Lady Purl Designs

The enigmatic smile that became da Vinci's, and undoubtedly one of the world's, most famous paintings. I went on a study abroad trip a few years ago to France and got to see this beauty at the Louvre in person. I was struck by how small it actually was and how huge the crowd was circled around her. Her image is ingrained in the minds of millions, and I wanted to emulate it in yarn form.   Can be found here:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/LadyPurl

These are a few of the paintings I plan to recreate into skeins of yarn in my "Inspired" line of yarn (which will all be on my Etsy account, hopefully by the end of the year! >>  http://www.etsy.com/shop/LadyPurl   

This is my little sister. I knit her this sweater in green last year, but it was too big. This new smaller version was my wedding present to her. I switched from size 7 needles to size 2 and it took FOREVER! Luckily it's the very last time I'll ever knit it, hehe. The pattern in very nice, but those tiny stitches! Close up of the DNA cable and lace work. The back was all lace, I love it. 

Staghorn                                   The yarn you use and needle size probably doesn't make a lick of a difference. I used Vanna White's line of yarn because I loved the color, it was super soft, and cheap. It took 1 1/2 balls of yarn. I used size 10 1/2 needles (6.5 mm). Abbreviations: k: knit p: purl sl1kw: slip 1st stitch knit-wise sl1pw: slip 1st stitch purl-wise BC: place 2sts on a cable needle in the back, k2, k2 from cable needle FC: place 2sts on a cable needle in the front, k2, k2 from cable needle Cast on 30 stitches. Row 1 (WS and   all  other wrong side rows): sl1pw, k2, p2, k2, p16, k2, p2, k2, p1. Row 2: sl1kw, p2, k2, p2, k4, BC, FC, k4, p2, k2, p2, k1.  Row 4: sl1kw,  p2, k2, p2, k2, BC, k4, FC, k2, p2, k2, p2, k1. Row 6: sl1kw,  p2, k2, p2, BC, k8, FC, p2, k2,  p2, k1. Repeat rows 1-6 until desired length.* Cast off while following the WS of the pattern, it looked most natural casting off after Row 2. *My fav

Here's how the yarn turned out. Not sure how well I did, but either way the yarn felt and looked awesome. The blue came out a lot deeper than I expected and the purple really pops. I wanted yellow, but it came out more gold, slightly orange. I think it should be very interesting to knit with.

I had a dream about the "Vincent and the Doctor" episode of Doctor Who last night. I thought, I must do something to celebrate my love for not only that episode, which is thee best Doctor Who episode, beating "Lady in the Fireplace" by a hair, but also my adoration and obsession with Vincent Van Gogh.  So I'm going to do what I do best. Knit something. I wasn't just about to go out and buy the yarn for this. It had to be special. So I hand dyed it in a way that I've never tried before. I separated the dyes by placing them in individual jars, filling them half full with a dash of vinegar and a teaspoon-ish of dye in each jar.  I separated how much yarn I wanted of each color and slowly stuffed the yarn in the jars, using a dowel to stir and yarn. I'll post more pictures tomorrow once it dries. I'm super psyched to see how it turns out. I also need to find a pattern, or make one, that really encapsulates Starry Nigh

I've been designing patterns and coming up with ideas a lot lately for a pattern book I want to put together. I'm still weighing the pros and cons about selling each pattern individually myself, or through a publisher like knitty.com, or on Ravelry for like $5 a pattern, OR putting them all together and publishing a book myself... Or sending that finished book out to publishers and have someone else sell it... Uhg, I don't know. I think I should probably  get some patterns published first on sites like Knitty just to get my name out there. Then when I'm knitty-famous I'll have the street cred to publish a whole book. Either way I can't really publish pictures or notes on what I'm working on :{. I do have one thing though! This is a scarf I whipped up for a friend of mine who just designed a new logo for me. It's still in the works, but I'll be revamping my whole site and "Lady Purl" soon enough. The cable is called "Staghorn

I can't believe I never posted this, but a LONG while back I got a sock blank from KnitPicks and dyed it all pretty with a bunch of Jacquard dyes and Kool-Aid. These were my results:  I wanted to paint a design, but at the same time keep it simple. Stars worked well.  The lightest blue was Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid.  Then I used Jacquard Dye color Peacock.  And then ended it with Jacquard Dye color black.  These are the finished socks after knitting them up with the pattern Anastasia Socks . The color faded slightly in the steaming of the blank process, and the red and purple stars just came up as random stripes, but their pretty awesome socks in person. I want to do it again!

I've made so many new things that I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking :} I. Am. A. Geek.

So, I haven't posted in forever and a day. I would open up my site thoughtfully, look back at things I did months ago and think about all the crafts I've done since then and think, "I should update this," then I remember other stuff I have going on and think, "I'm too busy," and mosey on. IT"S TIME TO UPDATE! Anyway, I've been cross stitching a lot lately. I love it. Here's some of my newest stuffs: Work in progress and the finished piece. The Aztec Tomb! G.O.B. is my boyfriend! Actually this is a gift for my boyfriend for his birthday. He's a huge Arrested Development fam and quotes it daily, sometimes hourly.

So here's Tarquin's story. Tarquin was created for my friend Trixie. Shortly after being born off the needles he had to explore. Little baby Tarquin is a very curious little octopus. The first thing he had to do was meet Mr. Squid. I thought Mr. Squid took a liking to Tarquin right off the bat, but it turned out that his "sweet and innocent hug" was really a ploy to eat poor lil' Tarkie. So I quickly rescued him. Mr. Squid has yet to comment about his actions, but I can only assumed he's ashamed of himself. Tarquin, getting a taste for danger, decided to take a walk on the wild side. Here's a picture I snapped of him just as he was stealing my monies. He then ventured into my roommate's art project and decided to recite some Shakespeare. He quickly realized that he was in fact an octopus and having just been born had not yet learned Shakespeare. This saddened him. "Wherefore art... where the hell am I? Is this stage made of styrofoam?!" Resig

I've been busy of late, which often prevents me from posting on here, but usually doesn't prevent me from knitting. Because if knitting is good for anything, it's to procrastinate another project or responsibility. I'm even doing it right now! The story behind this dog sweater is that his owners, my former professors, and their son named him Jean-Luc Piccard Colbert (lol, I can't make this up). So... I could not resist. Jean-Luc and his owners were very pleased with the results :D. This morning my friend and I had a "dying party" in which we dyed a bunch of yarn. I had made a yarn order that I had planned to use today, but it hasn't come in yet. Next post though (!) I will be dying. :} This was a little mini skien to practice on. We wanted to see the effects of kool-aid and some of the dye that she had. I used Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool-Aid, Peacock dye, and Jade Green dye. The Kool-Aid ended up really light blue, but I liked that variation. I though