Sunday, February 17, 2008

Intertwined

I was down at The Dancing Ewe and spotted a book called Intertwined from Lexi Boeger, the Pluckyfluff Handspun Revolution. I had seen it briefly on Amazon.com, but was anxious to get my hands on it and so I purchased it and lugged it home. Besides the pictures of these artful yarns being rather mind-blowing, the chapters of designer diaries are fascinating. I was instantly inspired to try my hand at some of the techniques presented, so I pulled out some wool I didn't particularly like (just in case my attempts were a total mess). I tried the Super Coils first and below is my first attempt. I love it! The colors, bland and boring on their own, blended well together and the feel of the squishy coils is glorious. I knit a cute little neck warmer since I only had about 30 yards of yarn by the time I was done.
The cowl is part knitted on size 13s and part crocheted with an N hook. This yarn is a bit difficult to work with because the coils don't want to pull through the loops. I cast on seven stitches and knit garter stitch for four rows. On the fifth row, I knit one, yo twice, knit 2 together until the end, then knit straight across the next two rows. It took every inch of the yarn to make this. It's super warm and cozy. The buttons are just plastic ones I got in a grab bag over the weekend.

The other yarn I tried out was a boucle with little nubby twists and sparkle. The roving I used was merino. I think it's too busy and the mohair takes away from the nubs and sparkle. I think I'll use this for the ends of a scarf and just spin the sparkle and nubs with the rest of the roving for the main body of the scarf.
The other yarn I worked on was some beautiful hand-dyed alpaca I got from Janelle. The colors are subtle and beautiful and I mixed a bit of sparkle in with it to give it a little extra pizazz. The result is a soft luminous yarn that will make a great... something... LOL! I have no plans for this other than to drool over it! I only have about 5 ounces of it, so my idea of a cuddly bed jacket won't work until I knit it with something else.




I've also been out thrift shopping and so I'll leave you with some of my favorite most recent finds, a wire basket with long evening gloves, a pincushion tea cup, an architectural drawing, a pretty tea cup, Laura Ashley curtain, a set of antique plates, a pretty white and blue mini tea pot, and some pretty fabric to recover my cushions for my couch: