I am a walking billboard

Yes, indeed. I love to make hats and wear them often. In the last two days, I have taken orders for two hats: one with a bill and one with ear flaps. Both times I was wearing the hat. Since the customers wanted to have them in different colors than I was wearing I just HAD to go shopping. Oh twist my arm.

Did you notice that the knit the stash button over there on the right had an addition to the stash added? Maybe I shouldn't out myself.

Want to see what I got? This green is for the hat with earflaps.

This gray is for the brimmed hat.

More Alpaca

Remember that black cherry alpaca from the last post? I have more of this alpaca but in a different colorway. Hand painted yarn is tricky stuff because the skeins don't always match up. You can see this in the first photo.  Just look at the differences in that yarn. Oh my.

I knew I wanted to knit a side-to-side rectangular vest using this alpaca, and remembering what happened with the black cherry alpaca I am adding a fingering weight brown wool to the alpaca and knitting with a doubled stand of yarn. The fingering weight combined with the DK weight of the alpaca is giving me a worsted weight yarn when combined. Here is about 3/4ths of the back of the vest. If you study it, you can see the various skeins of alpaca, but it is what it is. *shrug*

This is the last of the alpaca and I do believe I'll have enough left from this vest for a pair of mittens and possibly a hat.

Now, here's the other problem. That brown wool I bought to combine with the alpaca? Well I totally had a *DOH* moment when I ordered. I thought that because there are 10 skeins of alpaca then I needed 10 skeins of the brown wool. That sounds logical, right? Wrong. The alpaca has 110 yards in a skein and the brown wool has 200 yards in a skein. I bought too much. I wonder if I could get another vest from the leftovers of the brown wool?

What's on your needles?

Yarn Stash Addition

I went to my small quilting group today. I work on my Faithful Circle quilt when I'm there. Today, one of the former pastors brought in his wife's craft stash since he did not know what to do with it since her passing. I took this kit (everything was there). All I need to do is assemble it and then do the over-embroidery. I plan to give it back to him once it is finished.

And then, while my back was turned, this yarn appeared at my chair. It is a beautiful 100% wool imported from Switzerland. I found out who gave it me and thanked her profusely. I didn't even need to go shopping. It finds me!

Dyeing with Kool-Aid

I recently spent a bit of time dyeing some yarn with Kool-Aid. I had 18 skeins of this hideous alpaca. Several months ago I overdyed 10 skeins using Kool-Aid and I decided it was time to finish this step of my project before cold weather (hopefully) comes. It was a prime opportunity to do a tutorial.

And lest you think this technique is only for yarn, you can also use it for wool yardage. I don't think this will work as well on cotton.

Let's get started. The yarn on the left is the original color and the yarn on the right is over dyed with Kool-Aid Black Cherry flavor. Before over dyeing the yarn I did a gauge swatch and that is when I realized the colors pooled hideously. Not good for a sweater.

 

Gather your supplies: a pan or tub or bowl, Kool-Aid and a microwave safe container. Don't know what color will work for you? Here's an article to read and the photos are very helpful. Just remember that in this article she started with white yarn. If you want  deeper color results, just use more packets of Kool-Aid. I have used two packets for each skein.

You can see from the above photo that I use 32oz of water. It doesn't matter how much water you use, it just needs to cover your wool or yarn. Heat the water until boiling in the microwave. While that is heating, carefully empty the Kool-Aid into your pan. Carefully add your boiling water and slowly stir to dissolve. No splashing!

Your yarn or wool must be wet before adding to the dye bath. Because I don't want to shock my yarn into felting, I rinse it in tap water from the faucet and gradually turn down the cold tap. Pick up your wool or yarn with tongs and carefully arrange in your pan. Walk away and do something else for a while.

When you come back your wool or yarn should have absorbed all the color from the dye bath and the water should be clear again. Usually by now, the water is also a lot cooler if not cold. Remove your yarn or wool and carefully rinse it until the water runs clear.

Squeeze out any excess water and hang to dry. Voilá! You have successfully over dyed with Kool-Aid.

I am always asked if the yarn smells like the Kool-Aid or if it bleeds. When I block the garment, yes, it smells a bit like the Kool-Aid but faintly. No, it doesn't bleed. I have knitted several pair of socks and then Kool-Aid dyed them and in both cases, my feet did not turn either purple (grape) or green (lime).

How's your Friday going?

Shopping this morning was productive. Fig Leaf Quilting had two (2!!) fabrics in the color red that I needed. How often does that happen? One of them is a blue/red Kona Cotton. Should have looked at the bolt end to see the name. *shrug* Now I need to make sure that neither of these fabrics is going to bleed because they are for the Baltimore Christmas quilt.

My new prescription  sunglasses were in and now I can see without squinting in the bright sun on snow days.

Sprouts Farmers Market had some mighty fine looking Sockeye Salmon on special. Into the shopping cart it went along with some pine nuts for the morning oatmeal and some roasted almonds for snacking.

A new yarn shop opened up only 10 minutes away from home. Oh my, this could be trouble 'cause it's the Loopy Ewe. I went in to purchase sock blockers and came out with some Madelinetosh yarn too. The colorway is called Fjord which is perfect for an upcoming project. It is luscious yarn. I would be in deep trouble if this store were closer.

Busy Knitting

Have you missed me? I have been busy knitting and knitting and more knitting. The first batch of photos consists of items already delivered. The second photo is of items to be delivered on Tuesday. The last photo is of items in inventory. Since just before Christmas, 2011, I have been knitting these.

Rebecca Hat & mitts, gray Wurm hat with matching mitts (photo has bad color),
black Wurm hat with matching mitts, and then 3 pair of mitts knit with 100% baby llama.

Mitts knit from Lion Brand Amazing Yarn

Mitts knit from various yarns.

Ugly Duckling

Just because it is hand painted yarn does not make it pretty. I tried a lot of different things to the swatches that I knitted trying to get something pleasing out of this yarn, but it was not going to happen. I did not want to discard this yarn because it is 100% alpaca and is just so, so soft. What to do?

Enter a beautiful color. By adding a beautiful color to the ugly color it spread out the ugly which ended up in a pleasing blend.

This happens in scrap quilts too. Use those "what was I thinking" and ugly fabrics in your quilt tops. This owl fabric is a good example. Taken individually, it stands up and shouts "look at me!".

But look what happens when you add it to a lot of other fabrics.

 Those unfortunate fabrics will work, I promise.

Something New

There is a yarn stash in Casa del Quilter. Does that surprise you? It is mainly sock yarn but there is also plenty of yarn to make up a sweater or two. The problem with my yarn stash is that there was no rhyme nor reason on the purchases so when I want to use a certain yarn, I have to search for a pattern, any pattern, that will work with the weight of the yarn, the recommended needle size and, of course, the amount of yarn on hand. A percentage sweater will hopefully eliminate that problem. The beauty of knitting this sweater is that if one know the chest measurement, then the rest just falls into place, because you do not need to follow the needle size. It's your yarn and your needles.

I just cast on for a child's sweater using this method. I have no children running around here, so this will go into the donation pile. It is a good learning sweater and the learning curve isn't too high. An added bonus is that now I don't have to spend a whole lot of time searching for just the right pattern for the yarn.

Using up Wool Yarn

The vest shown is a before dyeing and after dyeing with blue kool-aid.

In the sewing room shake up, a lot of forgotten wool yarn was exposed. A lot. I've been knitting away on items for Wool-aid.  Here is their mission statement:  

Wool-Aid is a community of knitters and crocheters who create warm woolen garments for children who live in the coldest climates and have the least access to resources.

Our mission is to provide the very neediest children with wool socks, sweaters, vests, mittens, and hats, as well as wool baby blankets for newborns.

We work with organizations that have a focus on helping children and that are not religion-based. These organizations distribute the warm woolen garments handcrafted by Wool-Aid volunteers to children who would otherwise suffer from extreme cold

Because the request is for THICK woolen items I have been doubling the yarn. Boy, Howdy! is this a great stash buster. To date I have finished:

• 4 vests 
• 3 pairs of socks 
• 4 pairs of mittens 
• 6 hats 
• 1 baby blanket

Now to box them up and ship them out.

Of photography (and yarn)

 

I must be doing something right. I've been asked twice now on Ravelry if I would allow the use of my photos. By yarn companies no less. Both of these photos were taken with my old PhD (push here dummy) point and shoot Kodak Easy Share. Sadly the camera is starting to add 'noise' to pictures, otherwise I would probably be still using it.

What is in the bag?

Some mystery yarn resides in the yarn stash. Scientific experiments have been performed to determine its origins. The burn test revealed it was 100% wool, albeit a very scratchy wool. The swift and ball winder were set up and as the yarn wound into cakes, it was run through the fishing line counter to determine how much yardage was there. Yardage/meter is a better way than ounces/grams to determine what to make. If the weight is needed, why there is always the kitchen scale to be used. The wrap test was performed: wrap the yarn around a knitting needle and count the wraps per inch to determine worsted or sport or fingering. One ball turned out to be worsted and the rest were sport.

So where is this post leading? The LYS recently did a redecorate and wanting to see it in real life, I took one ball of the mystery yarn with me and cruised into the store. Well. I love the redo, but K was not able to identify my yarn. :-(  I did, however, get my kitty fix as Patrick greeted me at the door and accompanied me on my tour.

I left with more yarn than on arrival. No, I did not purchase. It is a mystery bag of yarn. Ooooo.... I love a good mystery, don't you? Do you know how hard it was to hold off opening the bag until I could get a good photo of it? Do you? Here is what it contained:

Knitting for Charity

Photo credit: microsoft.com

The pointy sticks are working overtime, the 'scraps' of yarn in the stash are dwindling and the mittens are just flying off the needles. Yay!

A call went out from some local shelters that mittens were needed. So far, seven hats (a handspun yarn refused to be mittens), one scarf (missed when I donated scarves several monthes ago) and seven pairs of mittens are done and waiting. When finished, there will be a total of 13 pairs of mittens. And less yarn in the house. Once the scraps and leftovers are used up, why then quilting and sewing can resume.

Let's see, at one mitten an evening, by the end of the month there should be 6 more pairs of mittens. However, I am knitting the mittens two at a time on two longer circular needles and it takes me two evenings to get a pair finished. Since I am using up bits and bobs of yarn, I need to control the placement of the same yarn on each mitten so they match up and this is the technique that works for me. An upcoming meeting of the Finishing Club this Friday will give me 4 hours of knitting and woman time.

I'll be much closer to my goal of simplification at the end of the month. So, how are you?

Honestly, I was not planning to buy

...but it was a fiber related yard sale. I actually showed remarkable restraint. Only 20 fat quarters. (Amy, do you have that cat fabric on the top, it is an Alexander Henry?) I had only planned on picking up some acrylic yarn (if there was some) for Project Linus afghans. That I got. I thought the white in the bag on the right was acrylic until I got it home and realized there were 5 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted. The real score was the blue/purple that you can barely see: 12 skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky SuperWash. After a bit of research I found that that yarn was originally $120 -- I got it for $30. O yum. Somebody stop me.

I Won Fibery Goodness

I won a fiber giveaway from Kelli. Ah, the beauty of these! The FQ bundle is from City Quilter in NY and is mainly architectural with one FQ of apples thrown in. Love it. I am seeing a city skyline from this, maybe. And the hand painted yarn -- it is beautiful and will become a pair of socks. I have never worked with the other which is Make Make and is 90% wool, 10% mohair. Each ball is 25g and I haven't figured out what to makemake yet. Included in the box from Kelli were a jar each of homemade apple butter and spiced oranges and a precious angel bookmark.

Thanks, Kelli, for a very special giveaway.

An Adventure in Recycling Sweaters

A recent shopping trip to various thrift stores resulted in 9 knitted wool sweaters costing a total of $10.00. One sweater was questionable and another was partially felted. Both went into a washing machine and when pulled out, the questionable one was thrown away because of animal hair and holes. The partially felted one is now completely felted and will make a very thick pair of mittens and hat. As for the rest of the sweaters, another has been put back into a donate pile because a fiber content tag was finally located and the content is 70% wool/30% acrylic.

When thrifting for wool sweaters there are clues I watch for:
• fiber content -- which for me is 100% wool
• labels that indicate it is hand knit or hand loomed
• a close look at the seams: a serged seam will indicate the possibility the item will contain only short pieces of yarn but a seam that has been chain stitched with matching yarn will indicate that the piece was knit back and forth with no break in the yarn. If there are no seams, even better, because the piece was knit in the round. The sweater pictured below has serged seams in the arms but the body was knit in the round.

Once the sweaters are home, it is time to clean them. Even though a thrift store requests a clean item, it does not mean it is truly clean. Most people do not want to go to the time and trouble of hand washing a nice wool sweater and will send it to a dry cleaner. I believe that the cleaning solutions the dry cleaners use are deposited in the wool and will remain there until the item is washed. I make a soaking solution of 1/4 cup Oxyclean and warm water in a 5 gallon bucket, stir well to dissolve the granules completely and then stuff the sweater into the water. Using a stick, I poke the sweater under the water and gently agitate it until it is completely wet. Then it sits overnight. I sometimes have to do this 2-3 times per sweater until the water rinses clear or dye is starting to release, then I know the wool is clean. Dry the sweater flat.

Now for the fun part, but if you have a cat make sure to lock it out of the room because, remember, you are working with yarn. Carefully pick apart the seams. I usually start by removing the arms, then the collar if there is one. Most sweaters are knit from the bottom up, so you will want to look at the neck edge or the shoulder edge of the arm for the end of the yarn. Sometimes you can pick apart the knot other times just snip it with a pair of scissors. Once you find the end start winding the yarn into a ball as you unravel the sweater. This sounds easier than it is, because wool yarn will stick to itself and be a bit cantankerous to unravel. Trust me, you do not want to unravel and then try to wind into a ball because you will end up with a snarled mass of kinky yarn. Here is the brown sweater again and you can see the bits of yarn at the edges of the arm seam. The arms and the upper portion of the body will end up being felted in the washing machine because I didn't want to have ALL those ends to weave in, ugh.

You can leave the crinkled yarn in the balls and just knit from there but I go one step further. Using a swift, I wind the yarn into hanks, but if you don't have a swift some ladder backed chairs work well or, in a time honored tradition, use an extra pair of hands. Once you have the yarn wound into hanks soak it in water, put it onto a hanger and put another hanger at the bottom. Yarn has a memory and as it dries the crinkles will, for the most part, be removed. Once the yarn is dry you can rewind it into balls or cakes and knit.

One of the sweaters from this batch was made from a hand spun yarn in New Zealand which resulted in 450gr of a DK weight yarn. Now to find a proper pattern to knit up.

I have created a monster

I am still here and knitting away. I have finished one pair of tube socks and am almost finished with the house socks/slippers that will be felted to fit. Then it is on to the last pair of tube socks.

The title of this post? It refers to the fact that now SOMEONE ELSE wants a Rasta hat: the absolutely cute, darling brother-in-law of the boy who is getting the socks. He is in a band and is growing dreadlocks and wants me to make a hat for him. You can see the Rasta hat I have already made using yarn from the stash for my employer's son. His dreads are almost to his waist and really fill the hat. This new hat will have to be a bit smaller since the BIL is a new dread grower.

Update on the 4SQS5: I am now in the process of quilting it. This little quiltlet will be hard to set free. Now I know I say that for all the little ones, but it is more true for this one.

Barn Raising

Normally thought of as a setting for a log cabin quilt, this is the name for some knitted squares. A basket full of yarn balls ranging in size from a bit larger than a golf ball up to tennis ball size necessitated finding a use for the leftover sock yarn.

Self striping sock yarn results in a barn raising pattern when knit into a square. After knitting and blocking (a really good use for a June Tailor Cut 'n Press board, BTW) the resultant square is 7.5 inches square.

This afghan, which is a very long term project, will result in a visual history of all the socks I've knitted. How kewl is that?

For blocking wires I went to my local hardware store and bought some brass acetylene welding rod in the smallest diameter. It is small enough to weave in and out of this square and as an added bonus, it does not rust. I picked up four 12" long pieces for under $5.00

Gift Certificate

I won a gift certificate at Alycia's blog for suggesting an online name for her hubby (WranglerMan). The gift certificate was from Suzanne's Knots & Bolts.

The booty arrived within several days. It is a wonderful assortment of 13 fat quarters, a baker's dozen, if you will. And the yarn is one I have never tried before called ZigZag. My guys like dull colors and this will make a nice pair of socks for TheKid. There is an off chance that he will actually wear them. CarGuy wouldn't wear them, so I don't knit him any. Me, I like color and in socks the wilder they are the better I like them.

The fat quarter stack stack is eye candy that feeds my soul.

Another post on Kool Aid Dyeing

Wow! Thanks to all the people who commented on the previous post! I did forget to give you a link. Mea culpa. You can go to Knitty.com if you want to try this yourself.

About a year ago I knitted this pair of socks from some Interlacements yarn I found in the sale bin on the porch at the LYS. I now know why it was on sale. It is ugly. And. That yellow just keeps on bleeding and running every time I wash it. Ugh ugly.

So I went to the thrift store and bought a pot to use only for dyeing. I stripped a lot of the dye out of that pair of socks. Apparently the dyer started with a gray or black because I stopped before I got it all out: I wanted that touch of gray. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. Then I got out the Lemon-Lime Kool Aid, 4 packages in fact. Here's what I got:

Can you see that touch of gray?

I will most likely wear these now.

Kool Aid Dyeing

It's kind of scary to think that Kool Aid (a child's drink) can permanently dye wool. I do not know if it dyes cotton. Somebody out there has probably tried it. Anyone?

I thought I had thoroughly wet the yarn. But obviously, I had not since it 'dyed' in a mottled fashion. It should knit up nice.