Carrot

Sample knitting and pattern writing are keeping me busy enough that I often don't have much else to share in terms of projects, but I'd like to make more of an effort to get both things done. I don't mind that work knitting keeps me so busy that I don't have a lot of personal projects on the go, but I don't much like it if I have absolutely no personal projects happening. So, I thought I should apply that 15 minute rule here too. If I can get through my goals for the day in sample knitting, then I can have 15 minutes after the kids head to bed to work on a personal project. Perhaps if I use it as a carrot, then I can both meet my goals and get a few things done that I've been neglecting.



The current carrot that I have in mind is a project for my younger nephew. I want to knit up Calaway by Jenny Wiebe for him, and I wanted not only to use superwash wool, but I wanted a particular look to that yarn. So, I ordered Knit Picks Bare Wool of the Andes Superwash, and, I few weeks ago, tossed it into the dye-pot. I've just stuck with the food-dyes so far in my dyeing efforts, though I'd love to work from plants someday.





In the meantime, I started with 3/4 tsp of Wilton's Kelly Green, along with rather a lot of vinegar added to the water (a good cup to start, but I went through more than 4 cups throughout).

The first result was disappointingly minty-looking rather than vibrant, so I did it over with another tsp of the dye. After the wool was dry, I checked with my sister if she liked the colour, and she confirmed my suspicion that it was still not quite green enough, so another tsp of green it was. The results are much better, and it does look a touch more vibrant in person than in the photo below.

I didn't meet my goal last night (I was close, but found a mistake that would take just long enough to fix that I was done for the night), but if I can make it tonight, I will at least have a read through the instructions, find the right needles, and set up a project bag. If I have extra time, then swatching, and revising my notion of "the right needles" if need be.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with today's 15 minutes of spinning: Alberta-grown Texel wool.

Pinkety Pink Pink

I started a project in October that I've been meaning to share this whole time, but I've been having a hard time finding the energy for blogging lately. I usually do find a bit in December because there are, despite so many secret projects, so many things to share, but rather than simply launching into Christmas, I thought I'd share the finished October to December project first.

Rather spontaneously, (and entirely forgetting that I'd wanted to buy a second batch of Stroll roving before dying it so that I could have more yarn in the end), I decided to play with some pink.

I prepared the roving by soaking it in a vinegar solution (I can't remember how much vinegar, but a moderate amount, anyhow).

Next, I prepared the dye by adding a good dollop to hot water and very slowly adding a little bit of vinegar (the second time. The first time I sorted out that I wasn't adding it quite slowly enough, as the dye broke, and that wasn't the plan). 

I added the dye to a series of bowls as evenly as I could. I wanted pink and white stripes, so I left a fair bit of space in-between.

After the dye was soaked up, I wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap (which I try not to use very often otherwise), put it in a crock-pot, and heated it in the microwave.

I rinsed it, and was pleased that there was little to no bleeding, and that the colours had mostly stayed put in their stripes, though I didn't mind the bit of mottling here and there.

I took my time spinning it up; it was entertaining contrasting it with the more rustic wools I was spinning at the same time on the other spindle, as this stuff feels much like spinning a rather springy bit of fluffy cloud.

Chain-plied and after a bath, here is the resulting yarn! There will be stripes in whatever on earth I make with this. It's all very satisfying, and also feels nice to tie something up before everything gets crazy-busy.

A Bit of String

I can finally share my Mom's Christmas present with you!





Since Mom crochets, I decided to make her some yarn. I took 200g of Knit Picks Stroll Roving (Superwash Wool with Nylon, figuring Mom might like to be able to machine-wash what she makes with it), and then I have spun it up into singles ("S", or counter-clockwise), then did up a 4-ply yarn plied "Z" (Clockwise). All this using my trusty spindle.

It came out to about 700 yards of fingering weight (on the heavier end of fingering, but not quite a sport-weight, I don't think).













Having skeined it, I then dyed it, cooking it up  with about 1/2 tsp Wilton's Turquoise and about a cup of vinegar.

I quite like the soft shade of turquoise that resulted.

I did a quickish bit of sewing to make a project bag (using the pattern at this link), and voila!

This is my last post of 2014, and it's been a great year. I've been featured for the first time in a print publication, I've been working full time from home, and spending the rest of the time with friends and family, which has been more than just great. I am so very lucky to have their love, friendship, and support. I'm not the sort to make New Year's Resolutions (not that I don't think about it now and again), but I am wishing for even more of all those good bits of 2014 in 2015 for my family and for yours.

Thank-you so much,

Jessie

Dyeing to Tell You About My New Hat Plans

First off, the skirt.

I finished it in time to wear it to quiz night last week! I am not completely satisfied with one or two things, but all in all, it went quite well. I was worried it was coming out too tight in the waist, so eased it a little wider, only to find that it would have been just fine if I'd stuck with the pattern. Might make another with this pattern sometime, so will trust it on the next go! I have a bit of fudging to do with the side zipper to get it to lie correctly, and will have to get to that sometime, but as that's a bit of handsewing that I haven't gotten to yet, it is as likely to be awhile before I get around to it.

The pictures are from today rather than last week, but the only important difference is that  my hair is pulled back instead of being so curled (and big. I don't like having big hair) that it looks like Lady Edith from Downton stuck her finger in an electrical socket.















Next project to catch up on: the  Hup Holland hat by Tori Seierstad.

This pattern was originally used as a fundraiser to raise money for a new football ground in Lillehammer, Norway. I was too late to buy it for that, (it is now a free pattern, now that that goal has been reached) but I plan to donate to the Jumpstart charity next time I'm at Canadian Tire to balance that out.

I had ordered some orange yarn back around Halloween, as Knit Picks had a sale on orange and black yarn, and I needed a bit of both for projects in my queue (including this one).
 
Only one problem... The orange was not orange enough.

The pile of wool sat around for awhile. I wanted to over-dye it, but that creating a bit of a getting-around-to-it obstacle. Finally, to celebrate joining the Dutch team here in Edmonton for the Mini-World Cup indoor soccer tournament, I knew I had to get around to it right away so I could make this hat.

I bought lots of Kool-Aid powder. It's easy to dye with, and, it's bright orange. I explained to the grocery store clerk, as I wouldn't want her to think I was planning on drinking 18 packets.

I spent a fair bit of a day unwinding the balls into skeins. My youngest helped by running around a couple of chairs set back to back, then sitting in the chairs when she got dizzy.

The next day, I set to work dyeing the yarn.

It was still not quite the right shade of orange as it was now too reddish, though it sure smelled like oranges!

I wanted to over-dye it with yellow to brighten it up, but went on a fruitless search for yellow Kool-Aid powder before deciding on playing with Wilton's icing dyes instead.

Soaked the yarn in vinegar, then cooked it up with Golden Yellow, which I think brightened the yarn enough. More vinegar in the rinse stopped it bleeding, but unfortunately banished that lovely orange smell.

In the meantime, as the yarn dried, I started the hat.

Though I found that the blue was not blue enough.

I finished knitting the blue rounds, put the hat on waste yarn instead of switching colours right away, then dyed the piece in the microwave.

Wilton's Royal Blue was just the thing.

The red is red enough, the white is white enough, and the black is black enough, so I'm finished dyeing for a little while.

Ninjabreadmen!

The Ninjabreadmen attempt to subdue a ChuckNorrisbreadman

We made cookies yesterday! I had found a set of Ninja cookie cutters last week, and intended to give them to my husband for Christmas, only he saw them before they could be hidden, so we decided to just jump into action and create these stealthy characters here, iced with deadly accuracy (or something like that). Luckily, we had a few star-shaped sprinkles on hand that could stand-in for throwing stars.

We used the recipe from the box (the dough ends up a bit soft, but if you work it for awhile, it should improve). For icing, I whipped 1 Tbsp. Meringue powder with 1/4 cup water for two minutes, then whipped it for four more minutes with 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar. I reserved a bit of white icing, then added a dab of black Wilton's icing colour. Probably a bit too much, in fact. it takes a fair bit to get a decent black, but I think I went overboard. In future, I'll add it in gradual stages to be sure. Great stuff, and it makes for great ninjas, but it was a bit of work at cleanup time. I recommend smocks and something to cover the table, which are both things that I didn't think of this time around! (Though baking soda works pretty well to get rid of the traces of purple-pink that stick around after you clean off the black icing, so no lasting harm seems to have been done).

The ninjas have been declared tasty, and are currently in the process of disappearing, much as ninjas tend to do.

Myshka Tuque

One of the things I have been busy with lately was writing up a new pattern. I have more tulip photos too, but those will have to wait until another day, as I would like to now present to you the Myshka Tuque:

Myshka, being Ukrainian for 'little mouse' seemed to suit this sweet little tuque just right. Myshka is knit from the bottom up, starting in back-and-forth rows with a half-linen stitch, then joined in the round and knit in stockinette for the remainder. A button finishes it off quite nicely. Myshka is sized from baby through to older children, and the largest size may even fit some adults.

Sizing: Baby (Toddler)(2 yr) (5yr+). Shown in baby and 2-year-old sizes.

Circumference of Hat: 13”/33cm (15”/38cm)(16.5”/42cm)(18”/46.5cm). Worn with approximately 2 inches of negative ease; hat stretches to fit snugly.

Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK (100% Superwash Merino Wool; 123 yards/50 gram ball), Squirrel Heather: 1(1)(1)(2) ball(s). Or, Knit Picks Bare Swish Merino DK (100% Superwash Merino Wool; 246 yards/100 gram hank), 1(1)(1)(1) hank. Dye if desired; I used Strawberry Kool-Aid for the 2-year-old sized hat.

Needles: 3.75mm in either DPNs or Circular needles.

Notions: A button, and a tapestry needle to weave-in ends.

Gauge: 24 sts and 36 rows/4 inches in stockinette stitch

Click here to buy the Myshka Tuque, available for 4$ Canadian.

Mittens!

Yay!  I finished the mittens in time for an outdoorsy but chilly sort of weekend.  I have to keep this quick so I can get back to that weekend, so here are the details: 

These are NHM #5 by Terri Shea, and are knit in Knit Picks Swish DK and Knit Picks Bare Sport (dyed with 2 pkg Grape and 1 pkg Cherry Kool-Aid).  They came out just a little large, but not ridiculously so, so they should last through next year too.

That's it for now; we're just back from the library, so it's time to read to the kids, and after that I have gardening to do, (hopefully I can get a gardening post done too sometime this week).
 

Tulip Hat Take 1

To use our new Kool-Aid dyed yarn, I was looking around for a hat pattern that covers the ears, but doesn't have ties for under the chin (the kids don't seem to like those much, as I discovered last year), and found this pattern: The Tulip Hat.  I liked it a lot, and enjoyed knitting it.  I gave in to the impulse that demanded a bit of tulip stem at the end; after all, we had made green yarn as well, so why not?  All done, but not entirely sure of the stem, I took photos, and sent them to my husband at work, who was sweet enough to humour me and answer promptly rather than wait until the end of the day to see it in person, doubtless knowing that that long a wait would drive me nuts.  He wrote back that the stem looked fine, but that the main body looked like it could be a bit longer.

I decided it was fine, (after all, I had tried it on her a few times, and it fit, right?) wove in the ends, and then tried it on her again. Decided it could have been a little longer after all (like my husband said) before shaping started, so crocheted some edging on it. Tried ruffled edging for fun; it looked great, but didn't cover the ears anymore (which was the point of the hat after all). Re-did edging with plainer edging.

Bribed the kid with Smarties to wear it long enough for me to take photos.  (This should have been sign, really.  Since when is this kid reluctant to wear a hat?  Perhaps when it's uncomfortably small?)  It covered the ears better, but not perfectly. She played along for the photo shoot, and after a bit I realized that it had bunched up at the top a little, the reason being that the whole thing is just too darn small. I'll have to frog it entirely and start over, which wouldn't be quite so bad if I hadn't woven in the ends.  Sigh

Anyway, I still love the pattern, which is blameless.  After all, it's just that my kids have big heads (in this case, just barely short of 19"), and I didn't want the gauge any looser than the 6.5 sts/inch that I ended up with (using sport weight yarn and 4 mm needles).  I'm thinking I should really just make grown-up size hats for the kids from now on, so perhaps when I start over, I'll try with two pieces of this yarn held together, bigger needles, and hope that I don't run out of yarn.

Rainy Day with Kool-Aid

Monday was a rainy day, so we dyed our own yarn with Kool-Aid.  We followed the directions from Knitty, and a good time was had by all.  It helped that the younger daughter wanted to play by herself until it was pretty much her turn anyway, so that made it much easier to coordinate things.  We also used Superwash (Knit Picks Bare Superwash), so the kids could stir the yarn without felting it.
 

My oldest wanted to mix colours, so one of her batches was 2 packages Orange with 3 of Strawberry-Kiwi (I think one Orange would have been plenty, as you can hardly tell there was anything but Orange involved), and the other batch was 3 Lemon-Lime with 3 Blue Raspberry Lemonade.

My younger daughter was left with a batch of Strawberry (3 pkg), and a mix of 2 Grape and 1 Cherry.  She enjoyed stirring the first batch, but by the second batch, my oldest had found the stash of stickers, so they went off to decorate the calendar.

Strawberry

Lemon-Lime-Blue-Raspberry

Orange-Strawberry-Kiwi

Grape-Cherry

With the last batch, I decided the colour was going to be too dark, so I twisted the skein before putting it in the dye to leave some paler patches, and it worked quite well; some spots stayed white, and then absorbed enough dye in the wash to have a tint instead, which I quite liked.

When I washed them after, I simply followed the usual superwash instructions and let the machine agitate, however gently.  While the yarn came out just fine in most ways, it is now a tangled mess, so next time, I'll just let it soak instead.  Now I have some brightly-coloured fruity-smelling yarn to untangle, so between that and 2nd birthday preparations, I should be rather busy for the next while.