Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Back to the Blog

Wow - I've been away from posting for so long.  It's not that I haven't been thinking about posting.  I swear I write a post in my head just about every day.  But somehow, I've been getting overwhelmed by lots of little things this summer and just haven't made myself sit down and write.  I'm going to aim for higher frequency and shorter posts to see if that doesn't help.

First, I've been researching Superwash techniques and trying to figure out if those techniques really do turn something natural (e.g. wool) into something more like plastic.  Lot's of  "green" knitters are turning their backs on the superwash yarn varieties, some even linking them to petroleum products.  I'm not so sure they are really all that harmful, but all the same would like to see a life cycle analysis comparison of say a pair of soaks from organic wool, normal wool, and superwash wool.  If superwash socks last longer, maybe there is an over all environmental benefit.  Need. More. Data. And I'm thinking about some different ways to get the superwash effect without the "plastic" end product.  More on this to come.

Big part of June knitting was working on this for Project Yarnway over on Ravelry.   
Our challenge was to kit something for our ideal escape/vacation.  I have been searching for a beach cover up for ages, so I decided to try to design one.  This design still needs some tweaking to improve on the shaping with the lace.  But I loved the fact that it is knit almost entirely in the round, and I was able to modify the lace design to create some of the necessary shaping.  Top piece can be unbuttoned to reveal little straps, when I don't want all the shoulder coverage.  Here's a close up of the button detail.
I used Red Heart's Eco Cotton which is made from 75% recycled cotton fiber. I really like working with this yarn; it's just a little lighter than dishcloth or kitchen cotton, so it drapes just a little better. 
I'm going to keep on refining this and work on some additional sizes.  hope to get this pattern our by early winter.

Course July is almost over - next post will be on July's Project Yarnway Challenge - Christmas in July.

2 comments:

  1. I am still on the fence about superwash wools, but I have five kids, so the idea sounds lovely and I must admit I give in to it here and there! :)

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  2. Hey - nice dress. Nice to talk to you.

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