Yarn is my new fandom
Apr. 8th, 2018 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calvinahobbesI've broken my brain a little bit, and as I wait for it to heal, I am trying to do things that don't require reading or writing - which was basically all my hobbies, so I needed to activate a new one!
Luckily a new friend is a pretty avid knitter, and she suggested I pick up knitting. My knitting skills, however, are atrocious, but I do crochet pretty well.
So I went back to a garment pattern I had been eyeing for a really long time but had been only sighing over because I felt I had not time for crafts, and I started it: Tordentrøjen (the Thunder sweater) is almost finished - I'm making it in olive green and beige Sandness Lun Ull, which is buttery soft and just slips right off the hook with barely any effort. I am having some trouble with the sleeves; I finished one and now I can't make the other one match. It's a rookie mistake, and I'm realising I should probably have done the sleeves side-by-side, one row at a time, which I will make a point of doing next time. This project is on stand-by.
Meanwhile I am procrastinating by crocheting my own version of Helga Isager's K Sweater. I bought this yarn while I was on a short vacation to visit family during Easter, and I was afraid I would finish the other sweater and not have a woolen project to work on. I'm combining a yellow-green Isager Spinni Tweed and an olive green Sandness Tynn Silk Mohair - it reminds of a cabbage caterpillar :)
Finally, my new friend introduced me to Stephen West on YouTube. He is a knitting designer, and it opened up a gigantic wormhole to other knit designers, who mostly hang out on instagram apparently. West works in bright colors combined in outrageous ways, and he designs patterns for expensive hand-dyed yarns with speckles or changes in colors. Famous brands are Hedgehog Fibres, Madeline Tosh, Qing, etc. Perhaps you noticed the shawl Nakia wore to M'Baku's tribe in Black Panther - the costume designer had used some of these yarns. West and others make a lot of shawls, and the fashion is to "fade" these hand-dyed yarns in creative ways. I especially love West's Squiggle Wiggle What?! shawl, and his Speckle & Pop shawl.
Since I don't knit, my most ambitious and terrible project is to do a freestyle crochet version of the Speckle & Pop shawl. I am designing the pattern from scratch, so I am crocheting a lot of swatches right now. And I've "found my fade", which consists of a wild series of Hedgehog and MadTosh yarns in green and orange tones. MadTosh is by far the most amazing yarn I have encountered to date - the depth and range of color in a single skein is just stunning. You might think the camera enhances the shine in some way, but it really doesn't.
Luckily a new friend is a pretty avid knitter, and she suggested I pick up knitting. My knitting skills, however, are atrocious, but I do crochet pretty well.
So I went back to a garment pattern I had been eyeing for a really long time but had been only sighing over because I felt I had not time for crafts, and I started it: Tordentrøjen (the Thunder sweater) is almost finished - I'm making it in olive green and beige Sandness Lun Ull, which is buttery soft and just slips right off the hook with barely any effort. I am having some trouble with the sleeves; I finished one and now I can't make the other one match. It's a rookie mistake, and I'm realising I should probably have done the sleeves side-by-side, one row at a time, which I will make a point of doing next time. This project is on stand-by.
Meanwhile I am procrastinating by crocheting my own version of Helga Isager's K Sweater. I bought this yarn while I was on a short vacation to visit family during Easter, and I was afraid I would finish the other sweater and not have a woolen project to work on. I'm combining a yellow-green Isager Spinni Tweed and an olive green Sandness Tynn Silk Mohair - it reminds of a cabbage caterpillar :)
Finally, my new friend introduced me to Stephen West on YouTube. He is a knitting designer, and it opened up a gigantic wormhole to other knit designers, who mostly hang out on instagram apparently. West works in bright colors combined in outrageous ways, and he designs patterns for expensive hand-dyed yarns with speckles or changes in colors. Famous brands are Hedgehog Fibres, Madeline Tosh, Qing, etc. Perhaps you noticed the shawl Nakia wore to M'Baku's tribe in Black Panther - the costume designer had used some of these yarns. West and others make a lot of shawls, and the fashion is to "fade" these hand-dyed yarns in creative ways. I especially love West's Squiggle Wiggle What?! shawl, and his Speckle & Pop shawl.
Since I don't knit, my most ambitious and terrible project is to do a freestyle crochet version of the Speckle & Pop shawl. I am designing the pattern from scratch, so I am crocheting a lot of swatches right now. And I've "found my fade", which consists of a wild series of Hedgehog and MadTosh yarns in green and orange tones. MadTosh is by far the most amazing yarn I have encountered to date - the depth and range of color in a single skein is just stunning. You might think the camera enhances the shine in some way, but it really doesn't.