Revontuli is finished!

I finished it last night, well technically early this morning. When I left the South San Jose Ravelry Knitting group at Starbucks I had only 6 more row to go. So I went home and cranked them out while catching up on DVR'd shows with my hubby. 2 hour long tv shows and a Jay Leno later I was done! I have to block it now. This was a 150g skein of yarn and the pattern writer used a 160g skein. I had just a little bit of yarn left, probably about 10 - 15 yards left. I was sweating a little there at the end. Here is it, unblocked. Blocked pictures coming soon to a blog near you. First I have to go total up all of the Sees fundraising money at the kid's elementary school. Fun!! What should I do next!? I am thinking about making Mister Ben or the Strickwear mobius. I can't decide.

It's done! I dumped the dyes into some nifty anti-spill kids paint buckets and stuck my brushes out of the top. I started with the swatch and did several different color combinations. I then did a quick heat set on it (which obviously was too quick, it came out very light ) but I got the gist of what I wanted to do. I consulted my peacock photos and decided which was the best set of color combinations.

So I put a big sheet of painter’s plastic drop cloth over my table. Pulled out a gazillion feet of saran wrap and tossed the shawl on to it, sprayed it with water and just started painting. Here it is part way through. As I finished a section I saturated it with a vinegar/water solution from a spray bottle and then rolled it up in the saran wrap. Then I laid out some more saran wrap, moved the shawl over and painted some more. It took a long time. I worked on it, for about 45 minutes in the afternoon then had to set it aside. I came back and worked on it from 10:30 pm – 1 am. Then I rolled it up in its saran warp skin and stuffed it in a colander to steam over a pot of water all covered in foil. I left it over the steam to set for an hour then, I rinsed it and sent it through the spin cycle. Blocked it and left it to dry. There you have one hand painted Pretty as a Peacock shawl. It was dyed using 6 colors of Jacquard liquid silk/wool dye: Virdian Green, Marine Green, Royal Blue, Kelly Green, Cyan, and Apricot.

And I still had time to do 12 more rows of my Revontuli. By the way the Kauni yarn kind of sucks. There is tons of debris in the yarn, bits of straw and hay, strings, garbage, and weeds actually spun into the wool and dyed! I have never seen such a mess before. It is like the wool right off the sheep without being well combed or carded. Bummer, because it looks awesome.

The Pretty as a Peacock shawl is finished being knit. I love this pattern, it worked up so quickly and was pretty easy. I think I could make this again and again. Here it is in its invisible splendor.

The bright pink twin sheet I use to block on was too small so I had to switch to a queen and only had a white sheet to use. So it is very hard to see. I will snap some more pictures that will be easier to see when it is dry. I need to run out to University Art Supply and pick up a bottle of gold colored dye before I start dyeing. I have been studying photos of peacocks and have formulated a plan of attack. This is my little swatch to dye. I worked several different parts of the chart into a square so i could test dye on each style of feather.

Here it was before blocking. A little easier to see. Lastly, here is my newest project. Revontuli - huivi. It is a Finnish pattern for gradually varigaited yarns like the Kauni that I am making it out of. This is the EQ (rainbow) colorway. This pattern is pretty easy and seems to be working up very quickly also.