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.

I thought I would take a few minutes today to answer a question that cropped up after my last blog post about working with Rowan bamboo tape and working out a way to join the yarns without having to weave the ends in after the event, namely, would the two ends pull apart if you tugged them?

As last night was the favourite TV night at Monkey Towers (Question Time, followed by This Week, all washed down with a bottle of Blue Nun, or, as it happens, a little Southern Comfort and Coke) I had a couple of hours to go pattern surfing and commit the bamboo tape to a pair of needles and a future as something lovely.

I decided upon a sailors scarf for the springtime – not too bulky around the collar part, but enough in the silky cool bamboo to keep any breeze off of the chest when worn with an open necked cardigan, or something similar.  (How I long for the warmth of days when this is the only required precaution against the occasional intemperate breeze…)

Anyway, the first join between the remnant lengths of yarn was only a few yards into the frankenstein ball I had threaded together, the second occurring about 8 inches into the scarf.  I had no issues when reaching the joined areas where the two lengths of yarn had come together.  I was careful not to tug the two yarns apart as I was approaching the join, but I had fed the new length of yarn a good 4 or 5 inches into the working yarn to ensure that the  join was secure and ran over 8 or so stitches.  Once the first stitch has been made with the ‘doubled’ section of yarn it anchors both the inner and outer yarns together and the join is very secure – much like when you ‘knit in’ a new length of yarn, but with the added security of one strand being inside the other.  It is also makes quite a subtle join:

Close-up view of stitch where 'old' yarn length ends.

The first join is in the narrower neck portion of the scarf, but I’m having a little trouble locating where it is as it is in the seed stitch area making it hard to find, but wherever it is it is well hidden and secure.  A close up view of a row of stitches shows how both yarns are knitted together, one inside the other, negating the need to weave the ends in once the project is finished:

Row of stitches where new and old lengths of yarn are knitted together.

A couple of things I have thought about since joining the yarns and starting the project now strike me as worth noting:

• There is less chance of inadvertently pulling the two lengths of yarn apart before you reach the join if you put the ‘new’ length of yarn inside the old, rather than the other way around
• If the yarn is of an adequately loose weave and you could find a needle that was both fine enough to pass through the weave whilst threaded with the yarn and yet posses an eye that will accommodate the bulk of the yarn, it would negate the need to use a piece of sewing thread to anchor the yarn to the needle (I don’t actually have a needle that will work for in this instance, so that is purely hypothetical.

I’m really enjoying working with the bamboo tape – it behaves very differently in stockinette stitch compared to its properties in moss stitch.  The ‘flat’ construction is all but impossible to discern in stockinette stitch, whereas it is more apparent in the raised edges and bumps of moss stitch.  I don’t feel that my stitches are as evenly formed working with the tape yarn, but I do not dislike the effect.  Some rows seem to have more twist in them, some stand slightly proud of the knitting, but with the slight sheen it almost gives the impression of raw silk.

During what will go down in my personal history the ‘yarn drought’ of Late September 2009 I found myself slowly working towards my last ball of yarn.  It was always going to be the very last ball of yarn I tackled, because I had made up my mind that it was decidedly unlovely, and something I did not want to resort to unless I had to – like the very last dry, stale biscuit as the stock cupboard runs dry.

mystery yarn from my early days of knitting

The yarn itself is not unlovely – it should be perfect for the season with its rich autumnal hues, but I am just so useless at working with it.  I have tried many times – I cannot count the occasions on which this has been frustratingly unravelled and put back into the cupboard for ‘another time’.  It was bought when I was but a brand new seedling with my single pair of needles, and I could see all of the possibilities of the forest of knitting laid out in front of me for the first time.

The fibres, the weights, the colours. A yarn shop was like walking into a grotto of jewels, as colours danced from the walls and treasure troves of tone and hue sat in baskets on tables.  The choice was almost endless, and choosing a single colour all but an impossibility.  

the Painted Lady

This was too much… Of course I wanted a ball of yarn that was more than one colour, who wouldn’t? I saw this yarn and thought of Jaffa Cakes and the Red Admiral butterfly dancing around a summer meadow with his Painted Lady.

I didn’t understand what ‘pooling’ was, and this single skein and it’s many attempted blotchy outpourings scared me off of hand-painted yarns as I slowly and painfully learned that lesson many times over. Now – I know that many knitters love pooling – there is a long and on-going thread on the Ravelry Knitting and Crochet forums that will serve as proof of this fact, but it’s just not for me. I like to make the decisions with my knitting, not let the yarn decide what is going to happen, but I’m trying to find a compromise with this skein. It’s been my companion for long enough now for us to have reached a compromise, I feel.

I have asked if it would mind applying itself attractively to the Marialis End-to-End scarf from 101 One-Skein Wonders essentially a very simple feather and fan scarf with a moss stitch border. It’s not too pretty at the moment, but I’m hoping this is just the misshapen and lumpen caterpillar that it will unfurl its regal wings like a Painted Lady when the time comes for it to be blocked. Either that or turn into some Jaffa cakes – ether one would suffice.