Tag Archives: colour work

I did it! I actually FROGGED the whole thing!

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Hm, yes unfortunately you did read correctly! Despite my good intentions and your encouragements and advice, I still went ahead and frogged my mitten!

Are you ready? Take a deep breath because it is not pretty

www.knittinginfrance.com   Yikes, the needles are gone!  www.knittinginfrance.com  And here it is, almost totally gone!

So WHAT happened?? Well 2 things actually. 1) I’m stubborn and there just was something that bothered me about the mitten so far. I don’t know exactly what but it just did not feel quite like I wanted it to. And 2) I did actually take the mitten and knit a few more rounds last night and as I was about to call it a night, I tried it on and it felt too big. I’m tall and usually do all my knitting in L but this was too big and I was afraid that if I continued it would not only be too large but too long as well. So I just felt like it was ALL wrong so….I’m sorry for disappointing you but I think the mittens will be all the better for this. I’m convinced that my 2nd try will be THE good one!

I’ll be going to Iceland to visit my mom and family in a few days and the trip from Normandy, France is very long so I’m planning all the knitting I need to take with me both for the actual trip and for the time I’m there. I’m going to do the mittens and hopefully I’ll be able to progress nicely and then I need something that demands less concentration so either socks or the entrelac scarf/stole I showed you the other day. Or maybe all 3! I’m just totally unable to JUST knit 1 thing at a time. I need to have a variety of projects going at the same time and I knit each one in different circumstances. I have the easy peasy for work – when work is slow I can knit between phone calls, I have one medium knit for the tv/evening knits – something interesting without requiring total concentration and then one more intricate knit that I will do when I have the time to just be by myself and knit for a little while and concentrate totally on what I’m doing.

Is this crazy? A sign of my total and utter “obsession” for knitting? My hubby thinks so but I just think this is normal and even vital to my mental health:)

If you share the same “condition” or not, do share with the rest of us by leaving a comment 🙂

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My knits of the moment

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Hi there, over the last few days I have not been able to work as I’m too worried about my mom and her health. Some days I’m unable to do anything but just feel sorry for everything and I spend as much time as I can knitting away in front of Netflix series and movies. Other days I remember that she would not want me to just let everything go and that she is my business’s nr 1 fan and as such I owe it to her to take action whenever I have the time. And that motivates me to dive into dyeing for example.

So this weekend was a mix of both so on Saturday I did some dyeing

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And on Sunday I did mostly knitting

entrelac knitting using hand spun yarn This is an entrelac project I’m knitting without a pattern, this is supposed to be like a large scarf or stole. I’m using my own handspun yarn and of course this is meant for my mother! Something to keep her warm. It’s been quite a while since I last did entrelac so I keep my book close by as I need a reminder every time I reach the end of a row/round how to go about making that last square and how to begin the first of the next row/round. I’m finding it quite fun and am practicing my backwards knitting as I hate to constantly turn the work to purl just a few stitches. Also this makes the project go so much faster.

www.knittinginfrance.com www.knittinginfrance.com And I finally got some work done on my Sindri mittens by Shannon Okey – from her Aurora Borealis mittens book. The first picture is the front and the second is the back of the mitten. I’m not far gone but colourwork does take more time so thats ok. I’m loving my colour combination so that’s cool.

IMG_3004   www.knittinginfrance.com I also continued on a sock I began last week. The yarn is of course my own hand dyed yarn. On the second picture you see the pattern better. This is a pattern/sock that is part of my KAL knit from stash  through the Addicted to Sock Knitting group on FB.

So you see I have quite a few things going at the moment. That’s all for today, it’s time for me to run off to my yoga class for some quality time.

Until next time, take care and enjoy your crafting 🙂

 

Progress and some neon yarns

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by:)

Since last time I’ve made some good progress on my first real pair of 2 in 1 socks. I’m now passed the heel turn and working on the gusset decreases. Youpi! This sounds like a homerun! Once the heel is all done with the rest usually follows quickly I think. Here are some pictures for you

www.knittinginfrance.com

my progress on the 2 in 1 sock knitting challenge

progress on 2 in 1 sock www.knittinginfrance.com

see I’m onto the gusset stitches now

I’m knitting these on my Signature Needle Arts dpn’s that I LOVE! Looking good so far I think.

Now for the dyeing. I told you that this weekend I did some dyeing, mostly Sunday as that was the Day of Women here in France and I thought I deserved some quality time with my yarn and dyes. And as I just got this new neon dye stuff, I of course had to experiment with different methods of dyeing using those. So I did 5 skeins of sock weight yarn and 2 blanks. But I’m also going to show you some pictures of other yarns I dyed recently as well. These have still not been set up for sale in the shop on Etsy – I admit I’m still debating how much of my current dye work should go online and how much should just be set aside for the show in London this coming May. But anyways, some pictures:

hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com These are my 5 sock weight skeins and here you can see how I placed the dyes – I chose to leave lots of white here on most of them

hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com hand dyed yarn www.knittinginfrance.com This is what they look like once I’ve wound them into skeins – I just would them as they were which explains why you can see large “blotches” of colour.

my first time dyeing sock yarn with neon colours www.knittinginfrance.com

My neon coloured sock yarns

here are the same skeins but reskeined. Can you see the difference? They almost don’t look like the same set of skeins don’t you think?

I’m rather satisfied with the results myself and I hope you like what you see too.

 

Here are some more dyes

all new hand dyed yarns by www.knittinginfrance.com

My latest hand dyed yarns

At the top here, you see 2 skeins of Polwarth wool in sock weight that I dyed in stripes – in the middle you have the skeins I dyed for the 2 in 1 sock knitting challenge (see below) only here they have been reskeined – and at the bottom you have 3 skeins of a cashmere blend sock yarn I dyed using a similar technique to the neon dyes and these have also been reskeined.

hand dyed glitter yarn sock weight www.knittinginfrance.com

hand dyed silver stellina yarn in soft vieux rose

hand dyed silver stellina sock yarn by www.knittinginfrance.com

gradient vieux rose hand dyed stellina silver sock yarn

And here you see the yarn that I dyed for the 2 in 1 sock knitting challenge last week

And here you see the cashmere base sock yarn I did last week or the week before that (you see this yarn reskeined in the picture above) and look how amazing the magic of dyeing can be. I love seeing the transformation from the just dyed skeins to the reskeined skeins to the actual knitted socks. I’m also loving the way this yarn knits up which is why I used a similar technique yesterday to dye my neon yarns.

multi colored sock weight cashmere based yarn www.knittinginfrance.com

multi colored yarn

multi colored sock weight cashmere based yarn www.knittinginfrance.com

reskeined multi coloured yarn

multi coloured yarn knit up into socks by www.knittinginfrance.com

my multi coloured yarn knit into socks

 

 

Thats all for today, I must go back to work now. But before I leave you here are some pictures I took from my afternoon at the beach yesterday (yes I know I’m lucky to live in Normandy, France)

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Until next time, take care and enjoy your crafting 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Neons and mittens

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Hi there, today Shannon Okey just released her latest book called Aurora Borealis Mittens. I had seen some pictures of the mittens in the book on Facebook and could not resist and so pre-ordered a copy on Ravelry and today it got the actual e-book. And boy is it GORGEOUS! I think I love knitting mittens as much as I love knitting socks.

Now this book has a number of beautiful colour work mittens and most are inspired from an Icelandic pattern book and thus have Icelandic names – which I find kind of nostalgic, me being an Icelandic knitter living far away from home 🙂

I have looked at all the patterns and though I may need to actually knit each and every one of them I’m going to begin with the pattern called Sindri (I love that name by the way). Here’s a picture sindri by shannon okey from blog www.knittinginfrance.com   Don’t you just love them? And if you are wondering, you don’t have to buy the entire book, if you wish you can just purchase an individual pattern. Now for the yarn, I just received some new dyes so now I know exactly how I’m going to dye my yarn. I’m thinking dark grey for the main colour and fuchsia (neon pink) for the contrast colour. I’ve never dyed anything that bright and flashy but these mittens seem to lend themselves well to a flashy colour so that’s it for me.  Do you have a favorite colour combination for colour work such as this? Do you like knitting mittens like me?  So this weekend I have to take some time to choose my base yarn and do the dyeing. I’ll be sure to show you the yarn once it’s dyed and ready:)

That’s all for today so take care until next time 🙂