Fire Socks

My third pair of socks this year, dyed with the help of a sock blank. My husband is a sucker for warm colors, especially orange, and has been requesting some fiery socks forever. So, for my third sock blank I chose a warm dark to light to dark transition from dark red wine to dark chocolate, or at least that was the plan.

What I realized once I had finished the painting of the blank was, that this scheme placed the lightest color - the yellow, in the middle of the blank, which would probably work well for a scarf or a hat, but for socks it meant that the lightest color would be at the heel, and this is far from ideal. I debated with myself whether to cut some of the brown and move it to the heel, but firstly I didn't know how much to cut, and secondly - that would have inevitably broken the color transition. In the end I decided to go with the flow and knit the socks as I had dyed the yarn and, hopefully, learn a lesson about better planning next time.

Pattern: Fire Socks (personal pattern, 64 sts)

Yarn: Alize Superwash, 72 g, hand-dyed 

Needle: 2.5 Addi circular needles

Time to knit: one week

Despite the definitely awkward color placement, husband loves the new socks and declares them his favourite. Until the next newer pair of socks, I suspect :)

WIP: Wisteria Sweater

I've started a new sweater with hand dyed yarn. During the years I've significantly improved my abilities in designing my own sweaters and now I'm pretty comfortable when I plan a sweater or a cardigan bottom-up. But I've shied away from top-down designs and know little about these constrictions, and more specifically how to make the front lower than the back. But it was high time to dip my toes into these design challenges too, so here is my first self-designed top-down raglan with a round neckline.

I started the sweater imitating Boknits' version of Water's edge cardigan. I had made some calculations for the neckline, based on my experience with designing it bottom-up. But due to my inexperience I felt unsure in the result and hurried the increases, so the neckline is not as low and smooth as it might have been if I had followed my initial notes. I'll know better next time.

When I reached the waist I decided that I'd prefer a lower gathered panel, like in Kim Hargreaves' Swallow, so I continued knitting and gradually increasing at the sides until I reached the beginning of the hips. Now I'm at the peplum part and so far I'm loving it.

The yarn is a mix of two different Zegna Baruffa bobbin yarns - Merino extrafine 1500 m / 100 g, which dyed perfectly and Mousse 1400 m / 100 g, which is sort of mohair and almost didn't absorb the dye. For the dye bath I used the plum dye from my previous dye job and some light red. Because I first skeined the two yarns together and then dyed the skein I suspect the merino absorbed the dye and left little for the mohair. The latter remained like a light lilac cloud over the deeper coloured merino. Frankly, I was initially very disappointed, looking at the skein, but as I began to knit it I grew to like it.

The sweater is very light - I've almost finished the body and so far I've knit about 80 g of the yarn! However I noticed that with the change of the number of stitches around the body I got some pooling of colors around the waist. It's not that noticeable but next time I should better follow the advice indi dyers often give - alternate skeins.

And to improve my dyeing knowledge and experience I recently bought this excellent book by Felicia Lo. My next dye job will probably be an attempt to replicate the yarn on the cover.