A bit of knitting things!

Formerly "Knitting Confessions"!  This blog is a collection of patterns, inspirations, links, and answered questions about knitting and handspinning!

[aeide]

completed weaving of the penelope skyphos from chiusi:

the header is tablet-woven linen, with the linen weft for the band used as the warp for the rest of the piece on a warp-weighted loom, which you can see in the photos below (there is also a previous post with more process photos here). the reverse is a negative mirror image of the front, since I wove this as double-weave pickup rather than tapestry:

additional details below the cut:

the bottom and side borders of the finished piece are tablet-woven with a mixture of linen and mercerized cotton. the sides are a classic meander motif, while the bottom border includes the "X" square from the skyphos itself. the bottom border was woven directly onto the piece using the remainder of the warp beneath penelope's feet (tablet draft for anyone interested—I designed it to be twist-neutral and everything). the side borders are sewn on because I didn't set up the side borders when I started the project, but ellen harlizius-klück previously executed a stunning version here that has the side borders woven in, as well as a really helpful video on this technique.

I was originally planning to leave part of the black warp threads unwoven to serve as penelope's warp, the way I did a few years ago with the amasis painter vase:

but I couldn't figure out how to execute it well in this version, especially since I was doing double-weave and not tapestry. perhaps next time! overall, this was a complicated and fun project as a first warp-weighted loom piece. I learned a lot of important lessons—chief among them being to actually calculate warp lengths instead of eyeballing them and to increase the loom weights on the warps for better tension. unfortunately, I also learned I want to build a large warp-weighted loom (the one I have now was made by jennifer marcus at fiber paintings studio and it is lovely, but I would like to weave larger pieces.)

the original pot also features telemachus standing over a grieving penelope (I had room only for his spear), perhaps a reference to the scene in book 1 when he reprimands his mother and orders her back upstairs:

Odysseus was not the only one who did not come back home again from Troy. Many were lost. Go in and do your work. Stick to the loom and distaff. Tell your slaves to do their chores as well. It is for men to talk, especially me. I am the master. οὐ γὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς οἶος ἀπώλεσε νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἐν Τροίῃ, πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι φῶτες ὄλοντο. ἀλλ᾽ εἰς οἶκον ἰοῦσα τὰ σ᾽ αὐτῆς ἔργα κόμιζε, ἱστόν τ᾽ ἠλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε ἔργον ἐποίχεσθαι: μῦθος δ᾽ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ᾽ ἐμοί: τοῦ γὰρ κράτος ἔστ᾽ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ.

Od. 1.354–359. Emily Wilson translation.

my plan is to eventually create a larger version of this piece that includes telemachus and the meta aspect of unwoven warp threads. it would also be interesting to figure out if I can weave a different image on the back of the cloth, since the reverse of the pot itself depicts eurycleia recognizing odysseus as she washes his feet.

[flintandpyrite]

Knitting outside by the river! Nearly done with the body of this sweater 👍🏻

[ninalanfer]

As I said. Calling this Nightshift a shawl seems inadequate. It is a blanket.

[exercise-of-trust]

playing around with some more radial-symmetry socks and man i'm so happy with how these turned out :D might do some more tweaking but i think i've got the basic structure ironed out!

(also i'm working on writing up a proper pattern for these and would love to get some feedback/concrit, so if you'd like to give these a test knit, lmk and i'll send you a draft of the pattern!)

[aeide]

test weaving of penelope's tapestry on the chiusi skyphos:

reference:

there are some adjustments I need to make for tension, but I'd like to make the next version into a header band for a warp-weighted loom so I can try weaving the whole pot, including telemachus and penelope.

[aeide]

progress?

the proportions on the header band have improved, but I think I maybe should have doubled the weft threads for the warp.

also if anyone wants to knit the heddles for me, please be my guest. the last time I tied on heddles, I put the bar in the wrong place and had to redo the whole thing.

[aeide]

in true penelope fashion, I may need to unweave and start over, but at least now I've got the loom weights and heddles in place.

I started weaving the spear, penelope, and the right border via double-weave with the intent to leave the remaining warp threads unwoven (as they would be on penelope's loom on the pot), but predictably this is giving me tension problems. I either need to increase the loom weights or just weave the black layer and leave the orange warp threads unwoven, and then switch colors once I get to the heddle bars in the drawing, with the black warp threads floating on top. (I guess weft-faced tapestry would be a third option, if I add a ton more tension.)

either way, this is going to take me the full three years of penelope's stratagem, or perhaps the entire twenty years of odysseus's absence, primarily because clearing the sheds takes a monumental effort each time with this double-weave setup (which I'm not even sure is how it's supposed to be done, I kind of set it up based on vibes and what I thought made sense from floor loom setups).

[aeide]

I have 999 problems and warp tension is 997 of them (the other two are my selvedges).

[woolspinster]

Happy Tour de Fleece!

[wholesome-animal-images]

[the-knitting-pirate]

Still have to knit the collar and both sleeves, but this is going to be such a cool sweater.

[lazystitches]

oops forgot to share this romney yarn I finished a lil while ago

i love love love the color and texture but idk what to knit with it yet. Its around fingering weight or so (~20 wpi) & around 350 yards. tbh itll prob end up as a pair of socks

[iplaywithstring]

Romney is one of my favourite wools. If it's fine (the breed can go either way) I recommend a neck thing - shawl, scarf, cowl - because it's so warm and you could show it off

(also unless it's pretty course (an older ram fleece maybe?) it won't make for very long wearing socks)

[crookedtines]

Finally bought some dye and have been having so much fun with optical color mixing. I decided to start with cmyk primaries to get some vibrant color options.

So far I've only mixed up the main batch of colors, but I'll split them up and create a palatte of tints and shades once I have access to a scale again.

I don't have any fancy tools and have been blending the fiber by hand, so it's probably best I have a forced break for the sake of my fingers. Once I'm done I should have a very useful set of 57 2g swatches to play with! (Plus 5 more for a set of grayscale swatches)

If I'm still up for it, I might repeat the whole thing with my classic red, yellow, blue primary dye set. For a truly massive set of heather swatches.

[crookedtines]

I'll create a comprehensive guide to all the color mixes and my process once I'm done, but in the meantime here's a mixing guide for the colors I've already done!

The ratios are presented in the same order as the wool swatches in the photo above it. I didn't simplify any of the ratios so you'll have to deal with 2:2s instead of 1:1s, oops.

For anyone curious, I used brilliant yellow, deep magenta, and caribbean blue from Dharma dyes on their corriedale wool for my base colors.

[crookedtines]

Finally finished weighing out and blending all the tints and shades! Each color got a swatch mixed with 50% white, and 50% black.

Plus some pure black and white mixes to compare to my cyan/magenta/yellow midtone gray tint and shade.

I really like the oil slick quality of the color based grays!

[tangleddreaming]

Some batts I blended today!

[thedoctorknits]

Things are getting back to normal when I can do my saturday morning coffee shop and lace stop.

[ihavethemangoes]

Wet blocking lace is officially my favorite thing ever. What do you mean that’s the before and after. What do you mean it got like twice as large and also softer. Also I made a TikTok complaining about rainbow yarn being difficult to use and not only did it get like 100k views but half the comments were just ‘fruity pebbles’. Shoutout to that one person that just said ‘clown vomit’.

Pattern is the Peafowl Dance Shawl by Susan’s Family. Absolute banger of a pattern I wish more designers did crochet lace like this.

[knitposting]

@shiftythrifting knitting with thrifted yarn again.

[cabinet-of-crafts]

Some 3ply Merino/Silk I spun last year

[ninalanfer]

Picking up this spinning project again. It kinda got put to the side due to gift knitting (Christmas). Then the table I need for drumcarding's been full of another project (basket weaving). Not important... Anyway! Glad to get going on this again ^^

[thirrith]

another bite sized fair isle project to quench my fair isle thirst

pattern