What the Fade Complete!

At the start of this year, I cast on for something entirely selfish- a shawl by Andrea Mowry called What The Fade.  I was lucky to take a class with her last year at KnitCity, where she taught about colour confidence- and various techniques for blending and combining colours and even textures into our knitting patterns.  It was eye opening, intriguing on many levels- especially for one such as myself who usually plays it safe with greys...

It took me a few months to decide on a palette- I stalked the projects on Ravelry to see what I liked/didn't like.  The ones I was drawn to the most were mostly neutrals, with a higher contrast "A" colour.  So first thing- stash-diving.  I found my skein of Sweet Georgia in Ultraviolet- an incredible deep rich ridiculously beautiful shade of purple.  Hits of blue in there- it's a stunner for sure.  This was the only yarn that never changed in any of my line ups.  At this point I had no Hedgehog, or speckled yarns in my collection other than what I'd dyed myself and those were into greens/blues and wouldn't work.  Between some misses ordering online and finally some sweet scores in person (found the Baah Yarns in LA on a work trip, and the Hedgehog at local shops) I had what I thought might work.  It was a little stressful at first- that initial committment- because it really is an investment of time, and money- because we all know good yarn ain't cheap. This is where I was at- my line up in all it's glory.  I pondered over this for several days before I had the courage to cast on and just go for it.

As soon as I cast on with the first two colours- I was in love.  A little wary still, but in love.  As I worked through the brioche section I didn't know if I had enough contrast between some yarns, or too much between others.  At a certain point I just let go, figured- this will be what it will be.  And I ended up with something I love more than anything else I've knit.


I took a million photos, managed to limit myself to 20 or so over on Ravelry.  No touch ups or filters needed- this thing is pure heaven.  I still haven't blocked it and I'm not sure I even will.  Stitches look even and great- and while the garter section is more structured than the brioche, I love how dense and warm it is.  I don't want it to grow too much as it's truly a great size and I suspect even with a steam it's going to get bigger.  I'll cross that road when I need to wash it- till then it's perfect as it is.

I learned a few things about myself while I knit this- sometimes you have to give in and just trust yourself, your eye and what you're drawn to.  I greatly increased my knitting speed with those long garter rows.  It's been a really long time since I've done straight garter- and this certainly has a lot of it.  It's perfect amount of brioche- there's only 2 kinds of increases, so this is a perfect first brioche project for those starting out- and nice easy brioche for those who might be getting re-acquainted like myself.  

 

 I LOVE this shawl!

A Pound of Merino and a Dyeing Test

4 mini skeins showing dyeing progression

I recently purchased a pound of beautiful fingering weight merino yarn with the purpose in mind to test out some dye techniques and start to develop my own palette to play with.

Here's what this beautiful pile of yarn looked like to start.

I separated it into roughly 35g mini skeins, plus one 100g skein.  I wanted small skeins to play with colour and not waste too much yarn if it went badly.  Also, this is enough to knit a swatch and save a bit with my dye info for reference.

In the first dye pot- I did a low immersion bath with purple, blue, and ecru (which disappeared).  I put all three mini skeins in here.

Sucked up the dye so fast!

Once it was out and dry, I could see what I wanted to change.  Back into the dye pot for two of the skeins- one with a diluted black just to dull out the white areas of yarn, and another in a more concentrated to give an overall more smokey look.

Here's all 4 steps together from right to left- bare, purple and blue low immersion (first step), and full immersion/overdye with light grey and dark grey.  I'm loving the more denim look of the darkest one, which is what I was hoping for.  Interestingly the yarn grabbed the colour immediately in the first skein- there's very little bleeding, well defined edging which I suspect is from soaking the yarn in acidic water as well as acid in the dye bath.  Could work well for some speckling- perhaps that's this weekend's adventure.

Stay tuned for some swatches coming soon.  My evenings are filled with TdF spindle spinning for a Ravelry challenge, then back to some knit time.

Happy knitting!