I see a warm red and a warm green watercolour reaching out for a 50/50 agreement.
I might be wrong though. The red is warm, I have no doubts on that score. But the green?
Apparently if a green leans to its yellow side on the colour wheel it’s classified as warm. And cool if it leans to the blue side.
Light yellowish green has always seemed greener to me, and so cooler. Blueish green on the other hand, felt richer and lush, and so warmer.
I’m about to do that exercise again using Alazarin Crimson, which leans towards its blue neighbour so is classified as cool, and Hooker’s Green wich also leans to the blue side.
And after that, a second trial with the so-called warm versions of red and green. I assume I’ll need to use a scarlet and green made with a warm blue and a warm yellow.
I expect neither of these exercises to resemble the above but we’ll see what we’ll see.
Finally able to do a bit more work on my big painting project. Out on the balcony it’s been either too hot 36 degree Celsius, or too wet, or both.
Today an early thunderstorm and short period of rain cleared the air. Painted the sky, a plain blue. Half of the mountainous mid-ground, a variegated green and brown.
As it’s drying, I notice hundreds of places where the paint hasn’t touched, or the paint is shrinking back. It will need a third coat.
Since the tiger-knit is done, I’ve begun a project that I’ve had in mind for a few months and has already had a few trial runs. I’m amazed how well the yarn has stood up to being ‘frogged’ (knitting term that means to pull undone) four times up to now.
And even this time I was doubtful at first whether I’d keep this version as that bottom corner just will not unroll. I’ve tried a few things already, including pulling the first three rows apart. This merely caused the rolling effect to rise.
But I discovered it is probably an effect of the work being on the needles–which causes a certain tension along the sides–and which disappears when, for example, I knit half a line and the work hangs differently.
And let me tell you that the above are not the true colors! Though even the true colors, being what we used to call Vogue shades, are not my favorites. The yarn was on special, probably because no one likes them. I’m planning on throwing a bit of quinaquadrone gold at the finished work which usually fixes sickly hues such as these.
Third, as I hope you’ll have noticed by now, is the lack of a regular pattern. I wanted to see if I could knit a lacy organic-looking ‘shawlette’ to support an bunch of vines that I will crochet and/or embroider on it after the knitting.
A shawlette is a medium-sized shawl, I’m assuming. I learned the term from JS. The deepest part will about 40 cms or 17 inches. The length … not sure yet … whatever it ends up being when I’ve reached the required depth.
On the right side of the work, I’m increasing at the beginning of every line, then knitting eyelets either by (1) yarn over, slip one knit one and psso … which gives me a left-leaning stitch, and (2) yarn over and knit two together OR knit two together and yarn over … which give me right-leaning stitches. the main thing to remember is to do a yarn-over either before or after a pair of stitches knitted together. NOTE to self do not follow a yarn over directly after a yarn over.
The wrong side of the work is always purled.
By making these tiny decisions on each ‘knit’ line (on the right side of the work) for each wriggling vine wending its way up the knit, I’ll be able to pick out the strongest longest foundation vines to embellish. The rest will help build a foresty texture when I have fixed the colors.
After the knitting comes the sewing and stuffing …
But, because of the intricacy of the knit, there can be no sewing the whole thing together and then stuffing it.
Here I’ve sewn the two body-sides together at the spine, sewn up the four legs and stuffed them, and was about to start on the tail when I discovered the underside must be done before the back and tail.
The written instructions?
The written instructions are terse. I’m having to guess and gamble in places. Such as, pay out a front paw so the underside will stretch far enough to take in the backleg on that side sufficiently.
Because of course no hand-knitter will ever achieve exactly the same tension as another hand-knitter.
Here’s where we switch back to Kestrel’s and Ahni’s stories. Ahni rides a camel, blind-folded in front of Lyris, who is getting paid to take Ahni through the Party Dome. This a short chapter … let me know if the switchover from Ahni’s POV to Kes’s POV makes sense and is not too disruptive?
With Bag 7 and the second arm-and-claw, the build is finally starting to look like a dragon.
Also already present are a tray of teacups and teapot in the half finished teahouse; at the base the koi pond already stocked with the fish, and the roots of the fig tree growing through the ancient stone; while in the foreground the rocking platform where the martial arts school will practice.
The tiger knit is incrementing at four lines per day about every second day. It’s turned out harder on my hands than I expected.
Finer knitting needles than I’m accustomed to, 8 ply yarn, and a tension that needs to be tight to prevent the stuffing later from showing through.
The stripes are quite intricate to knit. I’m having to check the pattern chart every couple of stitches and naturally the two colours get tangled no matter how I arrange them.
So this is my daytime knit.
Nights, while watching TV, or—I confess—any time I have ten or twenty minutes to spare, I’ve been working on my swirl shawl.
The yarn is Shadow 8 ply by Vera Moda, 60% cotton and 40% acrylic … one of those yarns you see marked down more than half its original price and you can’t resist buying. It’s very pleasant to knit.
A few more rows and I’ll need a longer flexible knitting needle.
Rita de Heer 