Wednesday, April 30, 2008

May's "Teaser"

A little sneak peek of the yarn colourway for this month! In the middle is the painting and surrounding it is the yarns. As you can see, I picked up on a good part of the tones in the painting but not all :) This was a fun dye yet again - I dyed the yarns, loved them when they were wet, looked at them when they were dry and thought "oh gosh, did I really dye them like that?" LOL I always seem to forget month to month that the yarn is the boss not me! It always tells me how it wants to reflect the colours no matter how much prodding or poking I do. In the end, I love how these yarns turned out and I hope everyone enjoys them too :)

A note about the SeaCell blend for those that haven't worked with it before. The yarn can tend to have slubs in it which is what you ask? They are little misspun areas in the yarn that for some reason just don't spin right at the mill. I thought it a quirk of the first few yarn I got from the mill but they seem to be quite consistent in all the yarns I have gotten so far. What do you do with them? I pick them out if they are large or if they're small, knit right through them! This quirk definitely gives the yarn a "green" feel which is not a bad thing at all and it's yummy enough to deal with the slubs. No worries though - they only appear every once in awhile and not throughout the entire yarn.

Happy knitting everyone! The yarns are going out tomorrow :)

Friday, April 25, 2008

May's Inspiration - Henri Matisse

I was really excited when I saw this suggestion from our contest winner Crista for May! I had narrowed down the entries to 3 and then based on colours we have done already and the base yarn, I couldn't resist this entry!

We haven't done anything by Henri Matisse either so it's a wonderful choice for that reason too! So Springy and with the base yarn I'm going to use for May, it'll work out really well! Can't wait...now to dig into the dye pots and have fun with these colours!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

April's "Spoiler"

When Tara chose Paul Klee's Flora on the Sand, I looked at it and thought, wow, that'll be a nice challenge to try to get the colours "blocked" onto the yarn especially since the skein is in a circle and the colours are in squares...LOL! These types of challenges monthly with this sock club keep me hopping that's for sure!

Overall, I like the effect and I can't wait to see how this one knits up for everyone as it'll surely be quite different. Don't feel inclined to only try socks - maybe a scarf or another project will work better for the way the colours will distribute with this one.

Enjoy everyone! I had a great time dyeing this one!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Time for May's Contest!

I'll be away for a week in April so I thought I'd get a head start on the suggestions for May's art piece. All I pretty much have in mind at the moment is something seasonal - cheery and bright would be good instead of dreary :)

Rules are the same as when we started the contest in February.

Oh yes, if you are on Rav and need a reminder of what colourways/artists we've already done, please click here. You can also make your suggestion in the Rav group here if it's easier for you!

Good luck everyone!