How about a Little Knitting: Sashiko Mittens

I am an eclectic crafter. I love knitting but also so many other crafts. I love crochet. I love spinning, I love needlepoint and I love embroidery. I am particularly fond of Sashiko Embroidery. I have delighted in the embroidery of the organic, peaceful geometric shapes with oatmeal thread on indigo grounds.

I was so inspired by Sashiko, that I wanted to translate and reinterpret it into knitting. With winter coming, Sashiko mittens seemed like the perfect choice.

I chose 2 worsted weight yarns from my stash. One with a lovely indigo tone, the other a soft oatmeal.

I first knit a little swatch to decide on tension and fairisle pattern. I wanted the oatmeal design to be present but not crowd the mitten. This was my first sample, interlocking circular shapes on size 5 needles.

I loved the contrast of the colors, but decided the gauge should be tighter. The circular shapes appealed to me, but the interlocking made the pattern overwhelming. I switched to size 3, and after drafting a simplified pattern evocative of honeycombs, I started on the mittens.

I am really excited about these Sashiko mittens. These test ones will be for me. I am writing the pattern and will be offering it as a pdf as soon as the pattern is written, tested and edited. I should leave you now, and go work on them...

What do mittens and the Cheshire Cat have to do with each other?

What do mittens and the Cheshire Cat have to do with each other? Everything!
The other day I over-dyed some yummy alpaca, in 2 fun whimsical colors, a bright green and a fun orange.

I decided to knit mittens with the yarns. I sat down, and  just let the yarns take me wherever they wanted. Sure enough, stripes appeared. I thought of the Cheshire Cat. Then a row of hearts for the Queen of Hearts magically appeared! I am back on stripes, but who knows, during my adventures in Knittingland, I might come across a rabbit in a hurry, or a mad hatter...

More Playing with Over-Dyes

Today I played some more with my new infatuation over-dyes. I created 2 Perfect Duos of Baby Alpaca yarns: English Lavender and Sea Breeze.

I am in love with the subtle colors. I am in love with their depth. Just imagine striping or fairisled mittens or a tam! I have added these 2 Duos to my Etsy Store. I am going to make this a short post, as I want to get back to my dye studio to play with more over-dyes!

Fun with over-dyed skeins

I had some fun over-dyeing some skeins of fine baby alpaca today.  Over-dyeing is a 2 step process which involves dyeing the yarn a first time in a variegated fashion, they adding an all over color to the skeins thus adding deth to the yarn. Over-dyed yarns seem to glow from within!

As soon as the skeins were dry, I balled them up, and they are in the process of becoming mittens.

This will be a fun design that I am hoping to put together as a kit for which I will design different color combinations! These first mittens will be for me though. I guess I am a little selfish but I just had to have orange and green!