In Progress- knitted silk fabric strips

My most recent knitting project is still in process.

I was visiting the Yarn Garden a few weeks ago, as my "get out of the house" treat for the week. There was a gorgeous scarf on a mannequin. It turned out to be the Shape It scarf from Sally Melville's Knitting Experience. There was something about the way it looked on display, almost like jewelery rather than a scarf. I really liked it.

The directions were easy- garter stitch, nothing hard to understand. I rushed home and (ignoring the gauge) started knitting it with some gorgeous rayon space dyed yarn I had laying about. Got pretty far into it and realized it would fit the baby pretty well. Unravelled, and looked at the directions for the gauge. Ah- supposed to be a bulky yarn, or ribbon. Well, that explains it. While I would have preferred the look of the thinner rayon, I decide it's a bad idea to (YET AGAIN) change the pattern without having made one first. But I don't have any bulky yarn I like for this, nor do I have ribbon. Nor money to go buy yarn, for that matter.

What I DO have is most of an 11 yard bolt of very sheer silk gauze, purchased for another project some years ago. (I think it was needle felting.) It occurred to me that I could dye the fabric, cut it into strips and knit with the fabric strips. I had seen this recently, and was thinking about using some wool strips to knit a rug.

Sheer silk gauze

I put the silk in an old roasting pan I have dedicated to using for dyeing wooks and silks. I saturated it with water, but not to the point where it was standing in it. I used Landscapes dyes in Sage, Opal and Marine. Then I did something you are never supposed to do, mixed dyes. I threw in some Procion Deep Purple, with a little added vinegar. I covered the roaster with 2 layers of aluminum foil, sealing it very tightly, and put it in the oven at 170 degrees for an hour. When the hour was up, I turned the oven off and left the roaster in place in the oven over night.

In the dye pot

After it came out of the dyepot, the fabric was washed and hung to dry.

I cut it into strips, trying to get them about 1/2 inch wide. That's harder than you might think. Then I tied the strips together, winding it all into a large ball. Then I knitted, using #13 needles.

The next step is to embellish with beads or something. More to come.

Elliott's Sweater

A pretty baby in a pretty sweater.

This is a sweater I made for my granddaughter. The pattern is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Tomten Jacket, with a modification- The sweater is supposed to be done in garter stitch, and somehow I didn't get that from the pattern. I did it in stockinette, because the slubbiness of the yarn looked better that way, I thought.

Not exactly a new knitter, I am still not a very experienced knitter. I am really proud that, despite not following the directions very well, I managed to finish the piece. It's my first knitted sweater. I learned quite a lot, from the knitting as well as from the ripping out and reknitting.

The yarn is a slubby cotton/rayon blend. It was white on the cone, and I dyed it in skeins with Procion dyes to get the colors you see. For decoration, there are rows of garter stitch at the bottom, along the front lapel and around the edge of the hood, where the arms join the jacket at the shoulder, and at the wrist. I added a tassel on the top of the hood.

What's a Tomten? According to The Tomten Page:

The tomtes (in Germany, kobolds)are a pre-Christian race of spirit beings well-known to the north Europeans. Generally, they are considered to be spirits of place who become familiars of a household. The tomte is a short (three feet or so) elderly man of unpredictable disposition, attired in grey woolen clothes and wearing a red cap.

Elliott is not a short old man wearing a red cap, but she is of unpredictable disposition. More about Tomten's here

Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Front

Back- I love the way the colors work across the bottom of the back- it reminds me of the Monet Waterlilies triptych
Front, with buttons. I am not so fond of the stripiness here.

Button detail. The buttons are glass, with depth

Detail of bottom and center front.