So-close-to-being-finished objects
Ok, so I have one Branching Out, and one craziness-of-my-own-concoction behind the cut... all they need is to have the ends woven in, and then they will be sent off to my aunt and uncle as very, very, VERY late xmas gifts...
A somewhat blurry picture of my lame-ass attempt at blocking Branchy. *cough* I mean, um, Branching Out. No, I swear, she and I do not have that kind of relationship. Um... anyways, she was made in some gorgeous 50/50 cashmere/silk (Filatura's Trilly, specifically) that started out in this horrible khaki/yellow color that I couldn't stand, but my darling friend mere dyed it red for me, and then I overdyed it with some Rit Wine-colored dye to give it some nice varigation that you can't really see in the picture... well.. maybe a little... the mottling down near the bottom, maybe... Anyways, I loved the yarn (and I definitely would recommend it as a super-luxurious yarn substitution for the pattern), and since it had some silk in it, I gave it a light pressing with a low-to-medium heat iron, since I'd read that that's good for silk, and since while I was washing it, it got a bit fuzzy-looking and less sheen-y than I wanted. The pressing seemed to work beautifully to increase the sheen/smoothness just a bit, and, of course, speeded up the blocking process quite a bit, which I like. *grin* It's not quite that orange-y in real life, but that's what my flash does to red colors, and my photoshop skillz aren't up to correcting it without making it look even worse. In reality, it's a nice cranberry kinda color.
Next, my bizarre attempt to create something using illusion knitting: a scarf for my uncle with a little flame theme down at the ends, 'cuz he's a retired fireman, and like fireman-themed stuff... and then the rest of the scarf has what I think of as a water-like feel, which I think compliments the fire thing a bit...
The marriage of the wavy-ribs with the illusion knitting was not the happiest, either aesthetically or, ahem, gauge-wise, but I'm fairly satisfied with the result, and frankly, this is my 3rd attempt at the thing, and I don't want to pull it all apart again and knit something different from scratch. If he hates it and never wears it, so be it-- I'm sick of it by now, and this is the version I've liked best, so. Yeah. There.
This (above) shows the ripple-texture of the ribs in the solid blue part, and I tried to tweak it to look darker than my flash made it, 'cuz in reality, it's a very dark, midnight-y blue with dark red, almost maroon stripes.
And this (below) shows what it would look like if you were wearing it and looking down. I like how that's the best way to see the illusion-- it makes it that much more of your private secret hidden in your scarf...
Sorry for the crappy pics... the light was bad today, and I'm lazy, and... yeah... no real excuses... *grin*
Anyways, details on this scarf? The yarns were a whole mix... I used two skeins of Berroco Glace ribbon (which is... rayon? Maybe a rayon blend?), one was a very dark blue, really a blue-black... the other was a more dark turquoise-y color. Then there were 1.5 to 2 skeins of navy blue Adrienne Vittadini's Martina, which is a 70/30 mix of merino and silk. Then there was about a skein and a half of some gorgeous dark-turquoise-y, fairly thin, very cord-like cotton that I got in Japan, the wrapper of which says, in Japanese, "Ruubu Karaa", and, in English, "L'uva". The dark red is Jo Sharp Classic DK Wool Heather in scarlet. I thought it was too scratchy, hence why the illusion-knitting bit is limited to not-touching-the-neck parts.
Credits: I learned how to do illusion-knitting from the description on DIY's Knitty Gritty webpage. For the flames, I spent over an hour modifying a chart from Jodi Green's Hot Tamale. The wavy rib thing was at least partially inspired by seeing pics of fellow Noho resident's Wavy, though I really couldn't tell you how different my version is from her's... I deliberately tried to make mine lie as flat as possible, and have flat edges, unlike her's, and from quick glance at the pattern, it looks like her's is a 3x3 rib, whereas mine was a 4x2. And... I really hate reading patterns (or at least, I hate reading them and then trying to imagine what that translates to in my head...), so I'm not gonna go through and try and figure out what her's is like. All I know is that for mine, I knit about 3 rows during which I would shift the ribs over one stitch for every row, and then I would knit about... 20 or so rows during which I would only shift the ribs over one stitch ever OTHER row... so basically, it was mostly long, shallow-ly curving lines, with just a little bit of sharper curving in the middle of each curve. Um. I don't know if that made any sense. I suppose I could post a pic of the little chart I drew for myself if anyone cared, but... you'd have to ask, 'cuz I'm too lazy to go dig it out right now. ;D
I think that's it... maybe later I'll write all about my fabulous adventures with yarn shops in mid- to northeastern VT. O', the cherry tree hill sock yarn.......