Yellow, or maybe blue

Saturday I placed my last stitch on the cat scarf I've been making for M, meaning I'm very close to the end of what seems to be an epic project as the scarf has been on my hook since Christmas Day. Even as I considered sewing up and finishing, my mind turned to the next project, namely a cardigan for M. If the scarf hadn't taken so long, I had intended to make another winter cardigan, but with spring upon us I've changed my mind. M needs a summer cardi (or maybe two) that she can live in through the cooler days and use to protect herself from the sun on warmer days.

M agreed and declared she wanted a yellow cardigan, or maybe a blue one. The only problem was, I don't have much in the way of cotton or bamboo, let alone in yellow or blue. If buying yarn, really I needed a pattern first, which presented another issue. M is five and at the top end of desirable target for knitwear designers. There are lots of patterns for babies, but the number dwindles as children get older. I have some patterns for older children, picked up a year ago, but not an abundant supply.

Saturday is a busy day for us, with a lunchtime dance class carving out a huge chunk of the day, meaning we weren't free to hit the shops until after 4pm. By this time my favoured Local Yarn Shop was closed, so we went to Hobbycraft instead.

Unsurprisingly, I did not find the pattern book I was looking for. Neither did I find suitable yarn at a price that I was willing to pay.

We did however find buttons, which M insisted I should buy in readiness for her cardigan. Blue buttons. Lots of them.

We also found card stock, so I replenished my craft supplies.

I also found some booklets on drawing cats and horses, so I picked those up as well.

Hobbycraft were selling off their 'paint your own' money boxes at half price. M wasn't too interested in these until she spotted a Beetle Car...

M couldn't resist this paint your own money box.

It had to be bought, brought home beeping in my bag and painted immediately!

After which, M had to play with these dress up stickers, on sale for half price. Apparently, the children were feeling cold.

And dress up stickers.

This demonstrates why M and I should never visit a craft store of any kind together. We just can't help ourselves!

As for the yarn and pattern. I decided to do my best with the patterns I've got... And placed an order for blue cotton from Wool Warehouse.

Blue.

M is happy.

Or maybe I have no self control at all...

I think I may have fallen off the wagon...



On Saturday, I headed up to Lee Mills for a Knitting and Crochet Guild open day, with fellow Knit Wits - Jane, Claire and Jeanette. We set off at a ridiculously early hour, lured by the promise of a Yarn Mountain and were greeted at the door by the sound of a kettle boiling and very delicious home made cake.

I think my self control may have evaporated right there.

I'm blaming the yarn fumes, I was after surrounded by the yarn mountain which made it impossible not to see the stuff. Or stroke it. And the next thing I knew I'd picked up quite a bit of yarn and just could not put it down. I was not alone - all of us succumbed, which makes me feel a little better. It was definitely the yarn fumes that got to us.

In addition to yarn, the warehouse was home to KCG Trading's stock and I got to see Addi needles in the flesh (I talked myself out of buying some - see I did have some self restraint) and all manner of knitting accessories. I also found probably the best selection of knitting and crochet books I've seen in one place ever. I was very tempted by several titles, but in the end made myself pick out just one book and refused to look closely at any of the others.

Doris Chan's Everyday Crochet called to me, mostly because as I flicked through it the designs were ones I could imagine myself wearing, which is actually unusual for me. I tend to pick up books for things I like the look of and want to make, but don't necessarily want to own as a finished item. I guess this is why I tend to give most of the things I make away. Richard gave me Amazing Crochet Lace by the same author for Christmas and I was impressed by her work then. Now I just need to find some time to make something.

There was a white gloves, show and tell type thing where we were allowed to view part of the Guild's collection. The theme chosen for the day was undergarments, which meant we got to admire lots of very delicate lace.

Jeanette and Jane tried out square knitting needles and reported they were actually quite good. I think they were tired and hungry by that stage, so managed to resist buying them. I tried to take a photo of Jeanette knitting but she was too fast for the camera.



By this time, it was nearly 2pm and we arrived at a nearby pub looking for lunch just after he stopped serving. Some sweet talking later, four hungry knitters tucked into some very tasty baguettes before heading home.

A good day out... I just need to find time to knit more now as I'm busy cultivating my own personal yarn mountain behind the sofa!

My first dyed yarns

I'm back in the land of computers and real life after a brief sojourn to Wales where it rained a lot. Although we were camping, we were fine as we prepared as always... But the non-stop rain on Saturday plus the lack of light, made it a tiring day.

Yesterday the weather did break, thank goodness! So packing up wasn't too arduous, but I didn't get home until gone 10pm as Richard and I sat at services plotting for a long time. This means that today I am rather brain dead and not capable of saying much more than 'urgh'.

This is a brief post really, to show off the yarns I dyed up last weekend.

Firstly I have four 100 gram skeins of Blue Faced Leicester which were dip dyed using acid dyes. I had two dye baths, one containing blue dye and the other containing plum with a touch of pink which gave something which looks like this...
I very deliberately placed just the ends of the skeins in the dye bath's and then encouraged the dye to travel up the yarn until there was no white left. Because blue and red dyes take up at different rates this created some very interesting effects where the two dyes met and mean that only part of the yarn is truly pinky plum (which I'm calling berry) or blue. I like it.

Next up, the single skein of alpaca 4 ply, with a touch of nylon (10%) which I dyed using Kool-Aid type soft drinks.
As shown in a previous post, I used two dye baths one containing two packets of Kool-Aid in dark cherry and the other a Kool-Aid clone in grape. The colour here was far more subtle and the alpaca was much slower to take up the dye so I left it soaking while I had lunch. When I came back, the yarn still had some undyed bits which I left as they were. Very pretty and again, I like it.

And finally... Remember this?



Once dried and reskeined, it transformed into this...


This is a single skein of alpaca 4 ply (again with a touch of nylon) which I hand painted using the semi-exhausted dyes from the BFL above (it seemed a shame to just throw the excess away) and a fresh batch of turquoise. It took a long time to do and even after it had dried I wasn't sure I liked the result... until I reskeined it this morning, that is. Now, all I can say is wow!

I'm not sure what I'll do with it (or any of the others for that matter), but it sure came out purty.

(As always, click on images to see bigger versions...)

Frustrated crafter at large

Headed off to my regular knitting meeting last night where we had a sewing up workshop... After much frowning at some stocking stitch squares, knitted up in sock wool I've come to the conclusion sewing up knitted things really is not my forte.

It seems weird since I definitely can sew and give me woven fabric then I'm in my element, but ask me to sew up two tiny little knitted squares and I'm all fingers and thumbs. :(

I managed it for my one and only seamed knitted project (so far at least), so obviously I can apply needle and thread in the context of knitting but last night my mojo had definitely deserted me.

The wool I dyed up at the weekend has finally dried and I had planned to reskein the hand painted alpaca, but was defeated because my house is not big enough! I set two chairs up, one in the living room and one by the back door (in the kitchen) and discovered that I needed at least three more meters of house to stretch the yarn out properly. So... I have to wait until I am home during daylight hours and have nice weather before I can get the yarn back into a skein as this is going to have to be done in the garden.

I did have a quick poke around Ravelry and there seem to be several groups dedicated to dyeing which may be worth a looksee. I've not joined any of them as of yet, because if I do, I may want to do more dyeing which would be a problem since I haven't really got the time to do it at the moment. I'm not making much progress on knitting currently (despite my best efforts) and I haven't picked up my spindle in at least two weeks! :(

I did however come across this company (Pure Tinctoria) who sell natural dyes and may be worth a future look. I'm also wondering about using normal food dyes for dyeing purposes and wondering about making up dyes from raw ingredients. Now if only I had the hours to spare to do more than wonder...

Dyeing Day

Jury service turned out to be rather boring. I sat and waited, knitted a bit, read some, knitted a bit more, waited... And so on. The knitting endeared me to the catering staff who made me a mug of tea made with a real teabag rather than making me suffer machine tea, while everyone else pretty much gave me wide berth - after all, who knows what a woman wielding 4mm circulars might be capable of?

I've been dismissed now, so normality will resume for the next couple of days at least.

Looking back over the weekend, Sunday saw me heading to Birmingham to meet up with Heather, Helen and Iszy for a go at dyeing. I'd ordered some Blue Faced Leicester DK and some alpaca 4-ply from Fyberspates to play with, Helen was supplying Kool-Aid and similar beverages and Heather had the acid dyes plus all the expertise.

After some discussion, both Helen and I decided to have a go at hand painting one skein and dip dyeing the rest. That meant untying and re-skeining into a really big skein ready for painting, which led to us taking over Heather's garden and turning it into one huge cats cradle as we strung hundreds of meters of yarn up and down its length. This took some time, but that was OK as my remaining yarn was soaking in water to get it ready for dip dyeing.

The re-skeined and tied yarn was eventually transferred to a bucket of water as we moved onto having a go at dyeing using Kool-Aid. Here is my attempt in progress.

There are actually two packets of each soft drink in the bowls, but I only photographed one packet for illustration purposes. As you can see, this is Kool-Aid Black Cherry and a Kool-Aid-esq soft drink in 'Grape'. No idea what they taste like, but they dyed wool, wood and fingers alike.

After this, we picked up the pace a little and were alternating between mixing dyes, dipping wool, squidging wool, wrapping it in clingfilm, cooking it (poor Heather sat in the loft with her dyeing microwave for most of the afternoon) and then rinsing it as we peeled the clingfilm off.

We were so busy that I didn't get around to picking up the camera again until we were done.

Hand painting yarn was an interesting experience. After watching Helen wrestling her much bulkier skein I arranged my lighter 4-ply onto the table in a sort of giant wiggling zig-zag for painting. I used the dyes I had left over from dip dyeing plus a batch of turquoise and quite litterally painted the yarn. It was back breaking, time consuming work and I enlisted Iszy's help to get mine done as we were running out of time (and the weather was threatening to turn).

Here it is in the sink after cooking as I peeled off the cling film to give it a rinse.

Upon reflection, I think I prefer dip dyeing. It was far less precise, but the effects were quickly achieved and very dramatic.

Here are our collective efforts hanging up to dry in Heather's bathroom just before we bagged them up to take home. I'll post photo's of my finished skeins once they've dried.

Stash diving

This weekend I did not work but spent the time at home, catching up on chores and trying to find time to relax. I say trying, because I wasn't very successful on the relaxing front and what's more I don't seem to have been very productive either!

Saturday, I decided to sort through my yarn stash.

I've finally managed to get hold of some resealable plastic bags and with moth season soon to be upon us I wanted to get as much of my yarn bagged up as possible. Sadly, I can't bag my fabric stash (which also comprises a whole lot of wool) as well as they do not make big enough plastic bags, so I think I'm going to need storage tubs, but that is a problem for another day.

Compared with some people I know, I don't have a particularly big yarn stash and when I hauled it all out, the whole thing sat comfortably on one half of a sofa. I deliberately searched around, finding the elderly balls of yarn that I purchased nearly two years ago back when I started getting interested in crochet again, adding the resulting mix to the pile.

Once I'd grouped similar balls and dyelots, I took some photographs of the elderly yarn and added it to Ravelry. Not because I felt the need to increase my stash list, but because these elderly balls of wool (which are not really that elderly) have been forgotten. They've been sitting behind my sofa, not gathering dust because I keep them in the plastic bags they were sold in, but never seeing the light of day and never being thought of. This means they are unlikely to be ever knitted or crocheted into anything. This is a waste of decent yarn and therefore bad.

I have similar problems with fabric and habberdashery... But again I'm not going there. One thing at a time.

Most of these formerly forgotten balls of yarn are sale yarn or discontinued, bought in small quantities, a ball of this, two balls of that... and intended to be played with, rather than to make anything specific. As such, I wasn't very consistant in my approach and my more experienced self is still puzzling over what exactly to do with them. But at least I know they exist now and having added them to my Ravelry database, I may even remember them over the coming months as I look for 'small' projects to do while I tackle my next intended 'real' project which will be a lace shawl.

I'm still not done. I ran out of time, energy and plastic bags, but even those yarns I didn't get to bag up have been moved to a more prominent place in the pile and I've started the process of thinking about simple projects for them. Bed socks for example... They're knitted at a looser guage, so in theory are faster, make good Christmas gifts and would satisfy my need to knit socks (I hope).

One thing I can say having gone through the stash, my intake of new yarns has slowed considerably since that original buying frenzy two years ago. Yarn I buy tends to be with specific types of project in mind, rather than randomly selected. My fabric habbit went a similar way, with the original frantic buying of practically anything vaguely woven, giving way to carefully selected lengths. There are always exceptions of course, the odd skein which I fall for or a pretty piece of fabric which I declare would make an excellent frock coat (which I admit may never get made), but I do try to be sensible...

Honest!

Doors, sheds and laceweight

Yesterday saw me working from home as I waited in for the fourth visit from Amber Windows to repair my front and back door. The guy eventually showed up at 14:40 and was very grumpy and sarcastic, but grudgingly set about doing the repairs I've been pushing for - after all, otherwise, what's the point of a ten year guarantee? He eventually left at 18:00 having worked on both doors, which at this point to look fixed, there are no obvious gaps or drafts or creaks. Nothing is catching and the frames feel secure...

Now to wait and see how long it lasts.

The gentleman in question did eventually cheer up. He particularly perked up when Dave arrived home from work and became positively happy when he finally moved onto the back door and spotted our shed. We have a large, workshop style shed to which apparently was exactly what he needed for his back garden. When we pointed him in the direction of a shed seller a mile or so up the road (Johnson's Sectionals at Jubilee Crescent for those in Coventry who are looking for a shed), he became positively chatty saying he'd have to drive past to see where it was on his way home.

Men and their sheds!

Our shed is still holding my spinning wheel hostage and storing a soggy tent, which is awaiting drying, but we just haven't had the weather yet.

In anticipation of getting the wheel in action or even getting some time in on the spindle, I succumbed to the pretty fibre available at Violet Green, buying two bags of superwash merino...



It's still in its plastic, because other than acknowledging I've got it I've not had time to even stroke it, that's how mad things are around here!

I also picked up some laceweight, 2 ply merino in a colourway called 'Roses and Cream'...

There should be enough for a shawl there and I've already earmarked it for my next project from the Victorian Lace Today book. This time, I'm doing another 'easy' pattern called 'Large Rectangle with Centre Diamond' (Ravelry Link), which as usual with patterns in this book is descriptive if not as creative as most pattern names I see.

It is however, a very pretty piece of lace and I'm hoping I can do it justice. As with the last one, there are some new techniques I'll need to learn first, such as an invisible lace caston... Which looks interesting. It will also be my first time using circular needles, because while this one is knitted flat, it's a bit big to hold on regular needles, so the bendy ones are going to be called for.

First though, I need to find the time to wind that skein into a ball so I can use it.