All Buttoned Up

From left, me, Huan-Hua, Kalani, Leigh, Norma and Elli.

I was a little harsh on my knitting group in a few posts ago… I love them, I really do. My plan was to follow the post with one about my Sunrise Circle Cardigan (unblogged so far) and talk about how great their advice was… But I haven’t yet finished the cardigan and today we went to the Fiber Event (which sounds like geriatric hell) in Greencastle, Indiana, a few counties over from Bloomington. It was fun….

There was some animal fondling…

There was some questioning and learning…

And of course… the haul. (Don’t worry, that’s not all mine. Only the stuff on the bottom in the paper bag). We carpooled and thought we should get a shot of all the yarn. It was a lot. All the drunk kids who saw us photographing this probably thought we were photographing our collection of hard alcohol or something.

Here’s the stuff I got:

The red stuff was WAY too cheap to pass up (1.20 an ounce)… and the blue stuff to the left of it was FREE with purchase. Absurd. The two pretty skeins in the middle are Briar Rose Fibers… I LOVE her stuff. I tried to resist (I even walked away), but resistance was futile. To left, I have a few small skeins of shetland that will become some stripy fair-isle mittens. The wooden piece is another random weird thing I can have in my apartment so people can ask me “what the hell is this??” (it’s a nostepinne for making center pull balls). I bought a small bag of fiber to make some fiber-covered soap and I also bought some new dye (that I can’t normally buy from Knitpicks). Not a bad haul… particularly because I spent less than 80$. Not bad.

Anyway.  I went to this “event” two years ago and it was fun… but not nearly as much fun as it was with these fine women.  It’s nice having a group of friends who aren’t associated with my job or school.

I jinxed myself.

A few weeks ago, I bought enough of the yarn above (silk with some cotton mixed in) for a top.  I swatched on the US4s that I had with me and loved the drape.  I washed the swatch and searched and scoured for a pattern worthy of such a lovely score.

I never found anything that I liked - and I resigned myself that I’d have to design something myself.  Not difficult, but annoying and not what I wanted to do.

This past weekend my parents were in town and since I’ve accumulated a fair amount of “crap” I had to send them home with a bag of stuff so that I could bring the rest on the plane… and the easiest and quickest thing for me to send home in a bag… was my yarn stash minus the mitered blanket in progress.  Including the above since I knew that I at the very least wouldn’t have time to work up the schematics for a whole new design.

And then, today, this pattern in the exact perfect gauge becomes available.   I love it so much that I’d love to be able to start it immediately.  And yet, my yarn is now in Indiana while I remain in NY.

It figures.

I got my final secret pal package yesterday!  I was sorta expecting it, but unlike normal, I forced myself to NOT stalk the mailman this time.  What was in it:

• Some size 1 sock needles (which is good because I have like 5 sets of US 2… and only one of US 1)
• The book Home Knits by Suss Cousins - which is so full of cool stuff I want to knit for my new apartment - and for my mom   It was a perfect spoil because it’s not something I’d have bought for myself… but I totally love it!  I’m sure you’ll hear more about this book from me in the future!
• Some  yummy trail mix that had some chocolate in it…
• A sock pattern
• A cool magazine
• a gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe - where I bought me some sock blockers!!!  Something I’ve been wanting for a while!

Thank you Miss Secret pal!  (She lives here if you want to visit).

Isn’t this skein of yarn so luvrly? I’ve been working on turning it into one of my quick-and-dirty free patterns, something I’m calling the strangling vine scarf. It’s so lovely to knit and the yarn, the yarn feels so incredible through my fingers. It’s some of the softest stuff I’ve ever knit (really, the highest percentage of silk I’ve ever knit).

I bought this yarn at KnittyCity (probably my favorite shop in the city -so far).  It was my summer splurge.  It’s the seasilk that everyone has been talking about.  I let myself buy it with the stipulation that I’d finish whatever I’d make out of it soon (so that it doesn’t ferment in my stash forever).

I’m not making anything too special, just a simple airy summer scarf.  I’m calling it my Strangling Vine Scarf.  I’ll post a quick-and-dirty free pattern write up when I’m finished with it.  For now, it’s been put on the back burner (I’ll finish it for sure, I promised myself) while I finish knitting this pair of socks that I’m designing!

So I swapped some heavy cotton for this (and some other) sock yarn…. This stuff is Lorna’s Laces (not something I usually afford) -but the color… oh, the color. Soooo not my cup of tea!

So I decided to overdye it!

A good 2 glugs of vinegar, some hot water, a good bit of “Fire Red” Jaquard Acid dye and a few hours later, I have some much, much more attractive yarn (see below). I’m thinking of using it for this pattern. Because we all know how much I love Evelyn A Clark patterns!

So, I finished my fair isle socks! Hellz yea I did. I’m so proud of them too! This was trophy knitting at it’s most satisfying. I had to learn 2 stranded knitting, short row heels and I did it.

Pattern: Simple Stripes Fair Isle Socks from Knitpicks
Yarn: Knitpicks Essential in Grass and Knitpicks Simple Stripes in a color that I can’t find the name for. (Note: The pattern calls for 1 ball of the Stripes and 2 balls of the Essential. I used at least 1/4 less than one ball of the stripes and around 15 yards short of one ball of the Green)
Needles: US 2 (bamboo) for the Cuff, Heel and Toe. US 3 Brittany Birch for the stranded parts.
Size: Fits me (US 8 shoe size). The cast on is a bit tight, but by no means constricting.
Time: Began in Mid- October, finished Mid-December
Mods: I kept the patterning at one color band with as little of the next color as possible. In some cases, I shortened the chart from that of the pattern and in some cases, I legthened the repeats. With the second sock, striving for perfect symetry, I tried to keep the same number of rows in each section. This meant that if I ran out of a color early, I had to pull from the other end of the ball to finish the repeat in the same number of rows. Yea. I’m only a little anal. Also, I just kind of did my own version of a star toe. ‘Cause I felt like it.

Pattern notes: I like this pattern, but some of the charted color bands don’t look as good as the others. In particular, I feel this way about the 3×3 blocks on the foot and the last brown section before the toe.

General thoughts - I’ll probably never knit these exact pair of socks again. I will DEFINETLY knit another pair of fair isle socks though. Next time, I’ll probably chart my own or use this pattern as a skeleton and change some of the charted bands.

And like she was reading my mind, my secret pal delivered the perfect reward for such tasking knitting.  Another package!  Another one!  She’s spoiling me like crazy and I don’t deserve it!  But I love it!  Anyway, look what she sent me…

Tea (my favorite flavors!), super yummy cookies, and sock yarn (Claudia Hand Painted Yarns)!  I’m so excited about the sock yarn - and since I just finished a pair of socks, that means I get to cast on for a new pair right?  Of course that’s right!  In fact, since I didn’t just finish a sock, but a pair of socks, I should really be allowed to cast on 2 socks… but I think I’ll restrain myself.

I do still have some christmas knitting to finish.  Oh.  And finals.

Who can resist these colors? I love you secret pal!

I got a package from my Secret Pal! I was so excited to see a package slip in my mailbox the other day - but even more excited when I opened the box to see the spoils! Such great stuff… It’s some alpaca and silk yarn and both soundtracks from Grey’s Anatomy.

I’m uber excited about the CDs because I can play them on my long drives home for the holidays. And of course, the music from Grey’s Anatomy is freaking amazing.

I love the yarn too! It’s my favorite color (I always, always love greens, I don’t know why). Initially, I considered a pair of gloves - but gloves get dirty - and shine to this yarn is too precious to waste on gloves. So now I’m thinking a pretty lacy scarf. There’s just short of 300 yards, and I’m thinking the scarf seen here, but I’m open to suggstions… got one?

I think I’m really going to love this secret pal thing.  And I think I may have the best secret pal ever… Thank you secret pal!

This was set to be posted before some issues in my life have come up. I may not be posting as regularly as I was before. Eunny said it right - when it rains, it pours.

The other day, I had an idea to show how I dye yarn - being a college student and all. So what you say? I have no kitchen. No garage. Only a small dorm room and a public bathroom. Here’s how I do it.

Step 1. Get some natural yarn that you want to dye. Mine is Knitpicks Bare Merino Sock yarn. Make the skein bigger (this makes the dye easier to permeate each spot - and hopefully cuts down on pooling).

In the photo at right, you’ll see that I put my yarn on my swift and I’m winding it around 2 chairs in the middle of my room. It’s tight and I knock a few things over in this process, but I think it’s pretty important.

Step 2. Tie off the skein in lots of places. In this skein (about 8 feet in circumferance), I only tied the skein in 5 places - but you may want to do more. The way that I dye yarn has little movement or even room for movement -so I was pretty satisfied with the 5 places thing. But really, you should do what you intuitively think will work for you. Next, I like to make a chain a few loops long with my skein (think like my hand is a crochet loop) so that it’s not so long and crazy and it is less likely to dissolve into a knot. I learned this trick form a weaving class. If you have no idea what I mean when by this little trick than maybe tie the skein off in a few more places just to be safe.

Step 3. Soak the yarn in water. I use a giant mason jar of lukewarm water and a glug of vinegar/ Most dyeing-tutorials recommend that you add Dawn to the water because it makes the water “wetter,” and removes grease. Since I think water is wet enough already and the Knitpicks yarn always seems pretty clean to me - I don’t add Dawn to the mix. Intstead, I add some vinegar so that I’m already on the way to dying (vinegar sets the dye, by the way - you’ll have to add it at some point. I add it at 3 points along the way just to make sure).

Let the yarn soak for a while. If I’m impatient this means a few hours. If I’m busy and things are crazy in my life - this may be overnight. In this particular case, it was overnight.

Step 4. It’s action time. Pull out the yarn from the water and let it sit in a strainer so that it will drain lots of the liquid (but not too much). I put a microwavable casserole dish under this so that I could have an idea of how much water drained from my yarn and how much I should think about putting back in.

Hmmm. Let me explain this a bit more. Ok, so I pull out the yarn from the water and I hold it above the jar for a few moments while a lot of the water drains off. Then I let it sit in the strainer while I do some other stuff (getting ready to dye the yarn) so that more of the water drains off. In this case that amounted to about 3/4 of a cup of water. For the sake of making life easier, I rounded this to 1 cup. Remember that number - we’ll use it later.

Step 5. Prepare the surface. I layed out strips of cling wrap radiating out from the center (but not going across to the other side - there’s a whole in the middle as you see the squeeze bottle preserving). I recommend going brand name with the cling wrap - you don’t want melty plastic film adhering to your yarn. Similarly, be liberal with the wrap at this stage - you don’t want the surface under the wrap to be dyed - and you don’t want your yarn to turn to a soupy mess either.

Also, you want to make a pot of hot water at some point. I use my 10$ coffee maker (hotplates aren’t allowed in the dorms).

Step 6 - Prepare your dye solutions.

I only use acid dyes right now. Real ones, not drink mixes (no hate here - just a bad experience). This particular skein was dyed using Jaquard dyes. In each glass jar (old baby-food jars), I put 1/4 of a teaspoon of dye, a bit of vinegar and 1/3 cup of hot water. The colors I used were Vermillion, Pink, and Salmon (with 1/8 t vermillion added for fun). Mix the dyes.  - NOTE - 1/3 cup times the three dye pots equals the one cup of liquid that came out of the yarn in step 4.  This ensures that we have enough dye to go around without getting a dripping wet mess either (or wasting dye).

The brown spray bottle in this photo is filled with vinegar for acidizing-part-3 (I told you I go a bit crazy with the vin).

Next up - Layout the skein (I’m only doing one skein here.  But doing more than one is totally possible depending on your table size). Try to have as few twists and folds as possible. This makes it easier to tell if the dye has fully saturated the part that your dying. This is also a benefit of making the skein longer and skinnier. Also at this time it is a good idea to make sure that your yarn doesn’t come to close to the end of the table/your surface area. I ruined a good pair of pants when some dye when awry.

Step 7. This is the fun step. You get to paint your skein! I’ve used the pour method (not a lot of control here), the squirt bottle method (still not as much control as I wanted - also I had a tendency to use a LOT of dye and a LOT of liquid) and I’ve finally settled on using these sponge paintbrushes that I picked up at Michael’s for 20 for 1$.

Use all of one color before you move on to the next - this ensures that you use the right amount of dye and that you don’t accident try to make a purple darker by adding a green (they can both look black or very dark in color at this stage).

Oh, this is also a good point to tell you that you should be wearing gloves at this stage.

After you have all the dye where you want it (and, inevitably, some where you didn’t want it), spray the thing down with vinegar. This always makes my fingers hurt, I spray the yarn so much. In fact, look in this photo here - and you can even see the vinegar clinging to the yarn fibers. It’s like a morning dew on a spring morning.

Next up - Take each one of those sheets of cling wrap and fold it in making a giant doughnut. This is much easier if you start with the last sheet that you layed down (the one on top) and work your way around.

After you’ve wrapped up the doughnut, you should be able to tell where the cling wrap has less layers than at other areas. Reinforce with more cling wrap. You can see where I re-inforced in the bottom left corner of this photo.

Once your this far, scrunch it up by pushing it in toward the middle - try not to force some sections to go on top of others - you want the yarn to be as level and as low as possible (so the dye-liquid doesn’t drain to a lower spot and muddy it).

Put the scrunched yarn and cling wrap doughnut in a microwave safe container, again, being careful to keep the yarn level.

Step 8 - Heat it up.

There are different ways of doing this but this is how I do it.

First, 4 minutes of cook time. Then a rest.

4 more minutes of cook time. Another rest.

Finally 2 minutes of cook time.

Now let the yarn rest for a long time. A few hours would be ideal - a few minutes a little less than ideal. When your patience and excitement get the better of you, prepare to rinse.

I do this in the bathroom that 23 girls share. I’ve gotten some interesting looks. Anyway, I use a colander so that I don’t have to hold my yarn the whole time I’m rinsing (especially important if I was impatient and the yarn was still steaming) - and so that toothpaste doesn’t get added to the mix.

The photo above shows the yarn before I rinsed it and after I removed it from the plastic wrap (obviously).

Next up, rinse. If your yarn is hot, start rinsing with hot water (a dramatic temperature change could felt the yarn) and gradually get cooler. If your yarn is cool,use lukewarm water. Try not to move your yarn too much (no swishing) - just squeeze and turn the skein over, repeating until the water under the colander runs clear.

You can see at the left here how the colors will lighten quite dramatically in some cases. Don’t worry too much about light spots or places where it’s almost black. It’s called variegation. Hand-painting. Nothing’s perfect. And in knitted items, it’ll add character and depth.

Let the yarn dry for a while. How long is a while? Squeeze the skein really, really hard - if you feel moisture or any temperature difference, give it more time.

Then, re-skein the yarn into something more manageable. I put mine back over the chair backs and took my niddy noddy to make the yarn look like the beautiful skein you see above.

Admire your handiwork and forget any imperfections (while remembering them just enough to change the process next time.)

And that is how a college student dyes yarn.

Every once in awhile, I find a yarn that I LOVE. I stock up on it so that I can make many projects with it. This post is about one such yarn.

I love Nature Wool from Araucania. It’s listed as worsted weight, but I don’t make sweaters from it. I don’t make hats from it.

I love, love making socks from it. On size 3 needles (it really is more of a thin worsted).

Now, they don’t make soft socks (this yarn isn’t Merino afterall), they make hiking socks. Rugged socks. Socks that with the sweat and friction of moving will felt to the shape of your foot (but aren’t itchy).

It started by me buying a few skeins in an amazingly warm brown to knit my boyfriend a pair that he could wear when he goes hunting (that pair has since been stalled for suspected “curse” activity) and I had been completely struck by how perfect it was for a manly pair of socks. The thickness is perfect and the kettle-dyed effect is awesome. It doesn’t pool at all! I love it!

So, of course I had to buy enough for a pair for my dad (in an olive green - I didn’t photo that because it’s still quarantined because of the summer of mold).

But then, when I heard that it was on closeout at Webs, I feared that it was being discontinued (anyone know the answer to this?) and so I had to buy enough to knit myself 2 pairs. You can see the colors I chose above. It was kind of difficult to pick colors from a computer square less than an inch big, but I think it turned out just fine. I’m happy with the colors.  There’s a great denim color and a warm autumn orange (not a color I usually do).

I do hope it hasn’t been discontinued.  The enviromentalist - wannabe in me wants the opportunity to knit many socks in this yarn.

Knitpicks now carries Jaquard dyes. I bought some. This is what I did. I love it. Probably my best dye job yet. I feel the strong urge to dye LOTS of yarn. But then I’d have to sell it in order to keep my stash even a smidge manageable.