Oh My

Ah bandwidth, the final frontier.

It seems that I have been posting a lot of pictures over the years and now Photobucket is enforcing a limit on how much can be viewed per month. The moment I had my sale at Lettuce Knit the numbers nudged over the top for the month! Everything will be reset on June 28th and pictures can be viewed again then. But my punishment for going over is, no pictures until the 28th or unless I pay immediately (urk). I can’t do much in the short term, but in the long term there are a few things I will be changing up.

I will start an alternate picture account at a different provider like flicker. It will ensure that future blog pictures are unaffected. I will also (slowly) cut down the pictures that are presently posted through Photoshop in existing blogs. Most of my pics are 500kb in size and I will cut them down to closer to 100kb. My existing pics will continue getting taken away by Photobucket on a month to month basis until I get enough pictures reduced to handle the viewing load.

I’m working on it!

Dyeing for the Next Show

Here are a few pics of what I have been working on. Again its a rainy week here! I took some pictures on the weekend. I have been ironing out all of my handmade scarves, I’m hoping to pin them all on the laundry line so I can have an all at once picture. They are being prepped for my next show on Friday night, when I will be at the Wesley Artisan Market in Cambridge, ON.

I tried dyeing up a bunch of these fabulous recycled tote bags. They are made of 33% each recycled cotton, recycled hemp and recycled polyester. Its a pretty thick canvas bag, a bit hard to dye up. On this first run I softened the bags up for the next run!

I tried some wavy patterns out on a tea towel and a scarf.

A centre radiating design on a tank top. These tank tops are made of 55% hemp and 45% cotton. From hanging dry, they get very stiff, so after dyeing and setting I send them through a normal wash & dry load.

A spiral design on a t-shirt. These t-shirts are also made of 55% hemp and 45% cotton.

Hopefully I will not have any stock left after Friday and have to dye up MORE!

Knit In Public Day

This weekend I headed out to Lettuce Knit in Kensington Market in downtown Toronto, ON. I came together with other knitting enthusiasts and independent dyers. It was a beautiful day, lovely weather, fabulous homemade treats and a lot of knitting!

Many thanks to Sylvie for inviting me and to the Platypus for taking so many awesome pictures with my camera during the day.

I got these needles from Alpaca Tracks back in May! I tried them out for the first time today on some fun hemp rope I have been experimenting with.

Claire of CrowKnits with yummy hand dyed yarns and really cool scalemail. I need to try out scales on hemp….

Brenna was demonstrating her sock machine! I love watching.

Silk in the machine.

I decorated with scarves today.

Sylvie & a giant!

Wonderful happy smile to end the day!

Tuesdye

My laundry lines have plenty of moments in the shade rather than full sun. Yesterday there were a lot of items to bring back out for some more drying.

Open up some of the tank tops from yesterday, and start a few more.

Removing everything for the full sun, and then set up again in the evening with the next dyelot of the day, a few shirts, scarves and of course, more yarn!

All out of dye lots now, (except for the small stuff of less than 100mL in bottles, to keep dyeing up a few tank tops). In the last 2 days I made up 8 colours. Next step is to rinse everything out. I use a bucket with a plunger to agitate it all. Light colours and yarns first!

Mondye

Dyeing began today! A few skeins of yarn for knitting, a few warps for weaving and a few tank tops. Nice day to be working outside. The colours are so much fun to work with!

Getting Ready to Dye

I have spent a large amount of my time in the last few weeks in getting ready for my June shows. On Sat June 8th, and kicking off knit in public week, I will be at Lettuce Knit in Kensington Market in Toronto. On Fri June 14th I will be at the Wesley Artisan Market in Cambridge. At both events I will be bringing all my own hand made yarns & goods.

On Monday I start dyeing!

I wrapped up a ton of yarns for knitting. I have an earlier lot of multicoloured dyeing, and this round I am focusing on mottled and ombre dyeing.

Cotton yarns.

Hemp yarns.

Silk yarns.

I made about 9 warps so far. They are all for 8″ wide, 20 epi, 90″ ish long scarves. The silk warps vary in ties, some are set up for all over ombre dyeing from top to bottom, and some set up so individual strips within the warp will change colour from top to bottom.

I made one hemp warp to try out my newest 10/2 yarn. it is set up with the same dimensions as the silk yarn, and I will test it out on my new counterbalance loom, which is coming soon now!

I am also trying out an ikat motif in the warp. I wrapped up the yarns with the resistance blocks while it was on the warping mill. I will not make a matching weft ikat pattern for this warp.

I’m very excited about the goods I wrapped up to dye up this round. In addition to the shows, I also have a store order for hand dyed tanks & t shirts due for delivery June 11th! I made quite a few mandalas and spirals.

I wrapped up all my leftover scarf blanks. Some will be overdyed from the last round.

This time I grabbed half of my bag stock. These shopping bags are made from 33% recycled hemp, 33% recycled cotton, and 33% recycled polyester. Last year I had them printed with designs. I may still print up a few, after they are dyed up, we’ll see. Like the shirts, these are mostly mandala and spiral patterns.

I’m looking forward to the sunny weather that is coming after the weekend!

 

 

A Peaceful Garden Moment

Getting ready for shows, trying to make sure I have sale dates this summer, and fixing a house where I find carpenter ants the last 2 years is keeping me a bit busy. Almost finished sweater number 2 out of the cotton yarns. I ran out of the colour of specked yarn and have to go back to the supplier and see if any more showed up.

I planted my flax seeds on the May 2-4 weekend, but we didn’t get as much water as I was hoping until this week. I had been watering the plot by hand, and today I finally saw the first sprouts.

Its nice to take a moment in the garden.