Divinely Crafty

I printed out instructions for Cleo from Knitty. No clue if I will ever finish or wear it, but it will occupy my needles until I get distracted by something else. I am a bonafied ADD knitter. I cannot stay focused on one project. Now on my 4th frogging of various bag inspirtaions with my totally hippy BFL, I have set that aside for a bit. Still plugging away at the broadripple socks, but having actually gotten interested in the actual World Cup (I know, I know…hangs head…) my World Cup Knitting has lagged a bit as well. My mom brought me some cotton yarn per my request for plain, cheep cotton. She brought somewhat of an odd color combination of yarns so not sure what to make, but we shall see…perhaps inspiration will hit.

My machines are calling me more these days too. I went shopping this weekend and bought a dress. That is a big step for me to have purchased something ready made. It felt good, but also got my wheels turning as I tried on stuff making notes of elements that I liked and how to construct them. I have about 10 yards of hemp tencel in my closet and think I may be about to draft a pattern for a summer dress. We are going on holiday to Germany and Italy (and points surrouding) in 6 weeks and I will need so easy care,easy travel things for the trip. 3 weeks of car camping with 5 people in August in Europe. Blissfully the bulk of it will be on the grounds of a lovely Vineyard with a dear friend. And I am also hooking up with another friend and her son, who is pals with my oldest girlie.

I still have these horridly itchy hive things on my legs. I am considering a total detox. We’ll see how this week goes. My homeopath is on holiday until Wednesday. She gave me a remedy to treat the hives but it doesn’t seem to be helping. I have noticed some on my arms now. They are weird. I am concerned it may be an excema sort of thing. I am almost 100% convinced they are stress related. My parents left yesterday, after which Axel and I turned into zombies. We were shell shocked from the visit I think. My eye is twitching today, which is my usual signal that I am dog ass tired. I have loads of work to do, but I think that it may get pushed aside for a walk or something. Not sure I really need to take a nap. My head needs more clearing at this point.

My recent acquistion of a kilo of Blue Faced Leicester and a bunch of acid dyes has me playing around with making my own colorways. I think a new addiction has been born.

My first go at handpainted yarn. Calling the colorway “totally hippy” in honor of my lovely hubby who declared it was ‘total hippy colors’ when he first saw it. Thanks for the inspiration my dear!

Just a few pics…who me excited???

Hanging to dry. I was a bit skeptical at this point as the colors seemed to be a bit off from how I envisioned the. Keeping faith I hung them to dry on the patio and crossed my fingers, secretly wondering what I was going to do with 100gms of yarn I couldn’t stand…

Lesson #1: Never judge a color before its dry. I was pleased to find that the colors gained quite a bit of depth and richness as they dried. This is actually more or less what I had in mind when I started. Not too bad considering I mixed the colors without any sort of recipe. Just a dash of this and that and a quick prayer.

Time for test a swatch…

Then felted the swatch…

Success! My plan is to make this into my felted messenger bag, which I promise I will be writing up a pattern for this time!

YEah!

My ode to Anhata, who led me to the beauty of the Indian Sunset. Can you feel its radiant glow?

Continuing to go through and weed out whats left of my yarn stash. (Making room for the kilo of Blue Faced Leicester that arrived today. :::drool:::) My own pattern that I made up as I went along. I had originally planned to try some shibori felting on the flap, but changed my mind half way through the felting when a couple of the resist sections came undone and my design got screwed up. I’ll have to give that little experiment another go some other day. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. A little tweeking of the pattern and it will be perfect.

Before felting…yes, it was truly neon. Thankfully a good amount of the dye came out during the felting. Front,back, and flap are in stockinette and sides in garter. The idea was to make the sides a bit thicker, but it didn’t really work out that way. Next time I am gonna give seed stitch a try for the sides. Maybe. I need to think it through a bit.

And because I am such a dork – I have to show off my new 49p supa-cool gloves from Ikea. I do all my felting by hand (my front loader washer is no good for felting)and being the delicate flower that I am, I need proper protection lest my skin turn into prunes and split open.

Stylish and functional.

My first cables (ish)! A diamond pattern cotton dishcloth. Definately qualifies me for the ‘fancy rags’ award.

I want to make the Cleo Clutch or some variation of it, so that meant biting the bullet and attempting a cable. As with most things it wasn’t as hard as I anticipated. Though I am a spacy knitter and am forever losing track of where I am. I need to work on that.

Yesterday I started working on a test piece for a shibori felting experiment. I will post results as I progress with it. Should be interesting…

All this is in preparation for the arrival of a kilo of Blue Faced Leicester and a load of acid dyes I am eagerly anticpating. counting the days…