Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

the Eskimimi Knits blog has been a little bit quiet these last few days as I have been industriously experimenting, working and constructing various tools, so I can bring you this:

Eskimimi Knits yarn

I want to thank everyone who posted words of encouragement and support at giving dyeing a go.  I have worked hard this past week to develop techniques and practices that help me to make the kind of yarns I’d like to be able to buy.

 I have been skeining, winding, dyeing, mixing, heating and designing all hours of the day and night and was up until past midnight last night putting the finishing touches to the yarn, adding ball-bands, etc.  Now that everything has been photographed, checked and re-checked a million times or more, I’m slightly giddy to present to you my little shop

Eskimimi Knits yarn shop (click to visit)

I’ve been trying out all sorts of colours, mixing and blending, dyeing and handpainting, and I am really very pleased with my resulting yarns. I have managed to get the level of saturation I have been looking for, as well as some more subtle blends.  I love colour so very much, so this yarn just ticks all of my boxes. The reason I wanted to dye up some yarn in the first place was because I just couldn’t find the fresh colours that I craved as a knitter.

Selection of yarns I have dyed

It was also a bit of a thrill to see my yarn page on ravelry as I begin to enter the yarns that I have dyed into the Ravelry database, for people to search, discover, and (hopefully) stash:

Eskimimi Knits yarn page on Ravelry

So, I’d now like to declare the Eskimimi Knits yarn shop officially open. I’d appreciate any feedback, thoughts, etc that you might have.  What do you think of the yarn names, colour choices, etc?

It’s so exciting for me that I am in danger of overwhelming you all with pictures, so I’ll limit myself to one last one and not give into the temptation of posting pictures of every single skein of yarn.

Eskimimi Knits hand dyed yarns

I hope that you’ll be able to pop by the shop and have a look around.  And again, thanks to everyone for their encouragement, and thanks to everyone who pops by now and again to read this little blog of mine.

Sleepy Hollow socks, knit in Regia Stretch colour

Ah, socks.  Socks for me.  I started these a few months ago but came to an abrupt stop after the first of the pair when I lost my collection of socks needles.  I finally managed to replace the set and cast on for the second sock right away.

I really like the construction of these socks and the way the sole and heel are knit.  They are top down and feature a ‘footprint’ that is the same as an actual foot – that is it is narrower across the bottom of the heel than it is across the underneath of the ball of the foot.  I’m going to have to take a picture of the sole of the socks when I can rope in a deputy photographer as my contortionist skills were limited to laying on the floor with my feet on the wall to try and get a picture of the socks being worn:

Do not adjust your sets, this picture is not upside down, I am.

I am hoping to use the same sock construction for some plain stockinette socks in the future as I love the way it hugs the foot in all the right places, widening at the point where the foot itself widens, and there’s no need to pick up any stitches or break and re-join yarn. Supoib!

Sleepy Hollow

I have been wearing the hat of much blue-ness over the last few days, every time I have popped out on errands, piling what might otherwise be messy hair inside and out of sight. Ah, hats, the lazy/busy person’s friend.

I don’t know if I like the colour, still, but I can appreciate that I don’t look terrible in it. I appreciate all of the comments saying that it compliments my eyes. I am actually quite surprised. A child of the 80s, all of the received wisdom of my youth insisted that you should never wear blue eyeshadow with blue eyes (not that I wanted to wear blue make-up) and somehow I assumed that blue was a general no-no with my colouring.

After my last post, I decided to Google around and refresh myself on the current wisdom surrounding colour analysis. Now, I don’t generally care what colours someone suggests I should wear, as I generally wear any colour (except blue ), but the results were interesting. According to this resource I am a winter (which is what I had assumed) under the subset ‘clear winter’, and these are the suggested colours:

A few of the fuschias and the brighter purple I just do not like, but on the bottom row, second from the right, is my hat.  Some of my favourite colours are definitely missing – I love sage and lime greens, dusky pinks and various other colours, which I will of course still wear, and I’m also hoping that I don’t look awful in the new hat that I am writing a pattern for, in honey yellow.

warm yellow, warm hat

I guess the obvious thing is to wear the colours you enjoy, but try new things from time to time, even if you end up throwing them off in disgust in the fitting room.

Some people seem to have an innate sense of what colours look good together, whereas some people feel so overwhelmed by the thought of combining several shades into a one outfit that they end up sticking to what they know and living a monotone life.  I have pretty strong ideas about which colours I like.  I love a dusky pink alongside a sage green, I love to see rich brown the colour of bitter chocolate alongside a pale turquoise, but I have always had a strong idea of what colours I favour, whether they are in vogue or not (though, usually, not).

One knitter's beauty is another's headache

Though colour choice is and will always be a personal thing, there are a few tools to help those that want to experiment but don’t want to end up looking like 1980s Christmas decorations…

Colour Lovers is one of my favourite sites for searching out palettes of colour.  The pro palette maker provides many tools to create and view your own colour combinations.  If you are unsure of how a number of colours you have been admiring online might look together you can simply use the slide controls to pick out those colours and observe them together.  If you have no preconceived idea of what colours you might like to try then the huge library of user made colour palettes are always a great place to start looking for information.

From subtle to outlandish - there are thousands of swatches to enjoy.

The colour lovers site is only one of thousands of resources available to you on the internet, but it is the one that I find myself returning to most often – much of the time just to browse and admire, and to remind myself not to keep returning to the colour combinations that I have had prior success with.

I am now an exhausted Mimi in London.  Today I went for a picnic in a nature (not naturist) reserve with my cousin, nephew/2nd cousin type person of a grand 2 years old, and grandmother, where we ate (unintentionally) warm sandwiches and melted Kit-Kats.  With my first face-full of sunshine for about a month I took the opportunity to start up that project I had intended for yesterday’s train journey.

like the train it was intended for: behind schedule.

I’m knitting this with my lovely Crazy Zauberball by Schoppel Wolle.  An addition to the popular zauberball range, ‘crazy’ zauberballs have two separately coloured plys which each have their own colour gradient progressing from one super-saturated shade to the next.  The effect is of a gradual flow of colour broken up by the ‘noise’ of another gradient.  I have confused matters further by winding the ball into two seperate, equal length balls of yarn and knitting them into stripes.

Crazy Zauberball in Little Fox

The yarn is quite soft, but not as ’silky’ feeling as the single-ply zauberball, but it seems strong and is definitely fun to knit with, and I’m enjoying the element of surprise in discovering what effect s rendered as two stretches of yarn meet as I knit along and one combination slowly fade into the next.

Can ye' tell what it is yet?

This project is going quite quickly, so I hope to be finished in a few shorts days, and then I can reveal what will either be something eye-catching and gorgeous, or something which resembles the murder of a troupe of clowns that has taken place in a paint factory.

So, who’s up on their popular patterns enough to take a punt at what this might be?

_{Here’s a (cryptic) clue: You might say it is a project you can get your teeth into.  (If you think that you know what it is and yet the clue makes no sense to you, type the pattern name into Google and you might find it click into place).}

Nintendo DS consoles seem popular with just about everyone.

The Nintendo DS has been one of the most spectacular successes in the world of gadgetry that there has ever been. Resting on the coffee tables, desks, and slung into the bags of schoolchildren, businessmen and grannies alike it was the first gaming innovation that crossed the boundaries of age, and as such it is the biggest selling gaming console of all time.  Many people feel very attached to their little travelling games companion, but time spent rattling around in the bottom of a briefcase, rucksack or handbag it is fraught with all sorts of dangers.  Malicious keys, hateful biros, malevolent hair accessories, spiteful football boots – all trying to do your little gaming friend some damage to its smooth and perfect surface.

Protect your travelling DS with soft and bouncy wool.

I say ‘no!’ to DS abuse.  It is true that commercially available DS protective cases are available, but there is no love in their construction, no feeling for the protection of your little dual-screened pal.  We must rally around to change the way people treat their DS consoles, and the change must start with you.  Snatch up your needles, dive into your stash, and press download, download, download!
download the PDF for the Dapper Nintendo DS Lite/DSi Cosy

Gyles Brandreth - the man that taste forgot

Me? I love it. I was raised by Care Bears. In a disco. Run by Clowns.

So, where’s the problem?   Well, the thought of Christmas gift knitting has started to creep into my mind and I have my heart set on a pair of socks for each of my nearest and dearest, but the truth is that genetics do not seem to control our colour preferences. I am not too concerned about choices for my sisters – though they’d not embrace the fashion stylings of a Gyles Brandreth jumper, a colourful pair of socks hidden away under some jeans will (hopefully) not disgust them too much.

The difficulty, however, starts with my sisters’ partners. Both, by their own admission, rather conservative chaps.  A pair of socks knitted from the tail-hairs of a My Little Pony aren’t going to make it onto their feet.   My issue, though, that I just can’t seem to buy sensible sock yarn. I have tried, really I have, and look at the extent of my success thus far:

Why have one colour, when twelve will do?

I’ve never been able to limit my love all all things bright and colourful – I just can’t see why anyone would want to dress in dull, drab, unsaturated shades when there are so many beautiful bright hues to pick from, though I know those more subtle tones and shades can look stunning. I had a friend at university that pretty much exclusively only wore shades of grey. From Dove to Charcoal, she would have looked no different on a 1950s TV set, but she was the most graceful and elegant dresser I have ever known.   I, on the other hand, looked like I had covered myself in super-glue and run naked through a troupe of clowns.

So, I’m trying to slowly adjust myself to starting to look for sock yarn in dark grey, to make socks for my sisters’ partners that they might actually like enough to wear.

Whilst I prepare myself for that leap, though, I’m happily filling my cart with two Zauberballs in the shades ‘Tropical Fish’ and ‘Crazy Little Fox’.