Other things done on the side

Alongside the course work shown here, I do a bit of work on the side. The course takes up a lot of time, so there is little time to create much, but I have been knitting and dyeing on the side.

Over the summer I dyed in rhubarb - this gave different shades of yellow-green, and I also modified a skein in iron, and over-dyed some in indigo.

Pictures to follow.


The local Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, which I am a member of, had a dyeing day and I had an opportunity to dip a shibori-style tie dyed pashmina in indigo. The ties where a poly cotton around pebbles of stone, and the square resist areas are unplanned, I did not foresee that these areas would be square like this, all I did was select stones in approximately the same sizes and tie thread around them. I am now wondering whether I should embellish this in some way. The pashmina was white with a subtle woven pattern which was brought out by the dye. This means the tie-dye clashes slightly with the weave and I think this clash needs to be brought out/harmonized further by embellishment....
this is still to come.

I finished a knitted blanket this week (19.08.14) which has taken a number of months to finish, using hand spun, commercial yarns, some dyed others natural. Some of the handspun is thinner than others and I used a steady needle size throughout - around 3.75, so it is quite dense in places and thin in others. There is handspun yarns acid dyed, dyed yarns using Koolaid, some commercial coloured yarn, but I guess around 60% or so is handspun. I did not spin it all, some came from table top sales with my guild and sales of leftovers by people who were having a clear-out.

The pattern is a simple zigzag stripe. I tried to spread the colours evenly across the blanket so there were no clusters of say, pink or green. It seems to have worked all right, the things is very heavy due to the denseness of the yarn and its size; although I haven't measured it, it must be around 2 m long as it is longer than I am. Folded up it will take up a fair bit of space, so it will take up a fair bit of space in my work room where I am planning to use it in the winter.