I did a spot of dyeing on the weekend and there are ten brand new skeins up for sale on Etsy. Go on, take a peek.. you know you want to.
I haven't dyed any laceweight yarn as it's a pain to wind, but I'll probably do some this weekend. So, which is your favourite? I like Superpink (uper right corner) and Sweetie Pie (lower right corner) the most - probably becaus ethis pink phase I am going through is lasting longer than I expected.
My Colinette kit arrived yesterday! Woohoo!
Oh, didn't I mention it before? I am knitting a sample for
Sarah Durrant. She sells Colinette yarns and needed some samples knit up in a hurry. I am making Melinda from the
Wayfarer book. I swatched, and swatched yesterday.. and wrote Sarah numerous emails explaining how I couldn't get gauge..
I finally got a somewhat respectable looking swatch, and the right gauge on 7mm circular bamboo needles. I wrote to Sarah joyfully, and she wrote back to tell me that I'dprobably find that I'd get gauge on 6mm STRAIGHTS.. for some reason, circular needles muck around with your stitch gauge. Bah.. I don't believe that! Uhm.. I didn't. Somewhat doubtfully I whipped out my 6mm straight needles and tried again. uh uh.. nod eal.. I was getting 15st and 18rows (the prescribed gauge is 14st and 17 rows on 6mm needles). I tried on 6.5mm plastic straights, and what did I find? Perfect Gauge! [sigh] Ok, maybe Sarah is right [grumble, grumble, grumble].. but I don't understand why! The only explanation I canc ome up with is that I have to work on balancing straights a lot mroe than I do circulars,w hich means that maybe the straights pull on the stitches a little more, hence producing bigger looser stitches. Bah! Who knows.
So I cast on.. and then I got stuck again. The first row is a right side row, and the prescribed cast on is the long tail cast on. If I did that, the purl bumps would show on the right side. Is that ok? Poor Sarah.. I left her yet another message on her phone. She wrote back to say it's ok, or that I could cast on purlwise. Purlwise??
Last night I learnt a new thing. I looked at how I cast on and realised that I ALWAYS do it knitwise, which is why the bumpy side will show if I make row 1 a right side row. I reversed it and cast on purlwise. IT WORKS!
It looks bad because all the stitches are squished together on the needle (look, look, PINK needles!)
The yarn is Colinette Prism in Fire. I love the colours and it's a joy to work with. The yarn just slides along. I had my reservations when I saw that it used 6mm needles and the gauge was huge, but then I thought that maybe I should try it. If I hate it, I just stop knitting samples for Sarah and swear off big needles forever, right? It is much easier to knit than my Garnstudio 95-33 jacket as the yarn is so much softer. I look forward to knitting it, and I hope to have the back done by the weekend (ambitious?) If I like it enough, I may even buy some fo this yarn to knit me a jacket!
