Fantasy Fish- Silk Painting

Here's my first scarf that is worth sharing. I encourage you to click on the pictures to get a larger view. This is actually scarf #3, but the others I'm not so proud of. These fish have been swimming around in my head for quite some time, my own design. Scary what is up there, I tell ya.

Actually came up with the fishies a few years ago and put them into DesignaKnit and knit a funky drought stopper thing with them out of outrageous colors. It's in use to this day coming in handy during our below zero seige, stuffed with odds and ends of ugly yarn and ugly swatches. The draft excluder is about 8" high and the width of the door. Yarn is a wonderful insulator for this drafty (droughty?) door that goes out to the attached garage.

Anyway, I digress. As I'm learning silk painting, I thought it would be a good idea to try a different technique on each fish, which I sort of accomplished. There is soooooo much to learn. A lot of silk painting seems to be comprised of happy and unhappy surprises. I think I lucked out in a way with the seaweed. It's very forgiving, as are the underwater reflections that lend themselves well to shadings of color. This time I was a little more successful blending my own colors---shades of green, blue and purple.

The first scarves I did had some mud shades resulting from over-zealous mixing of colors. For this one, I used habotai silk, 8mm with pre hemmed edges, 8" wide x 56" long. The resist is water soluble as are the Dye-na-flow paint dyes. I'm still getting the hang of that water soluble resist. It's tricky. There are some fat lines and some thinner lines. I prefer to file them under artistic license....

To stretch my silk, I used a highly sophisticated cardboard box reinforced with masking tape. I used push pins to stretch the scarf over the box's opening. If I keep up with the silk painting, I'll need to get a better frame for stretching the silk. I guess I wanted to get into this the cheapest way possible to see if I liked it or not. I know that's not the best approach, but...

I NEED to take an art class or two. Flying by the seat of one's pants seems to waste some time, although painful lessons sink in pretty good.

My knitting machines miss me. But right now, I am totally infatuated with this medium. I feel Paul watching over my shoulder and cheering me on.

When a fur coat is not enough

Here's our Gertie keeping warm in this sub zero weather. She loves it outside, the colder the better. But she's not averse to snuggling in a nice wool blanket when she comes inside. Isn't she the cutest? Who could refuse that sweet face? It hasn't gotten above zero today. It truly is bitterly cold.

Working on another fan lace scarf, this time on my standard gauge machine with Brown Sheep Nature Spun. Can't decide yet which gauge I like better--the midgauge or standard. I plan to try to use Jaquard Textile Paints on the 3 stitch dividers in the design. We'll see. Could be a disaster. Will post pictures if it's presentable.

Out of the past

My niece just posted a pic on Facebook of her daughter wearing a sweater I designed for Knitwords several years ago. Maybe 4 years ago? Can't remember which issue. I had given it to Jessie for her older daughter, her firstborn. Is cute and fits this sweet child well. The back of the sweater has an upside down ice cream cone having fallen on the ground, with the word "Oops!" I had used several online translators to get the phrases for "I LOVE ICE CREAM", but I think some of them were slightly off. Oh well, most people don't speak that many languages and would be none the wiser. If they knew how to fix the spelling, they could do so when knitting it. Fun to see Liv wearing it and fun to remember this design.

The private snow plow companies in the Twin Cities must be hurting. We got about 3/4" overnight and the plow came this morning to do our long driveway. Grrrrrrrrrrr, it's $40 a crack or I wouldn't mind so much. I suppose now that I have publicly complained, it will snow again today and they'll come back for double the money.

Have been in a bit of a knitting slump lately. Always seems to happen to me in January. Too much knitting before Christmas, I suppose. Instead,I have gotten interested in painting on silk. Have purchased supplies and dyed two scarves so far. It's painful to be a beginner where you do not have really a clue as to what you are doing and you make a gazillion mistakes. It's fun anyway and I have already worn one of the scarves. Pics to follow if I get the camera fired up and the ensuing scarves aren't toooooooo horrible to look at. It's fascinating watching the dye spread out over the silk. Magical, really. I feel another addiction coming on. If you're interested in silk painting, You Tube has lots of examples and Dharma Trading Co. is a wonderful site for info.

Fan Lace

I was drooling over cherylsterling's Fan Lace that she showed on Ravelry. She figured out the technique from just studying a shawl that another Raveler, Corsica, had in her projects. She persisted until she got it. Then she did a tutorial and uploaded the video to You Tube. You can find it here: http://loopsinstring.blogspot.com/2008/12/fan-lace-tutorial.html
It is a great tutorial, easy to understand and I was able to duplicate it without any problems. Here's a pic of part of my scarf stuck under the lid of my scanner. The top is the cast on, which I should probably do something about to make it more sturdy. Was concentrating on the technique, so will add a nicer edge next time. The left and right sides look identical. I used the midgauge machine because the standard wasn't available to me when I wanted to give it a try. I don't think it matters which gauge you use. I knit it with Mary Lou's Schuss Plus 100% wool, which I'm glad I used so that I could block it. Came off the machine looking like a poofy glob of yarn. I pinned out the points and steamed it pretty hard.
Isn't it yummy? I am anxious to try another yarn and see what it looks like. Oh, by the way, it turned out to be about 11" wide by 60" long using 6 groups of 3 in work/6 out of work needles, plus 3 at the end. I think it will be a nice size to wrap around my neck and tie once. Yea! Thanks Cheryl!!!

Machine Knitting Video on Increasing and Decreasing

Three more minutes of fame. Here's the second video and it's on increasing and decreasing. I'm a little embarrassed because these are in no way very professional looking, they aren't really comprehensive and they originally were intended for just the sister. Also, to me it sounds like I have marbles in the mouth. The truth of the matter is that I usually have jelly beans, not marbles, in the mouth but not this time. o well. As long as it helps her progress...

Machine Knitting Ewrap Video Tutorial

I have a dear sister who is learning how to machine knit on a Brother KX350 midgauge. It's her first machine and she hasn't really seen anyone use a knitting machine. Maybe years ago when I got my first machine, but not lately, anyway. I had planned to visit her in Colorado last summer and do some instruction, but my husband got sick so I couldn't go. Trying to explain stuff through emails is difficult at best. So, this Christmas vacation my daughter is home and together we decided to try our hand at movie production. (Ha!) This isn't so great, but it's a beginning. Now let's see if I can embed the video into this post.



Weird...it doesn't sound like me. But, that was fun and a good learning experience. I tried putting it on You Tube as a private video because I don't feel that it's worthy of broadcasting around. But it was cumbersome allowing a list of people --- I didn't really spend the time to catch on. So I changed it to a public video and that seemed to be much easier.

We're all about video this month. A few members of the family have gotten webcams and are communicating with Skype. It has its drawbacks, but all in all, it's been fun seeing and hearing the person you're communicating with. Since it's free, there's nothing really to complain about.

Warming the neck

Colder than Hades here. When I took the dog out this morning it was below zero. It's an adventure breathing when it's that cold. Gertie, the Keeshond, loves it, though. The colder the better. She is perfecting her snow angels and snow plowing routines. She gets on her back and does a reasonable imitation of snow angel-making, then hops up and jumps around 180 degrees, and finally puts her nose under the snow and runs. It's comical. Or, would be if it weren't so cold. I have to offer all manner of treats to get her to come inside. Thinking of knitting her some booties though. She has to lift one paw off the ground until she's made the rounds of all 4, trying to keep her feet from freezing to the ground. Ah....Minnesota winters.

I'm still knitting. Bought some yarn that looks a little like rag wool, except it's cotton and brownish instead of gray. It's a neck warmer thing. On any machine that works with your yarn, Cast on 7 inches worth, knit for 23 inches. Hang beginning stitches on the machine and push to the back of the bed. Hang a bottom side in the hooks of the needles, push stitches through and bind off. I did an attached I cord around the neck to bring it in a little, but it probably wasn't necessary. You can't really see the I cord in the picture. The edges roll anyway, but it doesn't matter. I had two buttons in my stash that go well. If you make it, you might want to make sure you don't twist into a moebius when you hang the second set of stitches. Or maybe you do want to twist it. Up to you. Didn't take long to knit at all!

Two more days and the daughter comes home from Califoria. Even though she grew up here, it's going to be a shock to the system.