I've been dying to knit up Leethal's Vortex hat ever since it appeared in Knitty's winter 08 issue.
On my recent trip to California, I picked up some luscious merino roving dyed by Beesybee Fibers and quickly spun up this:
I wanted a striping yarn, so I tore off the different colored segments of the roving and spun them in long, single-colored passages. My first time spinning merino; not too bad, but I wasn't able to draft & spin as finely as I'd have liked too. And even though I felt as though I was spinning it with plenty of twist, I had to run the whole bobbin of singles through the wheel a second time, adding a bit more twist so it would ply well. By the time I chain-plied the yarn, it was, once again...bulky-weight!(Will I ever be able to spin anything else?!)
The dark brown stripes are from yarn I picked up at S.C.R.A.P.
Since my yarn was heavier than what the pattern called for, I knit up the child's size, and it turned out perfectly. I love how it fits, so cozy around the ears. Rick's already been wearing it when it cools down at night.
The pattern is so fun to knit, that right away I cast on to try knitting up the pointed version.
This time the change in guage didn't work out so well, and it came out rather too small. It's in the frog pond, waiting to be transformed into a pair of stripy mitts. I'll definitely be knitting up another "pointless" version for myself; this is a super fun knit and super comfy, groovy hat. 
And just a few more photos from the New Mexico trip.
These are some little sage bundles we made out of sage growing not ten feet from my friend's front door!
We paid a visit to Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge south of Albuquerque. It's one of the country's largest migrating bird refuges. Apparently, during the spring and fall, there are millions of birds passing through here, and the sight of them taking flight at dawn is amazing. This time of year, though, there's not so much happening. We took a peek, anyway, and saw some Snowy Egrets, turtles basking on logs, a wild turkey, and a goofy Roadrunner skittling along with a huge bug in it's beak. An interesting thing I learned about this refuge, is that it is intensely managed to provide optimum food and habitat for migrating birds. Not only are various areas drained and flooded to create wetlands at certain times of the year, extensive crops such as wheat, oats, and other seed-producers are grown for the birds to feast on while they're here.
We also toured one of the most interesting arboretums I've been through; a cactus arboretum!
It's difficult to see the scale, but some of these babies are huge!
There was some interesting art scattered throughout.
I was wearing flip-flops as I strolled the pathways, and some of these plants really made my exposed toes & ankles cringe!
Here I am bouncing around in the back of a pickup with the dogs, on the way to a dusk visit of a very special spring hidden in the nearby dessert, outside of Socorro.
This is me in the plaza on Museum Hill in Santa Fe.
This is a huge bronze sculpture of a Native American dance. I love how fluid and active the forms are, even though they are cast of this very hard metal.
And this is a view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, up near Tres Piedras. Mostly it's all dry & sagebrush dessert around there, but we went on what was my favorite walk of the trip, up around one of the Piedras, and this is what we saw.
Viva New Mexico
They are luxurious, lovely placemats; they make me want to just rest my head down on them while I'm eating! When I washed them, the triangle edging became frayed and warbly; not sure if these wool placemats would hold up to repeated washings. So I probably won't go into production making them to sell, even though they are fine, wonderful objects.
Here's a photo of Rick with his sheet-mulching demonstration.
He set it up in the permaculture booth at the recent Yard, Garden, and Patio Show in Portland. We're sheet-mulching enthusiasts, with all of our veggie-garden beds being sheet-mulched, and more, besides.
And here's some knitting. I blasted through this cabled vest; it's my first time doing cables. 
I revised the pattern to knit it all in one piece, so no sewing up at the end. The only thing I didn't like about that method is that when I'd notice a mistake in the cable pattern a row or two back, to fix it would require ripping out the rows across the entire vest! Being the lazy sort, I mostly left in the mistakes. After all, it's my first cable project, and when I wear it, the general public won't even notice those lumpy spots. Next time I'll be a better cable-knitter!
Now I'm at the finishing up part, which involves knitting I-cord around the entire vest. For some reason I haven't been able to get myself motivated to get going on that part, so it's been languishing in the ufo pile. I guess I'm a little worried that after all this knitting, I won't the way it looks on me, so I'm postponing that moment.
Look for upcoming posts of the latest creations & garden growings!
Happy spring weekend to you all.
I figured I'd take a chance and knit up the slippers with some of this yarn and hope they felted well. (Lazy me, didn't want to take the time to do a test run).
Since the pattern calls for holding the yarn double, I chose to hold two differently colored strands together. I love the heathered effect; the colors seem richer and more interesting to me, blended this way.
The colors I chose were dyed with indigo, hops, Oregon grape root, hemlock bark, logwood, and the red was dyed with koolaid.
I used the classic Fibertrends Felted Clogs pattern.
This is an interesting pattern to knit; never a dull moment; completely trusting the designer to deliver me through this series of mysterious stitches to a completed slipper.
Then trusting that it will shrink to fit!
Wah-La!
I love them so much, I could barely bare to remove them for this photo-shoot.
Of course, one turned out slightly larger than the other. I think that I knit the 2nd one rather tighter than the first.
I can tell that even though they are double knit on the soles, they'll wear through fairly soon, so I want to sew on a sturdy piece of felted blanket to the bottom, and add a soft piece of felt to the inside. So far I haven't been able to take them off long enough to do so; I hope I don't wear them through before I get around to it!
I've read that some folks paint the bottoms with a rubbery substance to make them slip-proof or even moisture resistant for quick trips outside. I may just have to make another pair to try that out. Hmmmm...hey Rick, need a new pair of slippers?
Some of you may remember an earlier post about this scrappy, knitted rug.
I finished it, and we love it.
Shortly after cast I off and laid it out on the floor in its new home in front of the wood stove, Rick stretched out on it to test it out, and promptly fell asleep! I guess it passed the test.
Li'l B likes it, too.
I've been liking the moss stitch these days, and I think it works well in this rug. The edges don't curl, and the texture is thick and springy. Really soft and comfy. 
It's funny, 'cause I wanted to try knitting a rag rug rather than crochet (which I've done several of). I thought I might like the knitted texture better than the crochet. Then I choose the moss stitch, and the finished rug does look rather crocheted! Actually, it's not as "holey" as crochet would have been.
Thanks, S.C.R.A.P.
One exciting thing about it is that the main yarn is some chunky wool I frogged from a thrift-store sweater (it was a huge sweater with cables; I still have several balls of yarn left over!). I dyed it using eucalyptus leaves, which gave some lovely orange tones. The yarn still caries a faint whiff of eucalypt, which I love.
Unfortunately, when I dyed the yarn, I overboiled it, which harshened the fiber, leaving it somewhat scratchier than it was before. I found some mohair odds-n-ends in my stash, and decided to carry along a strand of mohair with the main yarn to soften it a bit. I randomly changed colors of mohair. I'm so happy with the resultant fabric. The changing colors have a kind of water-color quality, and almost glow. Sunset.
The pattern is a Floor-Length Vest from the Fall '00 issue of Vogue Knitting. The only mod. I made was to shorten it.
It was a straight-forward simple knit, all in st. stitch with garter-stitch edges. Since it was my first garment, however, it all unfolded mysteriously as I knit along.
I came to a snafu when it was time to sew up the side seams. Oh no...the fronts were four inches longer than the backs! How did that happen?!?!?! Arrg. Onto the floor in the ufo pile for several weeks. Finally I got to work on shortening the fronts, made slightly more complicated by the fact that the carefully knit-in pockets were right in the way. I ended up cutting off the too-long part and re-knitting the edging. Not such a big deal when I sat down and did it. Lesson learned; next time I'll work the fronts and back in one piece if possible.
Left the pockets off for now. I think the garment would be more usable with pockets, but frankly, I'm kinda over working on this thing. I would like to install a two-way zipper in the front.
The reason Rick is modeling the vest is because it fits him so well and looks great on his body-type. Tall and thin. Not me. As gorgeous as it turned out, it is not at all flattering on me. (nothing like trying on yer hand-knit garments for a reality-check as to body shape!) I'll likely end up selling it.
One of the reasons I've been slow to take up knitting is that I can never really know how a knitted garment will fit or look on me until it's very nearly finished. So it's a ton of work to make something and then have it not work out. I suppose that as I gain more experience with my knitting, I'll have a better idea as to what styles and types of yarn will work for me. Right now I have another vest, cabled and very nearly finished, on the needles. I'm a little nervous about how it will look, but we'll see soon enough!
I've been wanting to share these felt vessels ever since I finished them earlier this winter.
The yarn is recycled from a thrift store sweater.
All the colors were achieved using natural dyes from plants I grew or gathered myself.
The pink is from a mushroom called Western Red Dye (Dermocybe phoenicea). These mushrooms are hard to come by (at least for me!), so I wasn't able to dye much pink.
The yellows are from another mushroom called Dyer's Polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii). This mushroom gives a lot of dye, so I was able to dye quite a bit of yellow fiber (way more than what I used for this project).
The green is from a plant called Red Shiso, or Perilla. It's an edible herb that looks somewhat like basil and is used in Japanese cuisine. Very easy to grow. When I dyed the fiber, it at first was an interesting greyish lavender. But after felting, the ph of the soap changed the color to this lovely mossy green. 
I'm not sure if you can see it in the photos, but the green has a bit of a purplish haze to it.
The pale orange (in the stripe above and in the fringed bowl), and also the blue, are both from the woad plant. Woad is commonly used to get blue. You have to use a special process to get the blue from woad leaves. Interestingly, when the leaves are merely boiled, they give a pale orange color. I like this plant, because I can get at least two very different colors from it. It's easy to grow, too!
I used alum as a mordant for all the dyes except the woad blue.
I used the patterns in Cat Bordhi's Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. Ever since I made my first knitted and fulled bowl, I've been wanting to play around with her patterns. The patterns are playfully written, and fairly easy to follow.
I love how these came out! I think they are a nice showcase for the naturally dyed yarns. I use them in my display at craft shows, to hold smaller items for sale.
As usual, I hope to make more of these!
Until next time, explore!
