Snow Day

The snow is here, just in time for Christmas. I love Boston in the snow!

Ishbel Ma Belle

Ishbel ( which I nicknamed Ishbel Ma Belle)is finished and ready to become my mother's Christmas present. I had so much fun wih this project. Spinning was a delight the Merino roving, and knitting Ysolda's wonderfully feminine pattern proved to be equally pleasurable.



I am of course fond of the rich orange color. I dyed the roving using chemical dyes in a dyepot, which gave me quite a bit of color uniformity, but at the same time preserved gentle variations.



I can hardly wait to give it to my Mom! I'll let you know what she says...

No Heat, No Colorways!

This is not my week!First I planted a wood working tool in my hand. And now my furnace stopped working during a real cold snap in New England! The repair could be done tomorrow if the part arrives on time, or Monday.
So basically, I will not have any new colorways this weekend.
But on a happy note, my hand is healing, and I was able to spin a little...

Handspun Eye Candy

A new post, a new handspun. I actually spun this yarn a couple weeks ago. It is a merino silk blend spun in light worsted singles.
I hand-dyed it in a lovely tealy green.
It will become a beret as soon as my hand recovers from a wood working injury...

Grace Kelly Collection

Grace Kelly is my inspiration this week's collection.



The colors were utterly feminine, glamorous, seductive... I love them.
I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

I almost forgot! I have a special little gift for you. All orders $50 dollars and over will receive a lovely handmade drop spindle with 2 oz of hand-dyed fiber. I have been loving spinning so much that I thought this would make a great gift for you!

More Handspinning

Ishbel is finished and is being blocked. In the mean time I spun some more yarn. I spun wensleydale for the first time. The staples were soooo long! I first spun a multicolored roving in firy tones (you know how much I like bold colors!) The result: soft fingering weight singles.



I then chose a contrasting roving, a practically solid lavender. When I placed them together, I instantly fell in love, and though it was way too late, I spun all the lavender I knew I would need.



It was a good thing it was so late when I finished, because that forced me to let my singles sit overnight before being plyed.



I love the result! The lavender brings some calm to the fire. I can't wait to knit it! I am thinking really hard about a good project.

Frida Kahlo

This week, my color inspirations came from Frida Kahlo. I love her opinionated pictures, with her bright dresses, jewls, flowers. This week's colorways are passionate, deeply saturated. And this week, I have yarns and rovings to offer!



Enjoy the Frida Kahlo Collection !

Holiday Knitting

I have always knit gifts for the holidays, but never like this year. I really want this Christmas to be meaningful, and I want the gifts to be true gifts. See when you knit something for someone, you think of the person so much. You chose the yarns for them, you pick a pattern for them, or you design one with them in mind, and with every stitch you think of them. I think my friends and family know that and truly appreciate the gifts.
I have been knitting so much over the last few weeks, and this is a gift for me too!
So far I have 4 berets, 3 hats, 3 scarves, a pillow, 1 pair of socks, a toy rabbit, a neck warmer.



My handspun egg is turning into Ysolda Teague's Ishbel shawl...for Mom...

Handspun Goodness

It has been a while since I posted anything related to spinning. Actually, I had not taken the time to spin in a long time. And as always, I fell in love all over again as soon as the fibers started gently sliding through my hands...

I spun 4 oz of merino roving on my sweet little Louet Victoria. I spun fingering weight singles using a short draw.



Now all I have left to do is to find a project for it...

The Sale in On!

I am done uplaoding all the skeins and rovings into the sale pages on the website. Each skein and each roving is unique, as these were my creative study pieces. I hope you will enjoy the 30% off Thanksgiving Sale.

Thanksgiving Sale 11/27/09-11/30/09

There will be a sale at SockPixie from 11/27 to 11/30. My creative study skeins and rovings will be on sale at 30% off! The skein or the roving you see in the picture will be the one you get.
Have a great Thanksgiving and Enjoy the sale .

A new Forum

As you know, I have been working on the website for Sockpixie. I am trying to regroup everything into one convenient spot for me, like e-mail and of course community pages. I am really happy to announce that there is now a forum on the SockPixie website where you can share your thoughts about knitting, and yarns and of course where you can meet other SockPixie knitters. The link is on the menu bar. I hope you will enjoy our new community.
I am now off to consolidate my e-mail. Have a great Monday.

This week!

The new colorways are up, and I love them. I am also so happy about the look of the website. The new colorways are deeply saturated solids in merino, cashmere, and Alpaca...




This collection does not have a name, but rather was inspired by a tam I designed.
I am offering the pattern as a free pattern with the purchase of any 2 skeins of yarn. The tam in the picture will include 2 versions one for a true sock weight, and one for a slighter thicker yarn like my IncaSock which was used to knit the tam.



Have a great Thanksgiving week!

Minty Collection

Mints and candy canes were my whimsical inspiration this week. The skeins I created reflect the cheerful spirit of the holiday season. I am offering this week's colorways in 3 great yars, Merino sock, Silky Toes, an new 50% Merino, 50% Silk fingering weight yarn, and a Pixie Lace, my Merino/Silk blend lace.And this week, each skein comes with its handmade companion stitch marker.
I hope you will enjoy the Minty Collection.

Off thiw weekend and back on Nov. 15

SockPixie is away this weekend, and will be back with a candy-cane collection on November 15.
Have a great weekend!

Flamenco!

This week my inspiration came from Spain, and from Flamenco. I love the grace, strength and passion of that dance, and the wonderful dresses worn by the dancers. The colors seem to be an integral part of the visual pleasure of the dance. I created bold colorways, with strong contrasts, and of course called the collection the Flamenco Collection.

I hope you will enjoy my version of Flamenco!

Genesis of a Colorway Part III

This is the final part of Genesis of a colorway. After I left you last, I went ahead an played with dyes, and as always, as I was playing, changed my direction slightly. Each colored circle became it own colorway, and the results are amazingly rich with subtle variegations.I name each skein after a verse from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's famous poem, the Blessed Damozel.

Here is the Blessed Damozel Collection


I hope you will enjoy the Blessed Damozel Collection.

Genesis of a Colorway Part II

I left you yesterday as I was about to grab my sketchbook, and my colored pencils.

I like to have all my pencils available, and after some serious sharpening, I draw about 18 circles on page.

I love working with the colored pencils as they can be layered to create subtle color variations.

Before I continue, let's look at the Blessed Damozel again.



The first color I saw was the one in her robe. I saw a deep green with a navy undertone. So I started to decline ( a word I use referring to the process of Latin and Greek declensions in which a root word is modified) the greens making them gradually more green, and leading them towards the gentle greeninsh greys.

Next I saw the browns, rusts and oranges. I started with the deepest brown and added rust as an overtone, again as for the greens I declined the browns to their simplest orange.

Next, it was the turn of the pinks and corals. I started with a red with a coral undertone, and went gradually towards the lighter pinks, adding a coral cast to all of them. Finally came a touch of yellow, and a pinch of pinkinsh beige.

This process left me with 18 colors, way too many for a skein of yarn. That is the hard part, to simplify the color range while at the same time keeping the colors true to their inspiration.



I narrowed the colors to 5 main colors with 4 in-betweens. The five main colors will become my main colors on the skein, and the in-betweens will be the areas where 2 colors touch and in the process create a variation.



Next stage, selecting the dyes, and mixing them precisely to obtain the desired colors. I love that stage, this is when my colors come to life.

This will be Part III!

Genesis of a Colorway Part I

People often ask me how I come up with my colorways, so I thought it would be so much fun for you to follow my color creations this week, from the start to the moment I update them on the website.
So back to the question. How do I come up with my colorways? Like everything else I do in life, impulsively.
Every Monday morning, I literally let my mind wander. I let myself feel the world around me. Like this morning for example. The idea actually came to me on my early morning walk. The air was crisp, and the sun gave a rich glow to everything, the landscapes looked like paintings, I looked at my emerald green coat, I felt my hair gently pushed by the breeze, and then my favorite painter's name filled my mind. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I almost felt hunger for Rossetti's colors.

So as soon as I returned home, I started working... The blessed Damozel will be my first colorway.



So I have my inpiration, and I have chosen my first colorway. It is time to grab my pencils and my sketchbook, and play with colors... I will write about my colorplay in the next post.

Natural Beauty

I have been really fascinated by my work with natural dyes. This week I pushed my work even further, and worked on variegated colorways using natural dyes. I was scared that I would not succeed, but at the same I was excited. I set up the pots and pans, brewed my dye stocks, mixed, and played...
I chose colors inspired by the movie the Last Emperor, and in each skein worked to capture the boldness of the colors, and at times their subtlety.
To create my Last Emperor colorways, I chose brazilwood, cochineal, osage orangs, walnut, and sumac.
I hope you will enjoy the Last Emperor Collection .

What's in a Leaf?

Have you ever stared at a beautiful fall leaf? Well, that is what I spent my week doing. It is just marvelous to see the beautiful colors that nature offers us. I know that when we think of natural, or when natural products are marketed, browns, beiges and creams are portrayed. But there is so much more in nature. There are flamboyant reds, vibrant corals, plums, golds, greys, and greens of all kinds. I saw all these colors in these simple leaves, and set out to recreate them using natural dyes. My natural companions this week were brazilwood, sumac, goldenrod and osage orange. Some of the colors took my breath away. Who knew that such vibrant reds could be created with brazilwood, and such opiniated greens with osage!
I hope you will enjoy my Feuille d'Automne Collection.

Dare to live in color

I just love color to the point that even my home has become the stage for my "colorplay". Lately, maybe because of fall, I have been in the mood for reds, pinks and oranges, so once again the house has morphed! The funny thing is that each time the house goes through a color metamorphosis, my family doesn't even seem surprised. The family leaves a blue house in the morning, to come back to a passionate red one at night. One day I asked my husband and children, how come you are never surprised or even upset that I changed everything again. My oldest daughter said:" Mom, you make us so happy, we love that you bring so much color and joy in our life!"



Don't tell the family, but I see great new colors for the kitchen!

Knitting for Mom

Both my mother and I have our birthdays in September. This year, I wanted to do something that would combine knitting and natural dyes, so instead of dyeing the yarn first, and then knitting it, I reversed the process.
I started with this, 100% BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) in an Aran weight, 200g of it to be exact.



I chose size 9 needles, a simple lace pattern with clean edges, that would be easy to memorize, perfect for knitting while homeschooling the children.
After a few hours of relaxed knitting, I had a lovely scarf.



My mother's favorite color is blue, so I decided to play with indigo. I did not want to do just a blue scarf, but rather decided to create a gradation of blues by immersing the scarf once all over, and then repeating the immersion process over gradually smaller sections of the scarf. I chose to make the center the darkest, with the blue getting gradually lighter toward the edges.



I always find it amazing that out of this odd scented mixture can come the most beautiful blue!

After washing, drying and blocking, the scarf was ready.



And here it is worn by Miss SockPixie. I had a really hard time getting it back from her in order to wrap it and give it to my Mom!



P.S.: My Mom loved the scarf, and is already enjoying it as the weather is cooling down fast out here in Boston.

October Sale

It is October Sale time for SockPixie. I have put all my creative study skeins up on the website at a 30% discount. Each skein is unique, and the skein in each picture is the skein you will get. I have so many wonderful things in store for SockPixie that I needed to make room, and these colorful babies were in need of good homes!
I hope you will enjoy my October Sale!

When I Grow Up...

Today is my birthday, and guess what I want to be when I grow up... A chihuahua!
I think my little Valentine's got the perfect life, napping next to me, cozy on my knitting...

Birthday Collection

This week is a special week. I am turning 40! I decided to celebrate and create a collection of my favorite colors. I created them using natural dyes. Indigo, osage orange and cochineal were my inspirational companions this week. I chose favorite deserts, favorite places, favorite trees, parks, and of course my all time favorite color: orange! Creating these colorways was the loveliest birthday present I could ever give myself!
I hope you will enjoy the Birthday Collection.

It is Open Studios this weekend

SockPixie is busy with Open Studios this weekend. And I am having great fun meeting art and fiber lovers here in Boston.The next color update will be on Tuesday September 29.
Have a great Sunday!

Still Natural!

This week, like last week, I continued to explore natural dyes. This time, walnuts, henna, annatto, and indigo were my companions. The walnuts gave me hours of fun! I love how they can give a myriad of brown shades, each one richer or subtler then the next. The annatto brought sunlight in my week. The yellows it produces range from a deep punpkin to a soft buttercup. They are so sunny! The henna gave me caramel tones so juicy it made me want to eat crem caramel all day! And there was the indigo. Now it was my first time doing indigo vat dyeing, and I loved it. It was a slow meditative process. I immersed the fibers slowly so as not to introduce any oxygen in the vat numerous times to reach the blue of my dreams. I will definitely explore indigo again. The vats are waiting in my studio as we speak.
Here is the Natural Collection:




I was so in love with the richness of this week's colorways that I started knitting argyle socks using the colors Dark Chocolate, Sand, and Pumpkin Pie. I will be doing my lines with a duplicate stitch but have not chosen the color.
The natural colors are glorious, and blend so well together. I love their subtle shadings. I find myself seating late at night promising myself and my husband that I will just knit one more row. But after that one more row, comes another and another...

Hollyhock

Do you have a favorite flower? Well I do, and it is the hollyhock. It has not always been though. It used to be the tulip, but lasty year, in the spring, I planted some hollyhock seeds. The pictures on the seed packets looked beautiful, but the first year as is often the case the plants barely grew. Then this summer, they started growing, and buds started appearing. Every time I walked outside the door, I would check on their progress. And finally they bloomed, one flower at a time. The blooms were so beautiful, all plump and ruffled, and so vibrantly colored.
I had to few hollyhocks to create a dye out of them, but I still wanted to capture the rich reds, so I used cocheneal instead, and created Hollyhock.
There is a little more to it though. To give it this incredible depth, I first dyed it with Alkanet which gave it a grey tone, and then overdyed it with cochineal. That was a lengthy process, but the result was worth it!
Every time I use natural dyes, I am in awe of the intensity and depth of the colors, as well as their range. They definitely require so much more work, and patience than chemical dyes, but working with them is always rewarding. The results definitely are, don't you think?

It is all natural!

This week is my first Collection since the end of my holidays. As you know, I went to Bar Harbor, Maine. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the area, by nature. All this natural beauty made me want to use natural dyes to create a special collection. All the yarns this week are dyed using the bark of Alkanet, or sandalwood, and the reds and pink were created with cochineal.
I hope that you will enjoy the Natural Collection.

Living

I am an episodic blogger. Not that I really mean to be that way. It just happens. I post happily, whenever I do, but then days go by, and sometimes weeks, without a serious post, apart from my weekly color post on Sundays. The days, and weeks just seem to roll away from me...
I am having a great summer with good knitting, designing and dyeing luscious colors, lots of fun with the children going to the water park,dealing with an occasional virus, sewing darling summer dresses for myself mind you, going shopping, homeschooling, and going back to school to add a degree to my collection of degrees, a degree in interior design!
I guess I do believe in living to the fullest! This last year,as a matter of fact these last 3 years have been a challenge for me, with my miscarriage in February probably being the hardest, but I feel that I have learned so much about who I am, and what matters to me, and of course maybe simply that I matter.
I hope your summer is as good as mine. Why don't you share with me what you are doing?

Coastal...

Next weekend, Mr. SockPixie and I will be heading to Maine for a great weekend, just the 2 of us! I have been daydreaming about the coast, the beach, the sea, the seagulls so much that I created a collection of yarns inspired by the coast.
I have never seen Maine, so all my Coastal thoughts were memories of my vacations along the Normandy Coast in Deauville and Trouville.

Here is a lovely painting of Deauville follwed by my Tides Colorway.





I hope you enjoy the Coastal collection

Out of Africa

This week we are going to Africa. The book and movie Out of Africa was my inspiration, and somehow I felt that solids were the only possible choice to reflect the depth of the colors of Africa.Enjoy the Out of Africa Collection !

Lavender

This week's is all Lavender from light pastel to rich dark lavenders.
Enjoy the Lavender Collection.

SockPixie is off tonight

SockPixie is off tonight celebrating her little pixie's 8th birthday. New colorways will be updated on Monday 08/03 at 6 p.m.Have a great Sunday.

Red, red everywhere!

This week all about red, the new red couch cover, and all the reds I have created over the last 2 years.
I looked back, and decided to bring back some special reds for a special encore, and of course called the collection the Red Collection.

Here is the one I called Red and that's it!



I ho[e you enjoy the red collection

Yarn, roving, and now fabric!

For the first time this week, I am offering my colorways in yarn, roving, and now fabric. I have to say that it was great fun to see the colorways come to life in the tie dyed fabrics.
I hope you will enjoy the boldness of the One Thousand and One Nights collection .

Handspun Sushi!

Yesterday evening was lovely, the air was soft and sweet, and after all these weeks of rain it was paradise. I took my spinning will to the front porch, asat on the steps and spun.

I chose 2 rovings (one merino/ tencel, the other alpaca) in similar colors, but one with a warm hue, and the other with a cold. The result after plying today makes me think of a sushi platter with salmon, ginger, wasabe and a little bit of rice!3 delicious skeins!



Now what to do with my sushi yarn apart from staring at it?

Insomnia and Creativity

Contrary to what one would expect, there is a benefit to insomnia. Now I do not suffer from it often, but the other night, there was a thunderstorm raging outside, and my mind was racing. I quietly tiptoed out of my bedroom, and settled in the living room. I tried to read, but could not focus. My knitting was on the bedside table, and I did not want to bother Mr. SockPixie. So I went to the "school room" (which is where we homeschool)and took some paper and a pencil, and I started sketching... By midnight I had something, a pixie sitting on a mushroom and knitting socks! By chance my embroidery box was in the living room. I took a piece of cotton in a natural tone, picked some brightly colored threads, and started stitching.



A few hours later, as the storm started to abate, I was practically done, and ready for sleep. I put the finishes last night, and here she is now!



Isn't she so SockPixie, bubbly, and colorful? Now what to do with her? My little daughter wants her as a pillow on her bed, and I would like her to become the pretty side of a sock knitting project bag. I will probably make the design available to you as well as a pdf.



Who knew insomnia could lead to so much embroidery fun!

How about an Orchid Garden?

Mr. SockPixie brought me a beautiful orchid this week, and it made me so happy that the orchid beame my inspiration for an imaginary orchid garden.
I decided to include a soft buttery yellow core to all my colorways to illuminate them, and to have a dominant color radiate from from that core gradually intensifying.
Dyeing the yarn was great fun, as I marveled at the interaction of the core yellow and the dominant tone.
Here is a little sample of the Orchid Collection.
A plumelicious Plum Orchid!



Here is it roving version (yes roving is back!)



Have a great Sunday!

Here is the Handsome Boy!

I thought you might want to see the famous Kitredge. Here is the baby boy looking all comfy. We are so happy he is feeling better!