A Life of Colour

Fire & Magnolia.

As you may know, Anne Hanson and I were teamed up for the Yarn4Socks.com December sock club and when Valerie told us the element and theme for the month was fire, I did a bit of a happy dance. Anything to do with red makes my heart sing when designing a colourway so I was very excited to see what Anne and I would dream up.

After a few emails with Anne, we both agreed the colourway would be red but within that red, Anne asked that I incorporate a few bursts of orange to reflect the flickering of the flames. With that, thoughts started to churn in my head and when I got to the dye pots, I crossed my fingers and hoped that my vision would translate to the yarn and then to Anne's knitting.

I sent the skein off to Anne and I'm really excited to see the colourway swatch! It's working up as I had hoped and Anne is really pleased with how it's working up with the design she had in mind. I'm elated!

Check out the little sneak peek from Anne's blog today...I'm really excited to see how the sock progresses and Anne's design unfolds! Isn't it gorgeous so far?

To add a bit more fuel to the fire, each and every skein for the club is going to be somewhat unique - all of them are going to be similar in colours with variations in colour placement and in colour intensities. As Anne and I talked about, flames flicker and are never the same so we decided to incorporate that element into the theme as well. So if you'd like to join the club, hop on over if you haven't already!

In other knitting news, I'm excited to have finally finished another sock! This one is done up in the Magnolia colourway from the ART WALK Sock Yarn Club and I'm really pleased with how the colourway reflects the art piece:

And now that my needles are empty for another sock, I'm patiently waiting for Anne to finish her fire-themed pattern so I can cast that on next.  I just couldn't resist keeping a skein for myself!

Unique creations.

I always love starting a new project. Something about watching the colours unfold in the first few rows is mesmerizing! I love seeing how the colours are going to behave. I haven't saved an ART WALK sock club yarn for myself for awhile but this one spoke to me with its colours and I was dying to see how the colours were going to knit up. This colourway is Magnolia and was from June's inspiration piece.

When I dye the yarns and apply colours, I have a vision in my head of how they are going to behave when knit but of course, I can only have a vision because as soon as that skein reaches a knitter, the next step in the process of creation happens with the knitter. How the colours play out all depend on what pattern is chosen as well as how many stitches are cast on and even as far as how tightly or loosely someone knits. I can apply colour and have visions of how they will play but that's where my creativity ends and the knitter's begins. I find it so amazing just how different a colourway can knit up from one knitter to the next. Give everyone the exact same colourway and I would guarantee almost 100% the colours will not come out identical for any knitter. Taking into consideration some of the nuances of handpainting and mix them with the nuances of a knitter and you have a completely unique result each time. I love that about handpainted yarns!

As an interesting side story, my SnB had a KAL not that long ago with the exact same colourway that I had specially painted for everyone and we had 4 of us sitting around the table knitting at the exact same time with the exact same needles and the exact same # of stitches and you know, not one of us had the same colour expression. It was a really eye-opener for me!  Everyone at the table was amazed at just how different their results were too. Creativity surely doesn't end with the colourway that's for sure! Creativity continues as soon as the knitter picks up the colourway and decides on pattern, stitch count and needle size. Amazing don't you think?

First ever.

I can't believe I finished my first ever handspun sock. What a monumental moment this is...yay! I love how the sock did its own striping and I couldn't be move pleased! Cross your fingers for me as I have 1.2 oz of handspun yarn left to try to finish sock #2. The first sock weighs 1.2 oz so I'm hoping I can eek that second sock from what's left. I really love the feel of this sock too. So squishy. For more photos and details click here (rav link). And yes, I dyed the SW BFL fibre, spun it into a 2-ply yarn and then knit with it. Lots of fun! 

Okay, that is all...I just wanted to document my first ever handspun sock...LOL! Oh, and I just realized my sock matches the colours on my blog...what a shocker that I love all things red eh? If you know me only just a little bit you will know red is my all-time favourite colour and the more the better...LOL

Progress is good.

Where to start, where to start? LOL First off, my website is back! I managed to figure out who was actually holding my domain, renewed it with them and voila, back came my website. Such a relief that has made me super happy! I feel like I can get back to normal activities again. And while my site was offline I did some brainstorming and now I'm working behind the scenes to make some improvements not only to my shopping cart but also to the way I am doing business. All will be revealed in the coming weeks and when I have my store re-stocked, it's time for a celebratory sale! I expect that to happen in the next little while so stay tuned! If you don't have an account with the store nor have signed up for the newsletter, please do so as I'll be announcing the sale by newsletter. You won't want to miss it - I am planning on stocking the store with quite a few yarns! Yay new shopping cart and yay new yarns!

I've been spinning! This time around I'm spinning a new fibre to me called Rambouillet. It's wonderful! It's got a slightly longer staple than merino so it's a bit easier to manage and stepping up to a faster whorl on my spinning wheel has meant producing some really lovely thin singles. I'm so pleased! I'm also delighted I can manage the faster spinning speed and combine that with a finer single since this is the first time I've actually moved onto another whorl...it's very exciting!

I also finished my test knit sock (rav link)! The colourway knit up just as I had hoped. A slightly mottled effect but still a semi-solid. This is a technique I plan to use more often! Oh, and the Serenity Sock yarn? Divine to knit with! I love it. It's my first time knitting with it but the cashmere content, wow, softness.

So, all in all, yay for spinning, knitting and website progress! And apparently it's May already too - when did that happen? LOL