Wednesday, November 18, 2015

This Week: It's All About the Pink

This weekend I went out with my friends Channyn, Denise and Linda to architectural salvage stores and an estate sale.

I've had it in my head that I want to make knitted camisoles. The one I like the most is this, from the cover of the book Knitting loves Crochet. I love the contrast between the two blues.


Unfortunately, I don't actually know how to crochet, so this may have to wait. But while we were at the estate sale, I came across crocheted what-nots, including this one, which I am hoping is not in reality the underpinnings of a vintage chastity belt. So I am wondering if I could make a camisole by using this for the top part with my own knitting for the bottom part:


While the book above establishes that you can combine knitting with crochet, I haven't found much on combining cotton crochet with silk / alpaca yarn.

Here are the rest of the crochet treasures that I picked up:


I'm hoping that I could at least use them somehow with some nuno felting that I've been thinking of doing.

While we were out, we also came upon a most worthy piece of equipment:


I tried something fierce to convince myself to buy this. In my mind, it would sit next to me by the couch, and everything I needed, from yarn to needles to knitty noddies, would sit in the little shelves, and when I needed something I would just whirrrrrr it around. Unfortunately, I live in a wee house, and this piece of equipment would dominate the room where I spend most of my time. But still... I am a woman who likes to be surrounded by the clutter of her art. If a ball of yarn doesn't come trailing off of me when I jump off the couch, then I don't have enough projects going. But, the price was too high. The shopkeeper said she really didn't want to sell it, thus explaining the $500 price tag. If it had been $200, my husband would be spending his evenings watching tv in the kitchen, because surely his armchair could fit in there quite nicely if necessary.

Back to the architectural salvage store... it turns out you can even pick up some fancy vintage hats from the ReHouse Retro store. Can you imagine some middle-aged lady picking out this treasure over at Sibley's or Forman's back in the day?


In spite of all the shopping, there was work to be done, so I did manage to finish up this cowl. I've used two strands of two different types of yarn, which is a new technique for me. One is Holiday Yarns "Flocksock Fingering". I picked it up at the Hemlock Fiber Festival. It is 75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon. It is the darker pink in the picture below. I liked working with it. It has just a bit of stretch to it and feels nice to knit with. The color is called "Cheeky". The other strand is a luscious angora called "Fluffy Bunny DK", which is 90% Angora, 10% Nylon. Its color is also called "Cheeky".


There was yarn left over, so I started another cowl this week. I am combining the Holiday Yarn with my own handspun. I like the contrast in color and texture. And I like combining my homespun with someone else's yarn; it makes me feel oddly collaborative.

4 comments:

  1. Is a cowl a scarf? If so, I sure do look sweet in pink and in cowls!
    Glad to read your blog again!

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  2. Dear unknown commenter, a cowl is a scarf whose ends have been sewn together. I like cowls because they are harder for me to lose. When I was in college, my mother knit me mittens and connected them with a string so that they would dangle from my coat but never get lost. Some good ideas never go bad.

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  3. You girls know how to have a fun shopping trip! Those cami's look nice. Maybe we could do a collaborative camisole, I think i could crochet the top and bottom for you.

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  4. woot woot! I'm totally in, Michelle. I'll have to ponder my fibers and see what would work. I've been thinking that maybe I would use single ply yarn but with teensy knitting needles... I've been working with size 4s this week, but maybe if I switched to 2s...

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