merino. You can see that the superwash merino took the dye more readily than the regular merino -- that's to be expected, since the superwash process removes the little scales protecting the outside of the wool fibers. I thought it was interesting to see the difference in the silk as well, since they are both the same fiber from the same coil of top.

This was my first attempt at dyeing silk interleaved with wool as described by Deb Menz in Color in Spinning. (Why, yes, I've had the book for 12 years. I'm slow.) I'm not sure I like the final results -- it was pesky to do, and the silk is in a thousand bits right now -- but I need to try it a few more times before deciding if it works for me.

Even though this is not the depth of shade I wanted, the basic color is what I had in mind. So I decided to concentrate on developing a blend of fibers before worrying about the color. So I carded up a batt of each fiber and went to work.


I decided not to use the superwash since it was so much darker. I made blends of merino / angora and two different proportions of merino / angora / silk.


Then I spun them up and knitted them, and showed them around to friends.

The merino / angora (center nest) had the highest percentage of angora, and we liked that. But it has a matt surface; I liked the shine that the silk gave to the other two samples.

So I decided to try another blend of equal parts of merino / silk / angora, and to start fiddling with the color. I'm very happy with the fiber blend, but not so much with the color change. I thought that if half the angora were gray, the whole thing would get a sort of silvery sheen. Instead it just looked dirty. It is starting to match Charlotte's ballet leotard, but that's not necessarily a good thing. I hate that color!

(Swatches start at the bottom with merino / angora. Then two merino / angora / silk blends, with a lower percentage of angora. The light swatch in the middle has the gray angora.)

Then I made two more blends. I blended the pink superwash with black wool from a local fleece -- considered medium by the breeder, who specializes in Merino, but which feels pretty soft to me. I then blended the pink/black wool with white superwash merino, and blended that whole mixture with the silk & angora. I made a second version of this blend in which half the angora was pink and half was white.

I fully expected to love these last two yarns, and especially the lighter one. Unfortunately, the black wool makes the whole thing look dirty again, although for a different reason than the angora. With the angora, I think the grubby effect comes from the gray haze over the clearer color of the base knitting. With the black wool, I think it's just uneven blending. Because the black wool is so much darker than the pink, even three passes through the supercard wasn't enough to thoroughly blend it and eliminate streaking.

So today I'm going to make another couple of blends. First will be pink wool / white wool / silk / pink angora / white angora, with the proportions of both whites upped, to make a pale pink. Second will have some camel blended in, to brown it up a little. I don't think there will be as much trouble blending this because the values are similar.

I know this is a lot of trouble for the yarn for one little cardigan. But I'm finding it very educational, and fun if also frustrating. And I'm planning a nifty scarf out of all the little balls of leftover yarn -- I've knit up less than half of each sample.

To the wool room! It's carding time!

Little girl fashion HELP

Hey, there --

I am planning a sweater for my six year old and realize that it would be more likely to turn out well if I were not so fashion-oblivious. I have in mind something like this - a v-necked wrap around, probably with elbow or 3/4 length sleeves. I want to make it in pink, out of an angora/silk/wool blend yarn, so it will be fluffy and make her feel like a ballet princess.

So far, so good. But the details have me stumped. I see a lot of variation in how these things fasten. Some (the traditional ones, I think) have ties on each end and holes in the side seam to thread them through; they tie in back or have long ties that wrap all the way around and tie in front. Some have little short ties on the left hip; closure on the other side is not visible but presumably is either short ties on the inside or a button. Some have a button on the right side. One was a sort of false wrap -- the two fronts were fastened to the same bottom band, so the sweater was really a pullover.

So how important is the wrapping function to make this feel like a Real Ballet Sweater? I think the long ties might be so cumbersome that she wouldn't like the sweater -- though she does like to tie bows. Buttons wouldn't allow for the same amount of customization -- will that matter to a first grader? I don't think she'd like the pullover as well as a wrap.

And what of the length? The Sirdar pattern shows it as waist length, but I wonder if slightly shorter wouldn't be more fashionable now. Though of course if it's waist length now it will be higher by next winter, more of this effect.

And what about stitch pattern? I love this eyelet patterned one (Rav link) but all the capezio type sweaters are plain. Will she know? Care?

I've promised myself I won't start this until I finish my current spinning project, but that will probably only be a few days. So help me think this through!

Finished shawl, with pride.

I finally finished my Pi Are Squared shawl! I can't remember when I first decided to make this, but I think it was while I was living in Chicago which means before 1989. (Coincidentally, I bought this yarn while living in Chicago, too.) I cast this on in July or August 2005, for something to knit while taking a long car ride. It has lasted me through many of them, but it is finally done.

My biggest holdup has been the final edging around the neck/front opening. I started making an applied I-cord edging but didn't like it, and ripped it back in favor of a very plain, very simple single crochet edge. I might put something fancier on later, but I doubt it -- there's enough going on everywhere else.

Here it is blocking:


I just used t-pins stuck into the carpet. I should have vacuumed first; I had to pick quite a few fuzzy bits off the back after it dried. See the tape measure in the middle? I used that to make both sides approximately the same.

Here it is from another angle:


Note the fan in the background? That's because my final impetus to finish was the local county fair -- I pinned this out at 2 in the afternoon and entries were due by 9 p.m. It was dry in plenty of time.

I don't know where the time goes. I decided in early summer that I would finish this in time for the fair this year, and I never really lost sight of that .... but I still ended up weaving in ends up until the last minute (after blocking; you can see some loose ends here). But I love going to the fair and looking at others people's items, so I always try to enter a few myself.

I tell myself that I don't really care if I win or not but it turns out I lie. Because this didn't win ANYTHING and I was really, really grouchy about it. I know it's hardly a masterpiece of design but I think it's quite nice and it is also a huge honking piece of lace. Given our bizarre classes it had to go into the "knitted coats, sweaters and capes" class, and it lost out to a couple of sweaters that really didn't seem all that special to me. But maybe that's my bitterness talking.

Really, I don't think I'd mind nearly as much if there were any explanations at all. There are never any comments on the judging, plus they don't reclass if they think you've entered something in the wrong class. (I think third place in this class went to a baby sweater which IMO should have been in the baby sweater class.) I want to know if the judges really thought this wasn't as well done as the items that placed, or if there was some other reason for their decisions, or (honestly) if they ever even unfolded it.

I also entered a couple of scarves -- knitted and woven -- and a skein of handspun which had to go into "any other crafts". Both scarves placed but they're nothing special.

I do have to say that the woman who knit the winning sweater was there when I was, and she was really really excited and proud, and also seemed to be thrilled with the small cash prize that goes with the ribbon. So that's pretty neat. I'll try to think about that and not about my (apparently wildly overinflated) expectations.

Modeled shots next week, after I reclaim it and bribe my photographer.

Styling help!

Hey -- I have a Completed Knitted Garment to show you!!! Now if I could figure out how to wear it ...



This is Watershed, which I planned to finish before our trip to Colorado, so I would have a nice little coverup for those cold mountain evenings. Needless to say, I knitted it while in Colorado, and it did indeed keep my lap warm on those cool evenings.

All is not lost, however -- I will be going to the library this afternoon, where the temperature will be about 20 degrees cooler than the outside air. Usually it's about 30 degrees cooler, but we are having a rare spell of moderate weather, so the outdoors is not as furnace-like as usual.

But how shall I wear it? Specifically, would you leave the collar flat, as in the above picture and this next one?



Or would you fold it over?




I like them both.

We have had Big Changes around here:




These guys were about 5 weeks old at that point. Unfortunately the smallest one (in the middle here) died overnight. We were all shocked and saddened, and fearful for the others. But they have been fine -- energetic, healthy, and eating well. It just doesn't make sense.

And now I must go give the remaining two baths (fleas) -- wish me luck!