photo catch up

I love these frogs. I love them so much that I once bought several yards of this fabric and took it home and found out I already had a length in my stash. They are waiting to be made up into a sundress. Another recently finished sundress is made of this rayon
it doesn't really flatter my figure; I think it falls under the Useful Clothes heading. The kind of thing that is handy to have as a beach coverup, or to run out into the garden early in the morning to pick peas, or to lounge around in after a hot day when you don't feel like putting on anything constricting.

Big Blue Orenburg continues; he is not forgotten, but since recording progress on that bundle of dark lace isn't very interesting I bring you some recent swatches:
one of some fair isle patterning in traditional shetland-like wool yarns and one aran swatch, also in wool. The top cable is one I think I'll use as the center cable in my sweater. And speaking of sweaters, here's what a top-down sweater looks like at the very beginning:
Hard to imagine that this curly fiddly bit of short rowing and staggered cast ons is going to be a lovely smooth shoulder portion of a lace sweater. Over the weekend I started this three times: the first time I didn't like the width I was coming out with, even though I'd measured gauge carefully. The second time I made it smaller but still didn't like it, so I recalculated everything and this time I think it is just right. One nice thing (or not, depending on what you want from your knitting) about top-downs is that most of the fiddly stuff is at the beginning. You figure out the most difficult parts, the neck shaping and shoulder shaping and armhole calculations at the start, and then you can just knit gaily along in your desired pattern, making such sweaters very good meeting knitting or commuting knitting. Last night I reached the pick-up for the sleeves, so once I center the lace pattern over the shoulder all fiddlies will be done for a while. This is a good thing, since I find that I tend to make mistakes on Big Blue when I bring it to knitting groups and such.

Moving back for a moment to the fair isle swatch, here's a photo of a sample tweed warp with the same yarns: warping only 100 threads is amazingly fast! It's easy to forget how quick warping can be, when you work with threads at 30 epi and up. I threaded a straight draw and plan to experiment with a color-and weave effect from Ann Sutton's Color and Weave book... the goal here is not innovation but to get a nice, workable tweedy cloth. Oh! And the reason there's room for this warp on the floor loom? China Leaves is done! Front
and back
The fabric has a nice hand, I just wish there were slightly more of it, because with only two yards I'm not sure what to do. I could always weave more fabric of a coordinating design, but I'm not sure I can count on getting around to doing that. It might be fun to have a sort of swinging vest, with the sides of the front using different faces of the fabric.

Comments

[Kerstin]

I love your Fair Isle swatch. The colors you've chosen are beautiful. Is it destined to be a sweater? China Leaves is amazing!

[claudia]

Why, pray tell, are you making clothes from patterns that don't flatter? Do I have to sic "What not to Wear" on you??

;-)

And China Leaves is impressing the hell out of me.

[carrie]

Thank you both!

Claudia you are absolutely right-- I know better than this! I think it was a want-to-sew-something don't-want-to-think-too-much mood. But yes, I've learned my lesson (again!)