I’m not dead :p (sorry for those of you who were looking forward to it!). I’ve been rather busy, but I’ve been knitting and sewing a bit. A quick look at how the kilt hose is looking right now, after 10cm of cabling:
See y’all soon. Jan’s coming here next thursday! :) *happy* *jumpy*
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeh! *happy* I’ve been RAK’ed – that is, I’ve been the objet of a Random Act of Kindness. I “signed up” for this at the Knitty Board, it’s a thread where you put your wishes, and if someone can and wants, sends you some thingies. Anyway, I want to thank Amy (sorry, don’t know your site addy, if you have one, and read this, please tell me!) for all the pressies you sent me. And since we know it, here come the pics:
Love. It. All.
Thanks so much again, Amy.
Sade
So, the kilt hose adventure continues. After turning the heel and picking up the stitches, I started with the pretty braid of each side of the sock. You can see a general view:
And a pretty close up of the braid:
Lurve it!
PS: that’s my little camera bag stuffing the sock so it stays up and shows the cables nicely ;)
Home \Home\ (h[=o]m; 110), n. [OE. hom, ham, AS. h[=a]m; akin to OS. h[=e]m, D. & G. heim, Sw. hem, Dan. hiem, Icel. heimr abode, world, heima home, Goth. haims village, Lith. k[“e]mas, and perh. to Gr. kw`mh village, or to E. hind a peasant; cf. Skr. ksh[=e]ma abode, place of rest, security, kshi to dwell. [root]20, 220.
- One’s own dwelling place; the house in which one lives; esp., the house in which one lives with his family; the habitual abode of one’s family; also, one’s birthplace.
- One’s native land; the place or country in which one dwells; the place where one’s ancestors dwell or dwelt.
- The abiding place of the affections, especially of the domestic affections.
These pics are taken in our (DBF and mine) living / dining / hobby room and office (all in one). It is really a place I call home, for I feel at home when I’m there. It’s peaceful and quiet. It’s nice, it’s decorated like we wanted it. We did a lot of work in this room… Although it was DBF who did most of it, since I wasn’t there most of the time. We chose the colours together and he painted it all (after removing the old wallpaper), my lovely MIL did the stencil edge. We chosed the furniture and the distribution, and assembled most of it together. The red couch is our last acquisition :) It is really our little home.. Until we get our real home.
(Note: DBF took these pics, as I only had the idea once I had already left Belgium. All the credit goes to him. I just selected and made the collage.)
I travel a lot, having my DBF Jan in Belgium (so does he, btw). This is a picture I took while waiting for the flight that would take me back home from Belgium after spending the Easter holidays there. It’s sad having to get back home… The weather was grey and wet, very appropriate too… Going back home… I can’t wait till going back to Belgium…
This Easter I was in Belgium (see full post on our blog, and all the pics on our gallery). Since we have a big garden and room to work, it was the perfect time and place to dye the fabrics I had bought for making our medieval costumes.
We bought our dye and chemicals from Zijdelings, a workshop on textile design and mailorder service from the Netherlands (part of the site is English, but if you want to order, get ready to browse in Dutch). We got pre-reduced indigo, soda ash and thioureum dioxide. Fast service, and average prices – indigo is expensive, no matter what.
We did a pre-bath mixing 4 tablespoons of indigo, 4 tablespoons of soda ash, and 8 teaspoons of thioureum dioxide in 700 ml of tap water. Mix well and carefully(!), you don’t want to stain anything blue, like your fingers (I did *ahem* skin washed off in two days tho). Remember you are using chemicals, so be careful, work in a ventilated area, don’t touch the chemicals with your barehands etc etc etc . We let it rest a whole day in an airtight closed jar until it turned greenish.
The next day we filled our big bucket from Ikea with about 30 l. of (cold) tap water, and poured the pre-bath in. Mix carefully and let rest a bit. If you are careful and do not introduce much air in the bath, you’ll be able to dye right away. Else you have to wait until it turns greenish away. Now, put your fabric in and let it under the water (the fabric will have air bubbles and you have to push it down constantly) to catch the dye for some 5 to 10 minutes (I really didn’t time this process – the colours are totally non repeatable). Fish the fabric out, wring out well without splashing much using gloves, your hands will thank you ;p and extend your fabric so it gets aired and it turns blue. Keep dipping the fabric in the same fashion until the colour is slightly darker than desired (it will wash off a bit). With this bath and white linen fabric we got a pretty dark blue shade after three dips, that will be Jan’s tunic.
We did let the dyebath rest overnight, and used the nearly exhausted bath to dye the tan linen fabric as well. Two dips later we got a blue-greenish shade that I love and that will become my dress. Want pics? See here a couple:
For the whole set, please visit the photo album in our gallery.
Sade
Or how does my first turned heel look like. First a pic of the heel flap:
Second, back and side view of the turned heel:
Next step, picking up the stitches on the side of the heel flap!
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Note: Ghee is clarified butter.
I’ve been knitting one round here and one there – ok, sometimes a few at a time, and I’m already at the middle of the foot, more or less. About 3 cm before starting the heel! Piccie:
Does it look good? I’m still thinking if I’ll knit the heel flap in plain stockinette or using the suggested “Eye of the Partridge” stitch… Any suggestion?
Sade
I made it! I casted on for my first sock, that is not actually mine, but for Jan. I’m knitting these lovely cabled kilt hose for his Scottish attire – he plays in a pipe band. We chose a no-brand white aran bluefaced leicester 3/5 Nm (what does 3/5 Nm mean? Lookie here for an explanation on yarn count) and I’m knitting it on 2.5 mm circular needles to obtain a dense and stiff fabric that washes up to a soft but still sturdy fabric. It has a very nice stitch definition that I hope will show the cables pretty well.
On for the pics. First, two of the three 100 grams skeins I’m using for the first pair of kilt hose:
And second, a shot of my first ever short row toes on my first socks ever! (yes, I am proud of myself I’m taming the sock beast):
The circular needle you might be able to see there is a Pony, 80 cm long 2.5 mm. Got two of them at a shop here for around 5.50e. They seem sturdy and are very pointy!
Sade
