Oh well. This past weekend was crappy in proportion to how good the weekend before was. I don’t know, this business of the Universe keeping itself balanced - it can be disconcerting. You know? So I took yesterday off posting and violated my own promise to myself. I took some of the new KnitPicks yarn and started something new (sorry Lisa :).
A marriage made in heaven!
I’m not sure when the idea occurred to me, but somewhere in that back of my head, apparently, lives a little pixie who does nothing but look at and sort through colors. Yesterday, he happened to mention that the new merino lace weight would look nice with that rayon flake I’ve had lying around for so long. You know, the one I keep getting drawn to because of the fabulous, hand-painted colors and keep setting aside because it’s just too slick to work with?
Click! Oooooooh….
So out came the rayon (already wound and ready to go) and the merino. I couldn’t believe how long it took me to wind two balls of yarn from the lace weight. I didn’t really mind but it’s interesting to realize that 440 yards is a lot longer piece of yarn than you get in most 50 gram hanks.
Co-existing nicely
Together, these make a truly luscious fabric. The merino provides warmth and a bit of “grab” for the needles while the rayon colors glow and shine. The fabric is very soft and has a beautiful drape. The wool doesn’t entirely counter the thread’s slickness, however. At 11:30 last night, having worked (played) all day to get things going, I set the circular down less carefully than I should have and when I picked it up, three stitches had fallen off the left needle and run straight to the bottom of about 25 rows. Slippery you see :)
After I stopped cussing myself for thirty kinds of a fool, I took it all apart and started again on a slightly smaller scale.
Double Eyelets
Really, this is an experiment. Some time ago (I don’t remember exactly when or where - Cast-On maybe? ) I read an article about creating your own yarns by combining colors and textures to achieve something unique. While I basically agreed with the idea I didn’t see any way to do it practically without having to use size 35 needles to work with the result. Evidently, my pixie also remembered the article because suddenly, the idea of four strands of lace weight in two complimentary colors dropped into my noggin. Hey, that shouldn’t be too heavy or thick, right? Well, actually it’s thicker than I had imagined. While this could easily be worked on size 7 or 8 needles, I’m using 10s - just to keep things loose. A nod to the lace weight yarns, I suppose, though this isn’t very lacy :)
And now I will go back to the regularly scheduled projects and do both yesterday’s and today’s work on them. I am happy with my experiment and it’s success has helped balance the definitely yucky weekend. Now I can go back to work :)
I hope all your weeks are well begun!
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Yucky weekend here too….flu hit with a vengence. Ugh. Back today…and wow, I am so impressed with your creativity Robbyn! Did you see the latest KnitPicks yarns? drooool… :)
Yes - our weekend was a little wonky too - little things going wrong that added up to major aggravation!
But the week is starting wonderfully, so we’ve achieved balance once again. ;)
LOVE your new fabric - what gorgeous colors!!!
oh, a pox on bad weekends-
i see that lisa beat me in pointing out that knitpicks has still more new yarns- there’s one designed for fair isles that is calling me *and* they’ve added a couple of cashmere blends-
i like your new fabric too- the rayon flake does add some ‘kick’ to it-
it’s a grey day here in se texas- could that mean that drops of water may soon be falling from the skies? let us hope so!
stay happy-
Love the double eyelets, very dramatic and flamelike. Apparently I have a whole officeful of overworked knitting pixies, they keep me awake at night 
Great look you’ve achieved!
Wonderful combination! The matte finish of the merino and the shiny finish of the rayon worked together give natural highlights and shadows, and the colors bend magnificently.
This is going to be quite a piece when you’re done with it.
Lisa - Sorry to hear about your flu :( That can’t have been much fun.
It was just like playing with paints when I was a kid. I can see myself doing a lot of this in the future!
Bron - Thanks - I like the colors too and this is about as far away from purple as you can go. Kinda surprised me :) Glad to hear your week’s going better than your weekend!
Barb - Good Lord - have we got the Bad Weekend Brigade here? Yep, I went and drooled over the new yarns last night - pretty cool stuff, eh?
Definitely hoping your grey skies mean some rain and some temperature relief. It was grey here too, this morning, but the sun has since come out…
Colleen Heheh - yep, when the Knitting Pixie gets stubborn about something, he can actually make me get up out of bed. Wouldn’t want to be without him all the same :)
Margene Thanks kindly! Of course now I want to try it with every other color I can get my hands on :)
Folkcat I’ll be very curious to see what it’s like when it’s done and I kind of think I’d like to do a bigger piece than this eventually. Certainly it’s a visually entertaining experiment at the very least!
<font color=purple>lurrrrrrvely...and i’m not even that fond of orangey colors! (another purple fiend here lol)
sounds like you’re having fun <strike>playing</strike> experimenting, even with the dropped stiches (ACK! 
)
i think your pixie deserves a treat tonight ;-) </font>
Laurie - Okay, I’m good with that - what kind of treat do you give to a Knitting Pixie? Since he seems to live in my head, maybe I’ll go stare at a color wheel tonight :)
Nice combination! Combining yarn is fun. I made a great sweater combining white mohair with plain old black paton worsted. And I kept buying the white mohair with coupons, weekly, didn’t have to worry about dye lots due to combining! Is it going to be a sweater?
Betty - Not a sweater. While I work things out, I’ll leave it at a scarf/stole sort of thing. This does look and feel very nice though and I think I’d like to try a larger project next time :)
