Finally Leaves I Like

Finally I have knit a leaf that I liked. I've been playing with leaves for several years and quite a few $$$$$$ in books and patterns and yarn. In fact, I remember an earlier blog post about it.
This leaf was knit using Knitpicks Chroma Yarn. I chose the part of the yarn to get the color change. This particular skein is a leftover from a woven project.
Precious leaves have been made in worsted weight yarns in a variety of color schemes. Variegated yarn looks like clown spew. I finally ended up throwing out a good deal of the horribleness.
The leaf that I like is two sided, circularly knit with a fingering weight yarn. The leaf lies flat and have two smooth sides. For me, that is needed.
I'm now working on a leaf bookmark in Knitpicks Shadow Forest Heather, a laceweight yarn. I'm very happy with that and will post a photo as soon as it is finished. The laceweight project is the sample for a very, very special bookmark project I want to start.
I'll be alternating knitting and beading for a bit longer.

Beads, Pounds of Beads

I haven't been knitting. I've been learning about beading with a needle. Knitting is easier. This project is about 50% done. I will continue working on it. The skills are useful. It's done in tubular peyote with Czech seed beads.
If you are a certain type of geek, you will recognize the color pattern.
I am thinking about doing some snake patterns in this technique. That's been on my list for years. I will need to decide whether beads or knitting are best.

No Progress

I have done no knitting. None, nein, nyet, nada. Now it's nearly Autumn and I need to get caught up. Big time. The kitchen renovation is in the last stages. That means that the kitchen is operating, but everything is disorganized, in the basement, scattered, lost, packed, or incomplete. Does not provide motivation to spend my free time either unpacking stuff and figuring out where it goes, or working around construction materials. Thankfully, the contractors showed up yesterday and put shelves in the cabinets, so I could actually load them with stuff. Only took say, 2-3 weeks.

The phot shows my latest acquisition. For months I have been ogling the Knitpicks website, looking at the lovely colors. I simply cannot justify buying more yarn. I have yarn all over. I haven't been knitting lately. So what! I promised to make a gift for a dear friend and ordered! It all laceweight yarn in lovely, heathered colors. Project is in the planning stages.

I am also planning a bead project. I mention it here because I plan on doing beadwork to emulate knitting. I saw a photo on Craftzine and just loved the project. It did not come with instructions, so I'm planning that, too. In this case, the planning is exactly like designing a knit project. Each bead equals one stitch. Instead of calculating yards of yard, I calculate quantities of beads. After that, we'll see. The beads are on order.

Bauhaus Inspired

I forgot to post my latest project in progress. This is my third woven piece. Nothing comes out quite like I had planned, yet. The design was inspired be photos of weavings done at the Bauhaus School. After that idea, nothing else worked as I had intended.
I bought the yarn on impulse. Foolish me. My son, Andrew is home form college for the summer. In theory, he is painting for his portfolio in the basement. This requires an outlay of money on my part for supplies of paint, canvas, and sundries. Andrew and I dutifully head out to shop. He goes to get canvas and I head for the yarn, thinking that I'll just take a look..... Add another $90.00 to the bill. I got yarn in beautiful teals and purples and grey and green. Very soft. I got a lot because I wanted to make a 20" wide long stole. I took a glance at the label and saw the word "wool" and did not read carefully. Besides, that, I was pressed for time.
Comes the time to weave...and "Oh noes"! The yarn was only 25% wool, mostly acrylic. I took a second look at the brand name and.....I should have known that this was a company that produced acrylic yarns. I took another look at the yarn- it is a cabled yarn. Oops. Anyway, I just kept making mistake after mistake and learned lesson after lesson. The final woven piece is about 20" by 45", so it is a reasonable size, but definitely not a stole. The cabled yarn looks OK, but the texture of the weave is different from what I had expected. This fabric has a loose, rather unstable weave. It's nice and soft, but it won't felt and I'd be a fool to cut it. I've been folding the fabric various ways (to hide mistakes) and I will eventually sew it up and line it to make a bag. I need a new knitting bag, anyway. The one that I have been using is getting worn. The current bag is a knitted project from August 2008, knit during the Olympics. It's seen daily use for three years. I can retire it.
In other news, I have not been working on much, lately. We are in the midst of a kitchen renovation and the entire house is unsettled and in an uproar. At the moment, we have had not kitchen for two weeks. Everything is packed up and distributed in the basement, in the dining room/staging area and in the living room. Chaos.

Sorta Like a Tartan

Second weaving project. It's wearable for the most part. It's not a tartan, but gives the same feeling.
I am very much playing with color and color interactions right now. I am also not getting anything accomplished. I just took an entire week off from knitting and weaving and....just sorta spaced out.
Maybe I'll blame it on the kitchen. We are about to have the kitchen renovated. The past couple weeks have been consumed with planning and driving that process. If I don't pay attention, balls get dropped.
The renovation is required now. The house needed work from the moment we got it. At this point, the kitchen resembles the set of the old sitcom Green Acres. For real. We just need to get it over, done.
Back to the important details.... The scarf is knit with sock yarn. I used KnitPicks Palette for the warp and a skein of Chroma for the weft. The Chroma has long color changes and that makes the scarf interesting. The tartan effect comes from the few strands of light blue that I added, just to break the monotony. This is still very much a beginner's project. I am really more interested in the color effects than the fabric structure. For know. I have a real problem with some of the weaving books I have seen. The Seventies called and they want their crafts back. I simply won't make something that says 1970's macrame, avocado green, and burnt orange. I am looking for something very different. I'll have to make it myself.

Knit Godzilla

This project is evolving. Originally, it started out as a dream that incorporated the Areceibo Message and......I forget. It has been through variations that may incorporate a quote from MLK, my head (knit in), Kente patterns, Asante motifs, circuit boards, Star Wars, etc. etc. etc.

I opened the topic for discussion on Facebook and never looked back. My friends made suggestions that I add Godzilla, the Bat Signal, Superman.....what have you.

Godzilla has actually been knit in, after much angst. I've spent a lot of time pixellating various still shots and images from the movies. The next step was to choose those images that could be knit in at the correct resolution/size for the scale of the scarf. I finally chose a photo that showed Godzilla approaching through a fog. It was the best choice in terms of size. I had to sacrifice some details, but this is a scarf, not a blanket. I am already knitting this at twice the "resolution" of a typical scarf. Overall, I'm knitting quadruple the stitch count of a typical pattern.

The next step, in progress, is to show a building under attack. After that, I may do a section of elevated trains. After that, it's back to the city.

Ok for Cats

New hobby- weaving. As I was "yarn shopping" on Ravelry, I saw a project that had been woven using the yarn I had just purchased. It turns out that self striping and variegated yarns look fabulous when woven. Color banding that does not work so well for knitting can weaves up into interesting stripes and plaid patterns.
I just got a 20" Ashford Knitters Loom, (rigid heddle). I like this as an alternative to knitting. Weaving can be faster for some projects.
Admittedly, I have always been fascinated by weaving. This is the first time I've been able to afford even a beginner level loom.
I have a lot to learn. I spent the weekend with the basics. This initial project measures 13" x 29" just off the loom. It has been fulled and is drying now. The first few inches have lots of mistakes, floats, etc. The cats won't mind. The yarn used was 2 skeins of Patons Soy Wool Stripes. It's a yarn that felts and pills and is too scratchy to go next to the skin. It makes good bags. I carry a bag knit from SWS all the time. I've never used up yarn so quickly. I look forward to doing some color studies.