shawl

Still trucking along on the shawl. I am only getting a bit of time on it during my commute to/from work and a tiny bit in the evenings before I pass out.

The pattern has been memorized. After a few repeats, it's really easy to get into the flow of it, and just knit away. It looks a bit on the small side, but I think it'll block out to a good size. I hope.

return of the Arggh Lace Monster

I cast on for the Woodland Shawl. I read the directions too literally, as the first few rows are kind of vague. She says "begin pattern" so I took that to mean "row 1 of pattern" instead of the pattern set-up row. Confusion! I almost threw it out the window and started crying because I couldn't figure out why everyone kept saying "omg this is so easy!" and I was having such a hard time. Duh.

After I realized my mistake, I frogged back a few rows to the edging. Now it's coming along very well. It's pretty fluid since the repeats aren't insane and the stitches are easy. Hopefully I can speed through this!

I am using 2 skeins of discontinued KnitPicks Memories to do this. My yarn is only about 440 yards, while the pattern uses 460. Hopefully this won't make a substantially shorter wrap. I have messaged someone on ravelry who has some extra skeins up for sale, so hopefully I'll hear back about that... just in case. I plan on wet blocking it too, so maybe I can get some stretch out of it when it's all done.

Kool-aided yarn

I went with 5 packs of Cherry, 1 pack of Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade, and 3 packs of Grape. I added them to a nearly-full 4-quart pot on my stove in room temperature water. Meanwhile, I soaked the wool (4 oz hank) in the bathroom sink for about 20 minutes. Then I added it to the fruit-stravaganza mixture. I squished the yarn to help get it integrated into the dye. (My hands smell like candy, and they're a bit stained... should have worn gloves. Oops.)



I put the heat on low for about 20-25 minutes. I could see that the dye was being exhausted before the water even hit 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The water went from very dark and nearly opaque to a translucent/slightly cloudy color at the bottom of the pot. Once it looked almost completely exhausted, I turned up the heat for a few minutes, put the lid on, then turned off the gas. I let it cool on the stove until it was lukewarm, then I rinsed the dye out in the bathroom sink.

The color is similar to a burgundy-blue colorway I bought on ebay. I wasn't 100% of what to expected from the colors I chose. I think I added too much grape which made it a bit dark & muddy. But overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Now that I know how easy this is to do, I have a few skeins of undyed sock and lace yarn I've been thinking of dyeing. But I think I'll need to hit up the grocery store for more Kool-aid (or possibly food coloring) first.

Here's the dried yarn. The color lightened a bit once it wasn't sopping wet. It has a nice burgundy-brown-blue thing with a few purple & mauve sections. I actually like the results much more than I thought I would!


Meanwhile, I'm casting on for the Woodland Shawl. I am making these for a friend's birthday present (I offered her to make something, but she didn't seem to mind if it was knit, jewerly, or whatever else, so I decided to knit). I keep having frustration with lace, but this one seems to be a little less daunting than the others. Fingers crossed!

Experiments with kool-aid

I just received my January yarn from Elliebelly. It is the first time I have gotten a colorway that I don't really like. It's blue-white-yellow-pink-brown. Not very me. Rather than trade it, I am going to try to overdye it using Kool-aid. (There's a good tutorial here, and a good site with color swatches here).

The yarn is a merino wool/seacell blend, so I am not sure how well the color will take (I've never dyed seacell before...), but it should change the color enough for my purposes.

I have a bunch of packets to choose from. I am thinking of just overdying it with a bright red (Cherry), a bright orangey-red (Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade), or a combination of a red & purple to get a red-violet color (Cherry + Grape). I'm leaning toward the latter because I think it'll add a nice tone to the existing colors in the yarn.

Updates to come!

IDIOT

I am almost done with the Stulpen gloves. Except that I just realized I did the increases incorrectly for the thumb gussets, so I'm going to have to rip out the last 2-3 inches of work and start that all over again. HAHAHAHA. I've already redone the cable once already, and now I have to start it all over again!

Well, at least I learned how to read the cable chart without having to refer to the key. And I found out how to do the cable so that they are mirror images. But, I think I will put these on the back burner for a while and knit something else for a while. I will also make sure that I read the directions carefully! Maybe I'll even finish them before winter ends. But then again, my hands are always freezing, so whatever.

I subscribed to a few sock clubs. I did the Blue Moon sock club. I love their raven series, so that was enough to sway me to try a subscription. Some of the designers this year look amazing too. It was expensive, but I used some of my Christmas money for it.

I also (re)joined the Elliebelly sock club. Her colorways are nice, and she's one of the more affordable clubs. This one is only 3 months, though, so that's also a plus for saving money and not ending up with 34098 skeins of unused yarn. I'm also doing the Neighborhood Fiber Co. sock club (a 6-month subscription over one year), but the yarn is now a month delayed—I still haven't gotten December's yarn (woe is me).

Maybe I should be knitting socks...

big hole

I haven't posted in ages. I haven't really done much to warrant posting, I suppose. My hand-knit goods last Christmas did not go over so well I guess--I never saw anyone wearing any of the things I made, so I think that put me off knitting for a while. Looking at my finished projects, I noticed the only things I've made for myself in 2 years included an acrylic-wool blend sweater, and a mop head. Gee, thanks to me!

In addition to that, it has been a really bad year. I won't go into detail, but let's just leave it at "one of the worst years of my life." I tried to keep myself busy: this year I took two figure drawing classes, a painting class, a metalsmithing class, and a bellydancing class. I didn't really do much artistically or creatively outside the classroom, though. I was too down to do much at all.

I am now back to knitting, finally, and I am knitting for myself. Well, mostly. I decided to use up a bunch of yarn someone gave me. Almost all of it was mismatched half-skeins, consisting of scratchy old acrylic. There wasn't a substantial amount of any one color to make anything significant--and it isn't suitable for clothing. I had been promising my cats a project, so I used about 3 of those half-skeins and made this catbed for my two cats. The pattern was super easy, but I do think it was a bit on the small side. If I do it again, I'd either use bigger needles or heavier yarn, and add a few stitches to the diameter.

I suppose if I use anymore of that yarn, it'll end up being transformed in to another cat bed and/or a bunch of cat toys.

Back to me, I'd enrolled into a few sock yarn clubs over the last year, along with purchasing a few skeins of inexpensive wool fingering yarn on ebay last winter, but I never got around to making anything with it. I don't want to be one of those people who stockpile yarn for no purpose. I have enough clutter as it is!

I have started a pair of fingerless gloves. My hands are always cold-to-the-point-of-numbness, since my cublicle at work is always freezing, and my computer at home is next to a drafty window. Figures that once I start knitting these, the temperature skyrockets to 70 degrees F in DECEMBER! Well, no doubt it will get freezing cold again, so these will definitely come in handy.

The pattern is easy, but tiny knitting takes a lot more time than doing it with big, fat needles. I am knitting them both at the same time on two circulars. That is probably why it seems to be taking longer than it should, but it guarantees me that I make them the same length and start everything in the exact same row on each glove. The cables are slowing me down a bit too, but they are not crazy-difficult. I will have to frog back a few rows, unfortunately. I tried to mirror the cable pattern on the left glove, but I don't know enough about cable construction, and messed it up royally. Good thing it's only a few rows. I'd cry if it were more.

For these, I am using some sock-weight yarn that I got on ebay for cheap (800 yards for $9 or so). It's probably not machine-washable, but I don't think gloves would a) get washed all that often, or b) be a pain to hand-wash.

My next project will most likely to be socks--to use up the vast amounts of sock yarn I've accumulated in the last year. But first, I finish these. No more UFOs.

@#%@ing lace

I am working on the Luna Moth shawl right now. It's not a difficult pattern, but not something you can sit & do mindlessly. I have only gotten about 40 rows in. I sit and do about 5 rows, and end up having to frog about 3 back. Somehow there ends up being an extra stitch or one too few every few rows.

This is a great way to make me feel like an idiot. I really want to finish this one, and I really do like the pattern, I'm just not really in the frame of mind to work on something so intricate. Not to mention this isn't exactly commuter-friendly. Having to refer to a chart every few stitches on a crowded subway train is an exercise in frustration.

Grah. F'ing lace. I think I'll save this one for weeknights, and switch to something more stockinette-heavy for to/from work. Now to narrow down the choices... Most of the other projects in my queue involve either a lot of charts and/or cables. I think I might just try out the 1930's sweater. It seems pretty uncomplicated enough for me to get through without crying. ;) I think I even have some stash yarn, so I won't have to order anything special to get it started.

On the less grumbly side, I blocked the entrelac scarf, and was really happy with the finished product. I ended up using pretty much all three skeins of the Silk Garden. If I do this one again, I'll probably skip one of the middle blocks to create a longer & more narrow scarf.

I finally inviested in a swift. I had something like 10 hanks of sock yarn. I tried to wind them into center-pull balls to knit from, but the two I tried to do by hand ended up in horrific tangles that took me three days to undo. I did the other 8-10 balls with the swift in less than a half hour. LOVE. I foresee a few sock patterns in my very near future.