Hexagon non-progress

I’ve decided to make my hexagon blanket in superwash only and preferably the same brand, a super soft merino. I have a whole bunch of solids as well as white and grey yarn to dye up in smaller skeins over time. I’m aiming at only a few duplicates of each, so some of my initial big batch dyeing projects have been put in the shop in case someone likes this yarn too, and that will enable me to get more yarn and keep playing. 😉 I want to dye as many different skeins as I can possibly cook up.

I’m also not making the hexagons double like a puff, making a very lightweight blacket. That may be a mistake, since they are stretchier and not as sturdy, I’ll have to come up with a non-stretchy edge/assembly method. I may want a contrasting border between each cell anyway. And yes, it’s going to take forever…. I’ve only made 15 so far + one that is too small because I forgot how many stitches I used for the others.

I’d like some opinions, do you think I’ll regret not making them double? I was thinking of perhaps backing them with fabric, but maybe I should go double knit like a puff, to help it keep its shape better? They ARE very thin, I have to admit that. I can always lay my singles double and mount them with the knitted doubles, so no work is wasted. I don’t want them stuffed.

I’ve also considered knitting them larger, making a solid border round each hexagon, then assembling those. Won’t make the blanket any thicker, but quicker to put together. It could become my meditation blanket, both making it and using it only for that, as I easily get cold when I sit still – that way it gets put away when not in use, and won’t be ruined by the dog making nests in the sofa, as well as not giving me an excuse to get up before time. I’m not one for such ritual paraphernalia, really, but some say it’s a good thing, so maybe it is.

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Just a bumpy testknit on a too small hexagon, not so sure I like this idea. Needs to be darker and perhaps the same for all if I do this.

Hexi-tæppe

Ud over at have besluttet mig til at kun bruge superwash strømpegarn til mit tæppe, er jeg stadig i tvivl om jeg skal strikke dem enkelt eller dobbelt. Jeg vil gerne have et meget let tæppe, men det skal dog kunne holde faconen og ikke blive trukket fra hinanden. Man kunne quilte noget stof pÃ¥ bagsiden, hvis man ellers vidste hvordan, eller jeg kan begynde at strikke dobbelt puffer alligevel og bare montere de enkelte lapper dobbelt. Men jeg ved jeg ikke synes om at kun binde hjørnerne sammen som de gør pÃ¥ beeskeeper’s quilt. Og der skal i hvert fald ikke fyld i.

Har også overvejet at påstrikke en ensfarvet kant på hver og derved få større lapper og minimere samlearbejdet. Men det bliver stadig et meget tyndt tæppe som måske strækker sig lidt for meget. Har overvejet at bruge det som meditationstæppe, både at lave det og bruge det kun til det, da jeg let bliver kold og derfor distraheret, på den måde bliver det heller ikke ødelagt når hunden bygger rede i sofaen, hvis jeg lægger det væk og kun bruger det til det ene formål. Normalt er jeg ikke til den slags ritualer, men der er nogen der siger det er en god ide.

Jeg vil stadig have så mange forskellige puffer som muligt, så i fremtiden bliver der farvet meget mindre portioner end jeg begyndte med, for nu har jeg en masse dubletter i overskud af små 6 g fed. Muligvis lidt for ambitiøst, men nu ser vi. Indtil videre har jeg ligesom kun lavet 15 + ovenstående som blev for lille fordi jeg begyndte med 10 masker istedet for 12.

RÃ¥d, ideer og vejledning modtages med kyshÃ¥nd! Man skal kun udfylde sit navn i kommentarfeltet….

Sunday swatch

It’s been a while since we had one of these – inspired by my current cat gang. I don’t know what I’ll be using this swatch for yet, something yarny.

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En farvepalet inspireret af mine 3 (selv)fede hankatte. Hvad den ellers skal bruges til må tiden vise.

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Dye day

I decided to clean out my dye shelf and start afresh, running out of 1% “clean” colours and lots of little leftovers cluttering the place that I no longer remember the formula for.

So I dug out my bin of Suffolk fleece and just kept throwing chunks and dyes into a couple of pots of vinegar water, keeping them hot all the while.

And then I got all excited, mixed up a new batch of each dye and began mixing again to dye the rest of the fleece. For some reason all my different reds turned out a pretty similar orange, but that can be fixed….

This means I’m done “spot” dyeing my Suffolk fleece, apart from the batch I’m going to flick and spin as is or comb on my superfines.

I’d love to process the rest on a drumcarder however, because it’s not in any kind of lock formation, so I’m going to leave it for a bit to see if I can get a hold of one. Possibly spend idle hours (a concept I once read about) picking and flicking so the VM is gone.

It’s been separated into colour groups, each one will be a yarn I think.

Recently I also dyed some more Shetland for my sweater project

And a couple of sock yarns that are supposed to look like worn denim.

Mini skeins

It’s become very popular to knit or crochet blankets, amigurumi and other small or assembled items with small skeins of handspun or handpainted sock yarn as well as leftovers of commercial yarns. Especially the hexipuffs have been all the rage for quite a while! (I realize blankets as such have probably never been out of fashion, but so many cool patterns are emerging)

I normally don’t follow fashion much, but thought I’d join this madness and use it to my advantage: I’ll simply make my colour experiment swatches in the amount of mini skeins when I spin and dye, so that I actually have something useful and not just a piece of coloured string. And they make good travel knitting. I’m not making puffs, but rather like the hexagon shape, so that’s what I’m doing right now.

I’ve made a couple of niddy noddies from bits and pieces lying around the place, so that I don’t have to drag out my (also homemade) swift every time I want to wind a small skein.  Dowels, spheres from a hobby shop (leftover from spindle making), a broom handle and a thingy from an old wine rack. Voila presto! I never got round to glueing on the spheres because I wanted to make sure I had the correct circumference. And the rubber band colours help me keep track of counting anyway…

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Mini garn

Jeg er begyndt at lave mine farve/spindeprøver i mængder der passer sÃ¥dan ca. med et par hexipuffer o.lign. sÃ¥dan at jeg rent faktisk kan bruge dem til noget bagefter. Det er sikkert ogsÃ¥ udmærket til rejsestrikning forestiller jeg mig? Jeg synes det er en fin mÃ¥de at fÃ¥ afprøvet alle mulige kombinationer, sÃ¥ det har jeg tænkt mig at gøre fremover i stedet for altid at spinde 50-100 g af hver slags garn og sÃ¥ ikke rigtig fÃ¥ det brugt. Jeg gider nok ikke rigtig lave puffer, men sekskanter synes jeg egentlig er flot, næsten cirkler. 😉

Mit haspetræ har jeg strikket sammen af dele fra en gammel vinreol og et par trækugler fra Panduro… De er ikke limet pÃ¥ endnu fordi jeg ville være sikker pÃ¥ omkredsen (garnet strækker sig jo nÃ¥r man vinder det pÃ¥), deraf elastikkerne. Og sÃ¥ fandt jeg ud af, at farverne hjalp mig med at tælle omgange og ja, sÃ¥ kom jeg ikke længere!

Sea & sand

Sunday swatch this week is an actual project, not just a colour strip.

I always get a kick from the colours of nature, and this is also where I get my ideas for yarn colours in spinning and dyeing. I don’t always end up where I started, but that’s kinda irrelevant. I’m having fun.

This time I came up with the title above, inspired by various images, among them an old unfinished painting of mine that I stumbled on, some photos I’d forgotten about and then my mind just began to ramble.

      

So I decided to play around with recreating the colours in my mind and test if they would actually work together in a scheme, as well as look good in a variegated yarn and knitted up.

I wanted the yellow a more straw coloured muted hue than the first samples (never mix dyes when in risk of being interrupted with trivialities! Pffft), so it looks like there’s going to be versioning of this colourway.

 

 

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PÃ¥ stranden

Sea & Sand er en farvekombination jeg har tænkt over længe, og som jeg gerne vil kunne genskabe nogenlunde – evt. med variationer efter humør. Konceptet er havet, himlen, men ogsÃ¥ sandet og marehalmen. Den irgrønne farve er ret svær at ramme!

SÃ¥ planen er at teste bÃ¥de pÃ¥ fiber med forskellige farvemetoder, i gryde, “malet”, som fletning og teste hvordan det bliver nÃ¥r det er spundet og strikket, samt som stribet garn.

Nogen af varianterne vil nok blive destashet, det er trods alt begrænset hvor meget jeg kan nÃ¥ at spinde, men det er altsÃ¥ farvningen som interesserer mig mest i øjeblikket – og andre farveholdninger presser pÃ¥ i baggrunden! 😉 Naturen venter jo ikke, den sender sine indtryk til sanserne hver gang man gÃ¥r udenfor døren.

Heldigvis er de fleste af “fejlfarverne” ogsÃ¥ flotte, selvom de ikke ligner det jeg havde i mit hovede til at begynde med. Det er jo herligt, sÃ¥ hÃ¥ber jeg at finde nogen som har lyst til at være en del af selve spinde-eksperimentet hen ad vejen.

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