Moving Into Autumn

I have been a busy beaver! I have been working on a few things. For instance, this FO:

 

These are Thom's Foxy Socks, my usual plain top-down heel-flap sock pattern. The yarn is Berroco Sox, 75% superwash wool/25% nylon, 440yds per 100g skein, made in Romania. I hadn't used this one before and it's quite sturdy which one would expect considering the 25% nylon content. The printed stripe pattern was a bit "interesting" with plenty of what I call "blips". I kind of like that. It looks more hand-dyed and less mechanical. However I wasn't able to make both toes come out on the same colour. Luckily Thom isn't a stickler for perfect symmetry! Now we'll see how they wear over time.

 

I also wound the leftover handspun yarn from my Intersect cardigan back into skeins and - gulp! - threw them into a logwood dyebath. I used about 1.5% WOF of the purple extract on the 300 g of previously dyed yarn (rhubarb leaf mordant, madder dye). Not exactly scientifically accurate but I just wanted to maybe tone down the vibrant orange a little and shift the colour somewhat so it didn't look the same as the original. I tried to get an accurate photograph. Huh! Here's a few of them:

 

 

 

 

 

The last one is the most accurate on my screen but it's still a little bit darker than that. Kind of a brownish-red? Dunno but I love it! It's actually closer to the colour I was going for originally when I forgot to give the freshly dyed yarn an ammonia afterbath to shift the colour away from flaming orange. It all works out in the end since I adore my Flaming Intersect and I still get to make another smaller sweater with the leftovers in the shade that I really wanted. Win/win. It also begs the question - what kind of amazing shades can you get with various strengths of logwood over a deep madder dye? One day I may experiment to find out.

 

So what sweater will I make, you ask? I hunted high and low and on Ravelry and decided to go with a modified version of one I've already made: Candelia by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. I hope to make it button at least partway down the front, leave off the pockets and have regular 3/4-length sleeves (dependant on how much yarn I have available). My gauge is slightly different from the pattern on 3.75mm needles, 22 sts and 34 rows per 4". Perfect for the Intersect! But the Candelia calls for 24 sts and 32 rows so I think I'll do a size smaller (the 39" bust) which should give me enough room to button it up without it being too close-fitting. Wish me luck! I know I'll be casting on as soon as I can get these somewhat felted skeins back into balls. They did this the last time so I thought they wouldn't be so bad this time. But noooo. Sigh.

 

I've also been stitching a little each day on my Boro Knot Bag, knitting a little on my Midnight On Catalina Shawl and also knitting on a new pattern I started. This is the Simple Skyp Socks by Adrienne Ku. I'm using some grey sock yarn that I dyed in my Japanese indigo awhile back. The blue is crocking off on my hands quite a bit. Hopefully I can clear the unfixed dye after the socks are done. 

 

In other news I managed to get my garlic planted for next year. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I'm glad to finish that little chore. The rest of the garden can wait. It needs so much work! I think I missed it while we were away though so I don't really mind.

 

We walked down to Granville Island yesterday because, hey, the weather was glorious! I stopped in at Maiwa Supply, thankfully reopened after some lady drove her car through the side of it in July. I got some Orvus for washing my woollies and these:

 

 

I couldn't resist. I had a craving for removable stitch markers and these are better than the ones I made with earring findings. So pretty in copper! They also had black ones - very sophisticated - but these will show up better in my work. I know there are a lot of Merchant & Mills aficionados out there but this is my first acquisition. They ain't cheap but they sure are elegant! We'll see how they work out in the Real World.