Thursday 19 July 2007

Defying Gravity!

Here is the very first ball of hand-dyed yarn I've ever made *grin* It's pure silk, unbelievably soft, and beautiful. It's a very shiny blue/green/silvery mix and is stunning. We call it Defying Gravity, in honour of both its colours and witchiness, and that it represents a new period of creativity for Elana and I, and we're breaking out of traditional 'workaholic or invalid' modes and trying to find our own path. Wish us luck!

With the flash, the shine was quite intense, so it's a tiny bit darker than it looks on the light picture, but a lot lighter than the one without the flash :-)

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Here's to many more!

Tuesday 17 July 2007

My first illusion knit!

The dyed silk looks fantastic, but am waiting until I have my ball winder before I post pics of it ;-) While untangling a mess of yarn waiting to be dyed, I decided to make Elana a fleur-de-lys illusion knit - it'll feel nicer than the brand she wants..

I started last night and finished this afternoon, while watching a marathon of Grey's Anatomy and 24..

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She liked it :-) Shame it was in pink instead of black and gold, but I needed yarn that was the same and for some reason only had it in shades of pink (?!).

Was lots of fun to do - I can totally see how it works but it amazes me that someone figured it out. I think a Dark Mark scarf for Jo is calling...

Wednesday 11 July 2007

Woooo! My first attempt at dyeing...

So, finally bit the bullet and, since I am cursed with an allergy to wool and so can't use cheap dyes like Koolaid and food colouring, I bought a bunch of Procion MX dyes and the related bumpf. I found a really pretty pattern the other day that I wanted to make in silk, so I bought out the silver Debbie Bliss Pure Silk sale stuff from John Lewis.

Here it is soaking:

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Elana and I took turns soaking it, cause it just didn't want to not float (silk is a witch, apparently). Then we mixed up Turquoise, Ultramarine and Emerald Green :

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And then the fun part! Splashy Splashy!

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Here's Elana and I looking slightly mental with our rubber gloves, while poor Doug had to leave his SSC raid to come take pics for us (I'm on the left, please excuse lack of make-up and bra ;-)).

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It's now wrapped up like a sausage in the bath, and will be washed out tomorrow... wooo!

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