That's a Lot of Pink

Wow, I am SO excited. I’m starting to get more comments every day (I love that!)— thank you everyone. Please continue to ask questions and leave remarks!

Today’s question:

PersnicketyKnitter Says:
"I love how that blue yarn turned out with all the variations of color. I think it’ll look great as in that Ostrich Plumes pattern. How about a close up of that stitch pattern?"

Here you go!

Close enough? As you can see, Ostrich Plumes is a variation of feather and fan. You start out doing the pattern one way, then every 16 rows, you jog it over and do increases where you did decreases before. The double-decrease in the center is done in such a way as to suggest the spine of an actual feather. The sudden increases in one spot also make the fabric poof out like the edges of an actual ostich feather.

This pattern is SO fun to work—it has enough interesting stuff happening to keep you engaged, but enough rhythm and “resting” rows so that you can listen to a book or watch TV. It changes every 16 rows so you almost can’t get bored— what more can you ask from a stitch pattern?
Does it show that I am easily amused? Is my excitement and glee over stitch patterns weirding anyone out yet?

At any rate, I can’t keep my hands off this stole. I must be half done, and that’s just from the little bit of knitting I’ve done late-nights this week and in classes. It is everything I wanted it to be (didn’t I say that about the original Ostrich stole?)! but, YAY for overdyeing, right?

I did write one pattern written the other day and I’ve been thinking about how to write the sock-of-all-sock patterns that everyone keeps asking me for. I think I actually found a new twist on the sock pattern idea. It’s sort of half formed, but I will definitely keep you posted. I also have two or three more shawl patterns to get to—how am I gonna do that?.

Okay, now down to today’s news. One of the reasons I don’t have much big knitting to show for this week is that I’ve been spinning almost every evening (after blogging) on that cotton-candy pink Falkland fiber I hand-dyed last summer. I finally finished it last night!

It is so fine! It weighs a total of 7 ounces, and has 1350 yds of 2-ply. I'm a little proud of it! Here is a picture with my number 1 knitting needle next to some strands

Teensy, huh? Here’s a pic with it spread out a little so you can see the colors

It is fiber dyed and spun to emulate noro-type yarn in that it will shade softly from one color to the next in very long color repeats. The only problem is . . . I really am having a hard time lovin’ the color.
I’m thinking of doing a triangle shawl with it, but I don’t want it to be so pink that it distracts from the lace patterns.

Later . . . actually next morning

Alright then, I was going to let you all weigh in on whether I should dye it or not. But, I just couldn’t stand the suspense. I even attempted this whole photoshop demonstration thing where I showed some different color effects over the pink (honestly, it was worthy in its detail, of someone else we know), but it all went bad in the end. Photoshop just doesn’t DO yarn!

So I winged it without you, and did some dye dipping and color washing.

Now I KNOW you want to see them next to each other!

The light in the same location outside is a little different today. The re-dyed yarn actually looks a little darker to me in life, so here’s a detail (it still doesn’t really translate really well)

You can see where I added some brown and some gray-green—I did that with a brush. Then, I dipped the whole thing in a bath of diluted persimmon dye to take the color back a notch and mask the streaks of brown a bit. I think I like it now, though I’ll know better when it’s dry.