Wool & Embers

STUDIO

The Wool Studio
The Apothecary
The Hearth

Blog

  • Easy Mesh Triangle Scarf: The Spring Net Pattern

    Easy Mesh Triangle Scarf: The Spring Net Pattern

    This triangle scarf is extremely easy to make, though it certainly wasn’t easy to create! This is my eighth attempt at this pattern… and I mean eighth!

    What was so difficult?

    It wasn’t the stitches. Trust me, you only need to know three: knit, purl, and increase. If you want to be fancy, you can use left- and right-leaning increases, but it won’t change much in this specific pattern. Because the needles are quite large compared to the yarn weight, the final effect is an open net that hides a lot of those fine details.

    A handmade light-weight triangle scarf in a pale, hand-dyed Alpaca and Mohair blend. The scarf features an airy, net-like seed stitch texture with a classic garter stitch edge, laid out to show its wide triangular shape.
    Extreme close-up of a knitted 'Spring Net' scarf showing the intricate seed stitch pattern. The fuzzy halo of the silk mohair and the subtle color variations of the hand-dyed alpaca yarn are visible through the open mesh.
    Extreme close-up of a knitted 'Spring Net' scarf showing the intricate seed stitch pattern. The fuzzy halo of the silk mohair and the subtle color variations of the hand-dyed alpaca yarn are visible through the open mesh.

    So, what was the complicated part? The increase rate and the edging.

    I really wanted to include a “cool” edging, like an i-cord, because I’m not usually a fan of garter stitch edges. In the end, however, garter won. It’s stretchy enough to accommodate all the increases, which is vital since this scarf is knitted from the tip up.

    (more…)
  • Confetti Yarn – Did I “invent” how to make TWEED?!

    Confetti Yarn – Did I “invent” how to make TWEED?!

    I’ve had this idea for a while: dyeing wool nepps that I bought years ago in a wide variety of colors, and then spinning white wool with these colorful nepps tucked inside.

    And then it hit me: is this how tweed is made?! And the answer is… YES!
    So, it turns out I didn’t actually invent the process for making tweed… because it was already a thing. 😛

    Oh well… I finally gave it a try! My main concern was: would the nepps actually stay inside the wool?

    (more…)
  • Reviving My Yarn Stash: A (Slightly Failed) Speckle Dyeing Experiment

    Reviving My Yarn Stash: A (Slightly Failed) Speckle Dyeing Experiment

    To be fair, I haven’t dyed a skein of yarn in years, and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until now. While digging through the back of my yarn closet, I struck gold: a full kilogram of natural alpaca yarn. I originally bought it for a project that never happened, but seeing it there, I knew exactly what I had to do…

    Beautiful Variegated Pastel Yarn Hand Dyed yarn in pastel colours
    Beautiful Variegated Pastel Yarn Hand Dyed yarn in pastel colours
    Beautiful Variegated Pastel Yarn Hand Dyed yarn in pastel colours

    Or so I thought!

    My heart was set on those tiny, intense speckles. In the past, I’ve always used the dry method: sprinkling dye powder directly onto the fiber. It’s the most effective way to get those tiny, intense “pops” of color, but I didn’t want to deal with the mess of powder dyes this time.

    I decided to challenge myself: Can you get perfect speckles using liquid acid dyes?

    (more…)
  • How to Fix Common Knitting Mistakes: A Step-by-Step Guide

    How to Fix Common Knitting Mistakes: A Step-by-Step Guide

    Stop ripping out your work! In this video you can learn how to pick up dropped stitches (knit, purl, and garter), fix twisted stitches, and tink, frog and more…

    I still remember the frustration of my early knitting days. Back then, a single mistake felt like a dead end. I had so many unfinished projects hidden away, or finished pieces I couldn’t bear to wear because of one tiny, glaring error.

    (more…)