Look at the goodies!!! I stopped off at the post office on the way to robotics this morning, and was thrilled to see that the package I got was a box full of my order from Paradise Fibers.  There’s some gorgeous  baby camel in there that I can’t wait to spin.  Also, and perhaps more importantly, there are two drivebands for my wheel.

After a long sleep tonight I’m going to attempt to change the band tomorrow.  It’s a job that requires a bit of wheel dismantling.  I hope I have the appropriate tools.  If I don’t, at least I know a robotics team that is happy to share!

This hat was knit using bits and pieces of all of the colours in our collection.  It’s topped off with little bobbles that are easy to knit.

Cast on 4 sts, knit in round

Round 1: Kfb in each stitch [8 sts]

Round 2:  Kfb in each stitch [16 sts]

Round 3: K each stitch

Round 4: K2tog around [8 sts]

Round 5: K2tog around [4 sts]

Round 6: K2tog around [2 sts]

knit a 2 stitch i-cord as long as desired.  Join to corners of hat.

And in other robotic knitting news….We received a donation today of 70 balls of yarn for future hat knitting projects.  Thanks very much to Anne at Wool-Tyme Kingston for the generous donation.  We appreciate your support!

The tessellation toque now has been completed.  Ends are woven in, ribbing was added around the edge to finish things off and make sure the brim didn’t roll too much.

I enjoyed adding the finishing details of our team number, and our robot to some of the less intricate hexagons.

All of the embroidery skills I learned in Brownies has come in handy with these robotics hats.  French knots and chain stitch are my friends!

Our team has been keeping me busy these days, so there hasn’t been much other knitting going on.  If you want to read about what’s going on in the wonderful world of high school robotics, have a look at our blog.

I’m looking for inspiration for some more creative and different hats. 

What is the most ridiculous hat you’ve ever seen?

I’m rather struck by hexagons these days.

They are fun to knit, and can be made with many intricate designs, or stripes.  What’s really cool is that they can be joined together to form a flat surface.

Do you want to use up your yarn stash and make some hexagons too?  Here are my steps.

1. Cast on 6 stitches (this is what makes it a hexagon).

2. Increase one stitch in every stitch (I knit into the front and back of each stitch to do this) [12 stitches]

3. Kfb, K1 around [18 stitches]

4. Kfb, K2 around [24 stitches]

5. Kfb, K3 around [30 stitches]

Keep going, and you can make a really big hexagon!  I’ve made mine with 10 stitches per side [60 stitches around].

I’ve joined them up as I go to form a tube (it’s taken 12 hexagons so far).  Now I’m trying to figure out how to make hexagons curve into a dome shape to form the top of the hat.  I think some hexagons are going to be slightly misshapen to make this happen.

This project is fun because I can sit down and make a hexagon or two at a time, and see great progress being made.  Sometimes if you sit down and knit 6 rows on a hat, you don’t really see the difference.  The one thing I’m not looking forward to is the number of ends I’ll have to sew in to finish this hat, but I think the end result will be worth it!

I knew that I’d have lots of time to knit today, so I started a brand new project.  I boarded the bus this morning and cast on in two shades of green worsted weight wool from Topsy Farms on Amherst Island.  I improvised the pattern from something that I remembered from Folk Knitting In Estonia, by Nancy Bush.

Making the pattern continuous while increasing for the thumb gusset proved too difficult for me, specially when riding a bus.  To solve the issue of concealing the increases I alternated colours to form a checkerboard pattern on the gusset stitches.

Knitting continued through the football game…which ended in a tie, but both teams seem to have interpreted that as a win, which isn’t entirely a bad thing.  Exhibition game.  Confidence builder.  Team bonding.  All in all it was a gorgeous day…bright sunshine…cool breeze…leaves turning colours….and lots and lots of knitting.

By the time I got home, I had completed one mitten–ends darned in and all!  There was even time to complete the cuff to mitten number two before arriving back to Kingston.  I was impressed with myself:  1.25 mittens in a day.  And now it’s time to rest my aching knuckles.

Goal setting is a difficult art.  Setting a challenging, yet attainable goal is something I struggle with, particularly with my knitting.  The nice thing is that I know that if I don’t meet my knitting deadlines the world isn’t going to end, yet I continue to make lofty goals to challenge myself.

photo souce: Julie P. Miller's Flickr

My self induced challenge this month was to knit a pair of eclipse socks for the movie release June 30th.  Yes, I’m a grown up that lined up to see Eclipse….yes, I’m a grown up that went to a pre-party to watch New Moon again before Eclipse…..We did this before the New Moon movie, and I’m sure that we’ll be doing the same for the next in the series!

The past few days had been far busier, and I was far more tired than planned, and my poor little Eclipse sock was not much more than a toe on the morning of June 30th. It had been carried around in my bag most of the week.  Every time I reached in to grab my keys, or wallet I got jabbed by those double pointed needles.  (I am sporting a bandaid now from a key finding mission).  It was a constant reminder of how I should really take a minute to knit a bit and breathe a bit.

Finally at 4:00PM I had my chance.  I sat in a friend’s blacked out living room, and knit, watched New Moon being projected on the big screen while we all munched on delicious snacks, and had moments to breathe, and be silly.

I knit through the car ride to the theatre (I wasn’t driving).  I knit in line, and was glad that we were inside this time!  Arriving 1.5 hours early to the movie has its perks.  I knit in the theatre waiting for the big show.  I even turned a heel during the movie!  It’s not a perfect heel, but that’s proof that it was done in the dark. I knit at a coffee shop after the movie, and when we got kicked out–they were closing, we weren’t rowdy–I knit at a friend’s house.

Such dedicated crazy knitting allowed me to complete an entire sock by midnight on June 30th.  I’m halfway there!

The training begins tomorrow.  A strict regimen of ankle stretching, and fleece carding every day for the entire week should be ample preparation!

You see, I’ve just signed up for a really big challenge this July.  I just joined the Tour De Fleece, for Team Canada, and as such I vow to spin every day that the Tour De France riders are on their bikes.

That’s from Saturday July 3rd to Sunday July 25th, 2010.  I aim to get part way through this bag….but we’ll see how that goes.  I imagine that a lot of it will end up as sport weight yarn that I can use to make mittens this winter.  I’m thinking that some creative dyeing may be needed, because that’s a LOT of white fleece! 

I know, there’s lots of fun to be had in July….cottages, beach days, camp outs, and many other adventures.  Good thing spindles are portable!

If you are tempted crazy enough to join in, sign up on ravelry, here are some of the guidelines (not RULES):

1. Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 3rd through Sunday July 25th. Days of rest: Monday July 12th, Wednesday July 21st. (Just like the actual tour)
2. Spin something challenging Thursday July 22nd. (The Tour’s toughest mountain stage from Pau up the legendary Col du Tourmalet)
3. Wear yellow on Sunday July 25th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour – but here we are all ‘race leaders’)

Teams: Join one, or many, or none.

• Rookies (first years)
• Sprinters (fast and/or high mileage like lace)
• Climbers (conquer mountains, big personal challenges)
• Breakaway (Art yarns)
• Peloton (The main group. Everyone is in the peloton at some point)
• Lantern rouge (You will participate as much as possible but you may skip days here and there. Cheerleaders welcome.)
• Wildcards (This is for people who want to form their own team. This includes sponsored teams, like those affiliated with a specific fiber shop or people who live in the same town, etc.)

I had a very interesting day at Wooly Acres a few years back, when I got to visit the sheep, meet the sheep dogs, and buy a fleece and some roving.  I had a bump of black shetland roving that was calling out to me from my big bin of fiber stash.  It’s hard to find black sheep….did ya know that?

I spun up a bobbin full, then Navajo plied it to form a bulky 3-ply yarn.  I’m looking forward to knitting a hat, but I don’t think there’s enough black to knit an entire hat…..so now I need a contrasting colour.  Maybe I’ll spin up some more shetland–I have a fleece that is a nice tan/golden brown.

I was searching through Ravelry today, and found a really cute hat.  So, now my plan is to make a Botanic hat (pattern by Stephen West).  It is a reversible beanie, which looks awesome either way you wear it.

I’m pretty sure I’ll need to modify things slightly for my bulky spinning, but I now feel inspired!

Looking for a way to use up some odds and ends of handspun?  Why not weave a scarf!!

My handspun was dyed in rather vivid colours using food colouring and other commercial dyes.  There was not enough of it to make into mittens or a hat, but the perfect amount for the weft of a scarf.  I chose a black warp (Cascade 100% wool), which toned down the other colours quite a bit.

shuttle

I chose to do a plain tabby (over and under) weave to show off the colours of the weft.  I love watching how the colours blend into each other, and how there is no real pattern, but since it was all from the same dye lot it all blends anyway.  My loom is a Leclerc 4 shaft table loom.  I got it second hand a few years ago, and have made a few scarves and placemats.

To start weaving, I’d recommend contacting your local weaver’s and spinners guild and asking about their class schedule.  If you are interested in simple weaving you can consider a rigid heddle loom or knitters loom.  This allows you to lift and lower selected threads to create the weave structure.  There is only one heddle/shaft that you manually raise/lower.

rigid heddle loom

table loom

For more complex patterns, a 4 shaft table loom offers more variety in patterns.  Depending on how the loom is threaded, more complex patterns are available.  The heddles/shafts are raised and lowered by pushing the levers on the right side of the frame.  These looms often cost more money, but if you check craig’s list, kijiji or e-bay you can get a good deal on a used loom.

Ever since I saw Yarn Piggy’s lovely colours achieved from Black Bean Dye, I decided I HAD to try it for myself!

image source: flyingpigknits.blogspot.com

Can you imagine that these lovely colours came from BEANS?!?!

image source: flyingpigknits.blogspot.com

The instructions seem easy enough….

Soak the dry beans, drain the murky purply dye water off, dye the wool (no heating or anything required!)  Plus, you can eat the beans while you are waiting for the perfect colour.  There’s a bit of experimenting with fiber types and after baths of ammonia or vinegar….but I’m game to give it a go!

black beans

soaking the beans for 2 days

skein of 100% wool

mordant bath of alum for an hour

soaking in bean juice

I decided to try an ammonia dip after taking the wool out of the bean  mixture.  It turned the yarn a greenish colour.

yarn drying in the sunshine

lichen green yarn compared to the original colour

I’m really impressed at how green the yarn is!  When I did a great deal of natural dyeing 2 summers ago I always struggled to get a good green.  This is a method that will work year round and end up a great green colour.  It’s making me curious about what would happen if I dyed it first with onions and second with beans with ammonia, it may turn an even brighter green.

More yarn is in the bean juice for a longer soak.  Fingers crossed for blue this time!

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