Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Hanami Progress

Here is my progress. It seems to be cruising along. I finished the basket weave and have moved on to the cherry blossom section.
Hanami Cherry Blossoms startedIt is looking great and I am adding beads very selectively so that it looks random. I also am taking the less is more approach.
Hanami Close up with beads
You can see them here better. I only started them in the second chart and most of the time only use one bead per row and then only every few rows. I think it will add the sparkle I want without over powering the over all look. I have also made a decision to only work a few repeats of the final chart, since the one I saw done like this I really liked, so I am adding in short repeats of the other charts to make up for this choice plus I did an extra basket weave chart so I am working in extra rows for that too. Crazy I know but I think it will look better to me in the long run.

10 comments:

pieheart said...

I love the variegation of the yarn in the pattern! I can't see the beads too well (bad laptop!) but I hope you show more pictures in the hopes my poor screen picks them up.

Darbyrose said...

cayli, that is lovely!
What yarn are using?

purlgirl said...

I like. What size needles are you using?

Amanda said...

Looks great and I like your use of beads. I'm hoping for the same effect.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the compliments! I am using zephyr that I dyed myself and size 4 needles. I really love this yarn.

I will try to get better shots of the beads but they are really spread out so getting more than a few in a shot is tough.

catknip said...

You rock!

Mary in VA said...

Oh wow, that's gorgeous. I'm really hoping you started earlier than September 1st though!

How do you dye yarn to get subtle variations like that. I'm thinking of trying dyeing, but lately that's the kind of of yarn I'm attracted to, but not the kind of dye instructions I'm finding.

shelr said...

I love the color, especially the subtle way the color changes.

Anonymous said...

Mary, you asked about how I dyed the yarn. Keep in mind I am no professional and I really have a hard time repeating exact results but here is what I did.

I soak the yarn first for 30 minutes in water. In my dye pot I put water to cover yarn but not tons extra and a few glugs of white vinegar. I then took the color dye(I stick to one color for this) I wanted to use and added it to the water. Take the yarn out of the soaking water squeeze the water out so it doesn't drip all over and put it in the dye pot. I put it in slowly so the areas that go in first get more then the end that goes in last. Then heat it up until very hot but not boiling. The dye water should be clear when you are done or close to it. You can add more dye if it is not the color you want but I always move the yarn away from where I am adding the dye so it does not strike the yarn too quickly.

Hope that help a little, it has been trial and error for me.

Mary in VA said...

Thanks Cayli, that helps a lot. I was wondering if you could get that effect just by crowding the yarn in the dye pot, since they caution you to make sure the dye can get everywhere when you're dyeing a single color. I have some natural colored yarn that had coffee spilled on it. I thought overdyeing it would help with the stains, plus allow me to practice on yarn I wouldn't feel bad about "ruining."