År: 2012

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Fighting the flu.

What better way to overcome this awful cold and fever than just taking it easy and knit a bit, in between naps?
My daughter asked me to make her a sweater. She is 13 and knows exactly how she wants her new sweater to look: white, raglansleeves, rolled hem at neckline, plain stockinette stitch for the main body, ribbed edges downwards.

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Very easy project! My only complaint was about all that whiteness.. But once I got to work with the fibers and spin the yarn – a 2-ply aran-weight, made of mainly BFL wool, spiced up with some silk, alpaca, merino, bamboo and ingeo fiber – I actually found it very pleasant to work with undyed fibers. Who would have thought that..
Now working on the first sleeve. Will run out of yarn shotly, so I need to spin some more to finish it up. My daughter can’t wait..

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I just hope this influenza-mightmare is very soon over..

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Finished project!

It fits! 🙂

Ta-daaa!!
I am so pleased with this sweater! My handspun Swirl (designed by very talented Sandra McIver) is done and almost dry. Dry enough to do some photos while it’s still daylight outside.

It swirls!!

This has been a very pleasant knitting adventure. The pattern (“Strata Sphere” from McIvers book “Knit Swirl”) is well written, has very usefull schematics and was easy to follow. It was especially nice and thrilling to work with my own handspun.
I had dyed up a big bunch of different fibers (wool, alpaca, silk, bamboo, mohair) in the colourway “Icarus”. First I separated the fibers into different piles of colours, carded it together and spun a singles yarn.
I aimed at getting the same grist, look, hand and colour-magic that we see in Noro Silk Garden, which was the yarn called for in the pattern. I think I got it pretty well! Only problem was that I had underestimated the amount og fiber to spin, so in the middle of the project I had to dye, card and spin some more..
The second lot of course came out a little bit different than the first, but it’s not to be seen at all in the finished Swirl.

Back view. Nice and warm!
A closer look at the yarn and knitting structure.

I predict that this sweater is going to be worn a lot this winter!

 

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“Summer Garden” yarn

I dyed up a batch of Opus-yarn (and some spinning fiber too) in one of my favorite colourways last week: “Summer Garden”:

“Summer Garden”. Warm reds, golden, greens and earthy browns.

I dyed 12 hanks of Opus (it’s a 100% BFL-wool yarn, about fingering/light worsted weight, soft and lustrous) using a special procedure so that all hanks are different, but of course will go perfectly together in a project! 🙂

The yarn is now available in my webshop. More photos there as well!

 

 

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More sock yarn colours.

I have been dyeing up four more colourways on my new sock yarn, GarnGalleriet Opus Sock. Like the one I showed in my last post, “Bright Mountain”, these four are also semisolid monocromatic colours, variegated but not multicolour.
The colournames are: Blue Creek, Savoy, Tomato and Turmeric.

Left to right: Blue Creek, Savoy, Tomato, Turmeric

So, what do you think? Hope you like it! 🙂
For more info, prices and shipping please take a look at my webshop.

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Knitting with my freshly dyed sock yarn!

The sock yarn I painted in colourway “Bright Mountain” is all dry and a few days ago I started knitting a sock while my family and I were going on a short vacation to Lübeck, Germany.
The yarn looks like this:

Fresh sock yarn!

And the first half of my sock (classic style, cuff-down, actually the pattern my Mother taught me when I was a teenager..) looks like this:

Lovely vacation in Lübeck: nice weather, family time, enjoying the town and relaxing with knitting and good beer 🙂

The rest of the sock yarn that I painted in the “Bright Mountain”-colourway is now available at my webshop, and in a few days I’ll add a few more colours.
BTW, have I mentioned that I think Lübeck is absolutely wunderbar?..

How can you not love such a beautiful city?..
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Dyeing yarn.

Mostly I’m dyeing fiber, not yarn. But lately that has changed, mainly because of my dyeing of the wonderful Yorkshire and Buble yarns for BC Garn.

But I have decided to dye some yarns for my own webshop also. Of course noting like the colourways I do for BC Garn, but my own palettes, like this one:

Blue/lavender/golden colourway on BFL-yarn. Sold..

And this one:

Aquamarine/turquoise/greyish colourway. This lot is also sold..

Today I’m doing a batch of sock yarn in the colourway “Bright Mountain”. It’ll go on the webshop as soon as it’s dry!

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Pansy Tam

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I made this tam in the traditional fair isle style.
The yarn is 2-ply shetland wool. I spun 8 colours from one of my fiber-wheels, the September club-colour “Moorland”.
Then I charted the patterns and knitted the tam using the 3 darkest colours as background and the 5 brightest as pattern colours. Then I wrote the pattern (for now in Danish language only, but I’ll do an english version too..) and it’s now ready to enter the shop!

Hey! If you happen to be near Brande tomorrow you can come by and say hello at Brande Strikkefestival. I’ll be there with my handpainted fiber, my handspun yarns, patterns and some left over yarns from when I closed the physical shop this spring.

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Off the loom!

I have recently cut down my two twill shawls from the loom. They are now fringe-twisted, washed and ironed – and ready to leave home.. 🙂

The first one is merino/silk yarn in both warp and weft. It is 170 cms long and 56 cms wide. Plus fringes, which are about 15 cms. Soft, shiny, with a nice heavy drape.
Number two has the same warp, obviously, but then I used handspun alpaca/silk in one of the club colourways, “July”, as weft yarn. It is variegated and adds lots of life to the shawl:

It is extremely soft and luxourious. Dimensions: 56 cm x 180 cms, plus the fringe.

The handspun shawl while it was still on the loom.

Both shawls are now in my webshop, together with lots and lots of fiber!

My loom is now standing naked, so I’m making plans for new weavings. With handspun.

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Busy days = Happy days!

Business is going so well, I simply have too little time to blog. What a luxury problem! 🙂

I have recently accepted a rather large order from one of this countrys most loved knitting and weaving yarn supplier. This one: BC Garn.
BC Garn has asked me to handpaint a big quantity of knitting yarns for them to sell to yarn shops around the country. First I have been test-dyeing, then it was approved (yay!) and two days ago I recieved two enormous boxes of very white yarn to work on.. I’m so happy to get this opportunity, and very exited about it all. Can’t wait to see “my” yarn in the local yarns shops, and later also the garments made from it..
It’s just awesome! 🙂

Do you want to have a sneak peek at some of the colours? Here’s two batches I did last week:

Handpainted yarn drying outside my studio
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Finally something finished..

My new dress (or tunic) in fair isle style stranded knitting is called “Mirabel”. It has been underways for a little more than a year, but last week I finally got it done.
I like how it turned out. What do you think?:

I have drawn the different patterns myself and it was a joy knitting the garment and watch how it came along. There was no plan for the colour placement – that part I just made up as I went.

Now I have hauled out another unfinished object from the depths of a knitting basket. Also a fair isle garment, a sweater. Very traditional. This one I knit with wool yarn that I have dyed with plants and mushrooms. It wont turn out nearly as beautiful as the dress, but it will be a warm and comfy sweater for next winter.
I’ll show it when it’s done. I’m good into the second sleeve.