COAST Self Patterning Sock Yarn

Hello friends!

Here is another sock yarn that I have hand dyed, this time in a colour way called "Coast". The special way that this yarn has been dyed means that when it's knit in the round into socks it creates a "spiral" pattern around the sock, and the best part is all you have to do is knit! 

The sample photographed is a 60 stitch sock, knit on 2.75mm needles, so you can get an idea of what it looks like when it's knit up into socks :-) 

The skein is 100g & 420m and is enough for a pair of socks :-) With 75% soft squishy wool for comfort and warmth and 25% nylon for durability :-)

You can find this yarn in my online store HERE along with a few other skeins :-)

Do you knit socks? Did you find yourself addicted to knitting socks once you had started?? I did!

Watermelon Hand Dyed Sock Yarn

Hello friends!

I have been busy dyeing up a storm... well, some sock yarn really :-)

I've been experimenting with the dyeing process for self-striping sock yarn. I really LOVE knitting with any sort of self striping yarn, it adds an extra dimension to your knitting, and it's fun waiting to see what the next colour will be. Another thing is that you get a lot of bang for your buck, if you know what I mean, you get a lot of fun and colour etc in your knitting with very little effort: you knit and the stripes happen!

You might remember a pair of socks I made last year using some other yarn I dyed so that it would knit up in a "Watermelon" effect. I used a similar method to dye this yarn :-)

The sample photographed is a 60 stitch sock knit on 2.75mm needles, so you can get an idea of what it looks like when it's knit up into socks :-) 

The skein is 100g & 420m and is enough for a pair of socks :-) With 75% soft squishy wool for comfort and warmth and 25% nylon for durability :-)

You can find this yarn in my online store HERE along with a few other skeins :-)

Wordless Wednesday 22nd May 2013

Crochet Jacket Extraordinaire!

Hello friends!
Well, here it is! Remember when I posted a few little pics of some mysterious crochet recently? A little while ago a lovely friend of mine sent me an email with a photograph a crochet jacket that she'd stumbled upon on the internet. She really wanted it... so I obliged...and made this! There was no pattern for the jacket available, so I improvised the design, construction and a pattern of sorts from the photograph my friend had sent me.
I had a lot of fun working with my friend choosing the colours :-)
Some of the yarn is 100% pure wool yarn and 100% Alpaca yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mills, some is 100% wool that I hand dyed, some is a random alpaca that had been languishing in my yarn stash for a little while and some is a Cleckheaton 100% wool :-) I think the colours look pretty amazing together :-)
Just in case you are curious the yarns are as follows:
-Dark green is Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 8ply/DK in Pine colour way.
-Bright green is Bendigo Classic 8ply/DK which was originally in Magnolia colour way that I dyed a neon/Granny Smith Apple colour using a Wiltons food dye in Kelly Green (using vinegar and heat to set the colour)
-Coral is a Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply/DK that was originally Magnolia colour way that I dyed Coral using a Landscape Dye in Coral colour way (these dyes are available from KraftKolour)
-Deep Red is Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply/DK in Cranberry colour way.
-Deep Purple is Bendigo Woollen Mills Persian 8ply/DK in Eggplant colour way.
-Rust wool is Cleckheaton Country Colours Naturals in #1832 colour way.
-Bright Blue is The Rare Yarns Company Rare Essentials alpaca/merino in Lapis colour way.

I worked on it for 4 days, crocheting, measuring, stitching and weaving in ALL THOSE YARN ENDS!! Oh, then yarns ends! In the end the jacket weighed just over 1 kilogram!
As I said, I didn't have a pattern to work from, so a lot of "designing" and planning was involved, but it worked very well :-)
After making this one, I'm pretty tempted to make myself one as well :-)

If you already follow me on Facebook at Shara Lambeth Designs or on Instagram at shara_made 
 you may have already seen some little sneak peeks of this jacket. If you would like to see more images of the things I make, or what I get up to on my travels, you can follow me on Facebook and Instagram too :-)
P.S. It was a little tricky to find the origins of the original images of the jacket that my friend emailed me that inspired this jacket, however after a bit of searching we discovered that it was from a blog post that now no longer exists, which is a shame as the jacket in that blog post, that was such an inspiration, is quite spectacular and I would have loved to have included a link here :-)

Hmmm, what could it be?

Hello friends!

I hope you've all been well and happy and productive with your creative pursuits :-)

I have been very busy!

I went on a mini holiday (I'll show you some pictures soon!), I have been cooking up a storm and I have begun working on a big commission piece for someone :-)

 I'm going to keep a little quiet about the commission piece until it's completely finished... but these photographs are little pieces of it. I'm really loving the ways it's all coming together. It's not something I have made before, and it's using all my powers of mathematics, but I'm loving every minute of it.... Well, actually that's not entirely true, you should see all the little yarn ends I have to weave in!!!! Insanity, LOL!

 I'm looking forward to showing you more pictures soon!
xo Shara