Udgivet i 5 kommentarer

Flyttedag(e), strikkeferie og færdig sweater!

Så flytter GarnGalleriet igen. Fra d. 3 november har jeg værksted (og fra d. 14. også butik!) lidt længere nede ad vejen, i større og lysere lokaler.
Jeg glæder mig meget til at få mere plads at udfolde mig på, og især til at kunne slå dørene op til Gl. Ryes fedeste deltids-fiber-og-garnbutik. Jeg vil have faste åbningstider onsdag – fredag fra 12 til 18, med første åbningsdag fredag d. 14. november.

Flytterod / Moving
Flytterod / Moving

Lige nu er alt – eller næsten alt – pakket i kasser, og i morgen og på fredag bliver det hele flyttet. Så får det lov til at passe sig selv i en uges tid, for jeg tager nemlig til Spanien for at strikke i en hel, vidunderlig uge!
Det er den meget dygtige strikkedesigner Ruth Sørensen der står for strikke-ferien. “Strik i Monda” hedder konceptet, og det går ud på at Ruth hver dag tilbyder en workshop i en bestemt teknik. Udover den daglige strikkeundervisning er der indlagt masser af fritid, så jeg regner bestemt med at der bliver tid til løbeture, byture, badeture også 🙂  Vores hold i uge 44 består af 6 personer, så det bliver dejlig intimt, personligt og garanteret meget meget hyggeligt.
Om jeg glæder mig? You bet!!

Der bliver sikker dejlig varmt i Sydspanien, så jeg lader nok min nye sweater blive hjemme. Det er “Twilight in Lerwick”, som jeg endelig er blevet færdig med.

"Twilight in Lerwick"
“Twilight in Lerwick” – håndspundet / handspun shetland

Jeg gik (som sædvanlig) lidt død i ærme-strikningen, så det tog sin tid at få den færdig, men nu er den klar, lige i tid til efteråret og vinteren. Den passer perfekt og jeg er rigtig glad for den måde farverne fungerer sammen på.
Jeg spandt jo 11 farver 2-trådet shetlandsuldgarn. Det brune er ufarvet, “moorit”, og så er der 8 farver hentet i farveholdningen “Twilight/Skumring”. De sidste 2 farver (en gul og en lys pink/rød) fandt jeg i “Pansy/Stedmoder”-paletten.

Sweateren er designet af norske Tori Seierstad og hedder “Next Year in Lerwick”. En fabelagtig opskrift, der er velskrevet og nem at følge. Enkelte småfejl i det store farvediagram, men ikke noget meningsforstyrrende. Jeg anbefaler varmt dette mønster til enhver, der gerne vil strikke varieret og farverigt fair-isle strik! Opskriften kan købes ovre på Ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/next-year-in-lerwick

Er der nogen der har lagt mærke til svampene dette efterår? De ligefrem vælter op af jorden! Både spise- og farvesvampe. Så jeg har selvfølgelig mæsket mig i rørhatte, kantareller og velsmagende mælkehat, men jeg har også samlet lidt til farvning. På grund af det er jeg lige nu ved at planlægge en cardigan i plante- og svampefarvet falklandsgarn, for på en eller anden måde passer de naturlige farver bare knaldgodt sammen. Både grønne, gullig-beige og orange nuancer – det skulle man ikke umiddelbart tro ville matche, men det gør det! Jeg tager garnet, mine foreløbige skitser og et par strikkeprøver med mig til Spanien, og så håber jeg at Ruth har lyst til at give mig et par indspark til min nye cardigan.

Farvebad af Gran-koralsvamp
Farvebad af Gran-koralsvamp / dyeing with Ramaria Eumorpha

English Summary:
I am moving my fiber business GarnGalleriet to a new and larger location – just down the road. It will be great! Right now everything is packed in boxes, ready to move to the new place tomorrow. After that I dissapear for a whole week on a knitting vacion: “Knit in Monda” in the south of Spain. Knit-designer Ruth Sørensen has arranged this knitting-retreat that features daily workshops and lots of spare time to just relax and do whatever we like: eat, sleep, enjoy the sun, run, laugh, talk, swim, knit!
I hope that Ruth will give me her opinion and advice on a cardigan I’m planning right now. I’m using plant and mushroom dyed yarn – those natural colours just go so well together!
I guess the weather in Spain will be too warm for wearing my new sweater “Twilight in Lerwick” so I’ll leave that at home. I’m very happy with it – it fits perfectly and the colours work better together than I feared .. The design is by Tori Seierstad and is called “Next Year in Lerwick”. Ravelry-link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/next-year-in-lerwick

Udgivet i 2 kommentarer

Unique colors

Lately I have been dyeing some one-of-a-kind colorways on my sock yarn BFL-Steps.
For socks you only need 1 skein and it’s always fun to knit – and wear! – a pair that is completely unique.

Take a look at my two latest OOAK- sock yarns here. You can find more in the webshop. Now, I’ll go and knit some special socks for myself.. 🙂

Yellow/red/green/blue/purple
bluish/greenish/purple Yellow/red/green/blue in the top photo, blue/green/purple in the bottom pic.

 

Udgivet i 4 kommentarer

Dyeing and moving

It’s been quite a long time. The flu is over, thank the Goddess (it was a tough one!!) and I have been working full speed for the past month.
I have had lots of work to do, which is just great! Lots of dyeing for the yarn company BC Garn, and plenty of dyeing for my webshop as well.

By new year I got my new sock yarn, which is a 4-ply superwash BFL7nylon (85%/15%) yarn, 400 grams pr 100 gram. I love it! It is just perfect for socks, and for other knitworks-of-art too! 🙂
I quickly dyed up a few colourways in my new yarn, which I have named BFL-Steps. Here’s a few of them:

Colourway "Straw" on BFL-Steps

Colourway “Straw” on BFL-Steps
"Dark Fuchsia"
“Dark Fuchsia”

"Blue Creek"

“Blue Creek”

But mostly I’m submerged in dyeing for BC Garn. Great fun and a good base for my business.

Then I have moved to a new workplace. Not that I didn’t like the place I had, it was just too far away. Not so practical when I mostly go by bicycle – it took about 45 minutes each way.
Then I got an offer to move into a place in our little village, just 200 meters from my home. Lots of space and fine working conditions – I just had to say yes to that!
So now I have been in my new place for a week, and it is working okay. I have to share some of it with others, but that’s fine with me. The fact that I can just walk over to my workshop in 2 minutes is just fantastic!
I have no photos of my new place yet – just too busy to even think of it.. 🙂

Udgivet i 1 kommentar

“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!

 

 

Udgivet i 4 kommentarer

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
Udgivet i 1 kommentar

What’s in a name?

A couple of days ago I was picking my brains for a good colorway-name for a new brown/golden color. This one (on BFL-fiber):

It reminded me of some animal. But which one? A squirrel, a fox, a camel, a bison ox? I couldn’t get my head around it, until suddely I looked over at the couch where our cat Rosa was taking her afternoon nap. Then I knew: it was the dark brown, reddish brown and golden colors of our sweet kitty!

For the second new colorway that I’m going to present in this post, I seeked naming help in a dictionary over the local herbs and flora. I named the blue-violet color “Cow Vetch” and it looks like this, dyed on silk hankies:

You can see this and all the other fibers I painted in these 2 new colorways, over at my Etsy-Shop!
What do you think? I’d be happy to read your opinions about my colors.. 🙂

Udgivet i Skriv en kommentar

New colorway to celebrate springtime!

Fresh and very bright green leaves are unfolding everywhere right now. It’s a delight to watch how the treetops getting greener and greener every day. Don’t you just love springtime?

My latest monochromatic colorway showcases the color of the newly sprung leaves of the beech in our Scandinavian woods. A truly inviting color, delicate, fresh, good enough to eat. In fact, you can eat the beech leaves while they are young. They taste really good!
Here’s the Beech Leaves colorway for you, shown on Bluefaced Leicester wool:

I have dyed this colorway on BFL, Shetland wool, Cheviot wool, a merino/bamboo luxuryblend and a set of silk Hankies. You can see it all in my Etsy-shop! (Yes, that’s new too!)

More new colorways are coming very soon. A dark brown is drying out back right now, and I’m thinking hard of a good name for it. I kind of reminds me of some kind of animal fur, but which animal is it now?? I have to think, look through some wild life-books, maybe..
Earlier today I painted some wool in a greyish purple hue. It’s still in the oven, can’t wait to see how this one turns out!

Udgivet i 2 kommentarer

New monochromatic colorways!

Image
You are looking at the colorway “Turmeric” (“Gurkemeje” in Danish). This color is one in a series of monochromatics or semi-solids that I’m working on right now. I have 6 coloursways ready by now which can be seen on the page of that very same name – see menu on top.

Another new one is “Dark Fuchsia”.
Image

I hand-paint these colorways on first quality wool top from various breeds or on luxury blends like wool/kidmohair, wool/silk, wool/bamboo and several other combinations.
The hand painted “wheels” are great for spinning and felting. If you would like to try one out please go to my website (no real web-shop yet, I’m afraid, but I’m working on that..) and check the in-stock list. You can also email me with your request. I accept PayPal or bank transfers.

Drying outside right now in the (rather chill) spring weather hangs one of my older colorways, a multi-colored named “Gypsy”. There’s a little bit of this one reserved for my own spinning pleasure – can’t wait untill it’s dry!