The Hardest Thing is Sometimes Saying Goodbye

As pour myself into all things FIBRE ARTS, I've got this crazy idea that the hobby at some point has got to pay for itself.

My latest venture is into hand dyeing and painting (see previous posts).  As my summer is full of being a Mum and lots of time at the soccer pitch, I had to pass on my crazy idea of going to our local farmer's market to sell my wares, so, as I build up the nerve to open an etsy shop, I've created a small Facebook page to showcase (and try to sell) some of my crafts. There hasn't been too much activity there (mostly a few sales to friends and a custom Grumpy Cat ornament or two), but I see it as a good place to build up my confidence to start to turn this into a very modest money making venture.  That and a way to decrease my stash and make my husband stop raising his eyebrow at me when I talk about needing more yarn!

Today, I sold 2 of my favourite fingerling yarns: Crumpled Rainbow (above) and Stormy Lagoon (below).  A friend is buying them, To knit socks.  The perfect use for them.  But as happy as I am with my success, I'm finding it so tough to let them go. The colours are truly gorgeous.

 I was almost hoping that there wouldn't be interest so that I could make my own creations with these beauties.  I have the same problem when it comes to knitting projects: I grow attached.   After all the hours and care and attention invested in a project, it really is hard to say goodbye.  I'm such a tactile person that I need to be able to get my hands on something to truly appreciate it. I can't get the same satisfaction from a photo (or worse, seeing it on someone else!)  I guess with these beauties, I'll just have to find solace in the fact that I can visit the yarn and contribute to it's final form with needle and pattern suggestions. I know that my babies are in good hands.


Oh, and here's the custom Grumpy Cat (just for fun)

Sometimes Our Failures Are Our Successes.

I'm a little obsessed with playing with colour right now.  I'm so excited with how the colours in the wool I'm dyeing blend together or fight one another in the skein.

One particularly happy project is my new table runner.  I wove it using Wool-Ease Sportweight dyed in pink, purple, blue, and green. The yarn is only 20% wool, so the result was very faint and uneven, (much like a kettle dyed wool).

 The final project was a lovely surprise. Before starting to weave on my Cricket, the colours looked quite distinct, but together they blend together so well.

I had thought that the dyes had been failures, but together the blend of the weft and weave is subtle, but really pretty; it almost makes me want to make more mistakes when dyeing.

Works in Progress (WIP) - Week 3

I'm really over due on my WIP, but with the start of summer break and all of the hand dyeing I've been doing recently, I've been a little negligent to both the blog and my knitting projects.

But here goes:

Current Project #1: The 7 Year Sweater
Although I haven't picked up the sweater in about a month, I'm now at the point where I'm ready to section off the stitches for the arms.  But somewhere along the way, I've missed a stitch.  1 stitch out of over 300 to account for.  I've put things aside until I want to sit down and sort out if the stitch was dropped or just never added in the first place.  My husband has waited over 7 years for this sweater, so what's a few more months?  I am pleased, however, with the stripes I'm adding in lieu of the snowflake pattern in the original design.

Current Project #2: Hand Dyed Socks

This one is really a half-finished object.  And considering I've already worn it to bed one cool night to keep my tootsies warm, I'd hardly call it a work in progress.  But I have cast on the second sock using Knitty's Solidago Sock pattern, so that is a start.   The Briggs and Little Sport wool knitted up quite nicely, although I am concerned that the single ply may not last through normal wear and tear.  I'll keep these as bed socks when done.

Current Project #3: New Wrap

 As it's summer, I'm now spending 4 nights a week at the soccer pitch to watch my boys play or practice and I needed something fairly simple to knit up, without referencing a pattern.  I've already started and frogged 2 projects  with this wool, but I'm excited to be designing a wrap with it that will show off the lovely colour variations from the dyeing process.  I can't wait to finish this piece and share the pattern.




Current Project #4: Rainy Day Shawl

Finally, I've been working with some of my handspun incorporating it into the Sunday Sunrise Shawl.  My colours aren't as cheery as the original, hence the name for the project.  The blue is a gorgeous silk-merino blend by Louet plied with a Noro lace-weight yarn.  The multi-coloured is a combination of a rainbow coloured merino and grey faulkland roving.  I've been itching to combine the 2 skeins for quite a while, but until recently, had not found an appropriate project.  I'll follow the pattern, but if I have a lot of yarn left over, I'll add a more decorative  edge. I'm most excited about this one!

Umm... What happened to June?

They say that time flies when you're having fun, but it seems to soar when you've got 2 kids in soccer and it's the last month of June!

I had a look at my blog the other night to discover that I haven't made an update since May 20th.  So much for staying on top of things.  At least I've been busy, not only wrapping up the school year and my busy volunteer schedule there, and spending 4 nights a week toting the boys to and from the soccer pitch for practices and games, but also with some knitting, spinning, and plenty of dye experimentation.

Now, unfortunately, I haven't completely documented the dyeing process as much as I had initially planned (I got WAY too excited about doing it), but I do have a few records here and there of my efforts.

In early June I thought I'd haul out my giant pickle jar and attempt to dye some wool with coffee beans in the sun. The heat from the sun is supposed to release the colour from the beans into the water to dye the yarn and the tannin in coffee is supposed to be a natural mordant.  To help things along, I made liquid portion of the project 1 part vinegar to 3.5 parts warm water.  I added about 1 1/2 cups of whole beans to my pre-soaked wool (1 skein of Briggs & Little Regal), covered the jar with a thick plastic shipping bag, and let it sit on the deck for a day in the sun.

Upon inspection on day 2, I wasn't happy with how the colour was saturating the wool (see above photo), so I brewed a pot of strong coffee, let it cool, and added that to the jar.  The wool didn't seem to pick up too much more of the colour, but after a few more days on the deck, I steamed it in the microwave as I do to set my food colouring dyes, rinsed it, cleaned it and I'm pretty happy with the final result.  It's not as dark as I had anticipated, but it's a lovely café au lait colour.

I'll try this again, but next time I'll do it on the stove top and go straight to the brewed coffee.  I've read that a pot of coffee run through the machine twice will yield an extra strong result, and, I hope, it will also yield an extra strong dye.

Weekly WIP - Week 2

Okay.  I'll admit it. It's all a lie.  I can hardly call this a weekly WIP as I've missed 2 weeks, but it makes a great title.

I've been so busy the last 2 weeks volunteering at my boys' school, getting the garden ready and hand-dyeing that I haven't been keeping up with my knitting.  I've also crocheted a bunch of little flowers (left) and made some costume jewellery.  I've accomplished a fair bit, but my knitting projects are pretty much where they were 2 weeks ago.

I did, however, cast on a pair of socks last night using my recently dyed Briggs and Little Sport that I dyed with food colouring.  It's a single ply wool yarn and the colour is delicious.

I'm knitting a basic top-down sock (based on the  Solidago pattern on Knitty.com) and it is knitting up quite nicely so far.  I love how the colours are already starting to pool in just the right way.  Hopefully, I'll be done at least one more for next week's WIP.

Adventures in Dyeing - Part 3

It's a gorgeous summer afternoon (for a Victoria Day) and rather than do myself in under the hot, hot sun gardening, I decided to do a little more dyeing.

I hope that this is a better documentation than  in Adventures in Dyeing Part 2.  I hope to be able to eventually find the technique that works best for me.  I'm not sold on this one; I hand-painted the yarn this time using squeeze bottles and the Wilton Dyes.

1. Prep the Yarn

I pre-soaked (or wetted) the yarn in a solution that's 1:3 vinegar:water for an hour or so.  Then after wringing it gently, I laid it out on a plastic sheet (garbage bag). Today I used 2 skeins of Knit Picks Bare Wool Bulky (top image), a skein of Briggs & Little Sport Natural, and a skein of Briggs & Little Heritage Sheeps Grey (image below, top and bottom).

2. Prep the dyes

The great thing about using the squeeze bottles is that they are marked with measurements. The bottles take 8oz of liquid, so I filled each to 2 1/2oz vinegar, then added about 1/2tsp of the Wilton gel and stirred to start to dissolve it. (This was not 100% successful, not all of the gel dissolved in the vinegar and some still came out in globs. Next time, I'll dissolve the gel in warm water and then add the vinegar).  I then filled the bottle with water, screwed on the lid and shook to mix the dye. Note: squeeze bottles from the Dollarama don't seal too well, so dye leaked out.  I'll have to pick up a better set.

3. Paint the yarn

Using the squeeze bottles, I painted stripes on the yarn, overlapping colours where I saw fit.  

For the bulky, I painted one end with Red Red, and the other with Lemon Yellow.  I blended the 2 in the middle by overlapping the colours, but with a slightly watered down red.

The Sport (top) and Heritage (bottom) both have a combination of the Lemon Yellow, Sky Blue and Black.  The really cool thing about the Black dye is that it's not black at all.  Even as the dye hits the wool, both purple and green are evident!

4. Blend the Dye

To blend the colours into all strands of the yarn, I gently squeezed the yarn, making the painted stripes blend together, softening the effect.

5. Set the dye

I carefully lifted the skeins and gently wrung them out before placing the yarn (lightest side up) into Pyrex bowls for steaming in the microwave.  Unfortunately, I wasn't as careful as I thought and some of the green pooled on the plastic, affecting the yellow of the bulky yarn.

To steam, I microwaved each bowl of yarn on high for 2 minutes, then let them rest for 2 minutes and repeated this a total of 3 times until he water ran clear when the yarn was lifted out of the bowl.  (When you do this, don't forget to put a plate or loose fitting lid on top to trap the steam, while still letting some escape.)

6. Finish the yarn

Once the colour is set, I let the skeins cool down on the deck in their bowls. To finish things off, I rinsed the yarn under lukewarm water and then soaked it for about 10 minutes in Soak.  A quick wringing and spin in the salad spinner and it was ready to hang to dry on the deck.

I'm pretty pleased with how the yellow/blue/black dye combos worked out.  I expected to get a purple and green result from the black dye, but didn't expect that the blue would disappear into it and the yellow to result in so much green.  

As for the red/yellow, I expected a little more red or orange from the dye and a lot less pink.  The blend between the 2 colours was mostly successful, but I'm not keen on the orangey-pink colour in the final product.  I think I will either over dye the whole thing in yellow or a different shade of red. The fun is in the experimentation and the unexpected results.  The accidental pooling of green that crept onto the yellow/red actually had a nice result, adding a little more interest to the boring old orangey-pink!

Adventures in Dyeing Part 2

The sun is shining, the birds are singing and after a few miserable weather days, Spring is back!

Today, I thought would be the perfect day for some dyeing; this time with Wilton Food Colouring gel and more of the Knit Picks Bare Wool (this time in fingerling weight). I also tossed in some Wool-Ease, just to see how it would take the dye with only 10% wool.

Unfortunately, I didn't document the process (photos and measurements) as much as I did with the turmeric dye a few weeks ago, but I've made good progress today and I at least have something to show for my efforts.

I first tried dyeing with Wilton a few summers ago when I was dyeing with Kool-Aid.  I had more yarn than drink crystals, so I dyed my last 2 hanks with some  Delphinium Wilton colouring and a little vinegar as the acid to set the colour.  The result was surprisingly good.  I had honestly not expected to see a decent result as I hadn't done any research on using food colouring to dye yet. I actually preferred the final product to the It's amazing how sometimes the offshoot of your main project can wield better results!


Fast forward 2 years, a bit more research, and a lot more ambition.

As intriguing the concept of using Kool-Aid as a dye is, it has it's limitations (and for me, I'll be honest, a wee bit of a gross out factor).  I've read a number of blog entries and articles that I've found via Pinterest (here's my Handspun and Dyed board) and I've poured through my copy of Gail Callahan's Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece many times to understand the fundamentals of dyeing yarn (so I guess I won't be using the leftover tie-dye kit dyes on wool after all).  I believe that I have a grasp of what I need to do, now the fun part will be to see if it fits with what I want to do!

And here is what I wanted to do: create 2 hanks of yarn with yellow blending into blue.  The yellow and sky blue are a lovely complement to one another.

After "wetting" the yarn  in a water/diluted vinegar bath, I laid the hanks out side by side on a plastic garbage bag.  I mixed about 1/2tsp of the yellow colouring gel into about 1 1/2C water and 1/2C vinegar and did the same with about 1/4tsp of blue.  I poured the yellow slowly over the top third of the hanks, gently squeezing as I went to saturate the fibres. I then did the same thing with the ble at the opposite end of the hanks.  I then gently squeezed the hanks from the outside in to blend the blue and yellow together in the centre as green.  I did the same with the left over dyes to my experimental sample of the Wool-Ease sportweight (as you can see below).

Following the formula of 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off repeated, I steamed the yarn in the microwave (yay for food safe colouring!)  And now I'm just waiting for the yarn to cool down to room temperature so that I don't shock it when I rinse it.  So far I'm pretty happy with the results.  The dye bath has run clear and the colours are gorgeous.

This project seemed like a cake walk compared to the turmeric/beet dye.  I can't wait to try another technique soon.  I'm thinking dip dyeing.  Stay tuned....

... And here is the result:  after a rinse and wash with Soak, it's so beautiful.

Ruminations on Mother's Day - A Non-knitting post.

Here in North America, today is Mother's Day.  It's not a day I look forward to.  At least not in recent history.

This is my second Mother's Day without my own Mum in my life.  A day when I feel sad, lonely, empty inside, and, more than any of all this, guilty.  Guilty for not being the daughter I should have been.  For taking for granted her unconditional love and forgiveness for my oh so many faults.  Today  I'm reminded of my failings as a daughter and as a mother and wife, too.  I feel guilty for being envious of the husbands and children who make a big deal out of spoiling their Mums every second Sunday in May.  Jealous of those who get more than breakfast and a lie-in after a week of reminding them that the dreaded Sunday is nigh.  And the guilt of realizing that once I was a mother myself, that Mum only got a call from me on the day, followed by a gift on an upcoming visit (a product of living 5hrs away, but still...), and that is probably just as bad.

So when everyone I know is posting "Happy Mother's Day" on Facebook or showing off their fancy brunches,  or neat little trinkets, I will make no post or share today. I simply change my Profile pic to one of me and my boys hours after my second, Alec was born.  It reminds me that I'm doing a decent job with them on a daily basis and it takes the pressure off the day.

So instead of focusing on May 10th this year, I'm looking at last week as Mum Week.  I dedicate myself to volunteering at my boys' school weekly, but for 2 weeks a year, once in the Fall and again in the Spring, always the week leading up to Mother's Day, I am at the school daily, organizing and running our Book Fair.  I'm also baking and potting plants for our annual Plant and Bake Sale. To me, this is my celebration of being a Mum more so than Mother's Day; it's what being a Mum means to me.  Giving of my time to my sons' school, especially knowing that they are proud to see me there, really makes me feel like a Mum - I wouldn't be there if I wasn't.  I'll admit that I love to hear the other boys and girls call me Alec's or Philip's Mom.  It gives my life importance and meaning.  Being their Mum is who I am, not just one day a year, but on a daily basis.

As I write this, I'm looking at this special photo.  It's not posed, it's natural.  And it's beautiful.  It's the moment when my capacity for love and dedication doubled.  Doubled in ways I would have never believed possible before having a family of my own.  A mother's unconditional love.  I have it for my boys (despite their efforts to drive me crazy with their constant bickering) and I truly hope and mostly believe that my Mum had for me and my sisters (despite all of our constant bickering.)  At least that gives me some solace on this sad Sunday in May.

Note:  My Mum gave me my love of creating crafty things and knitting, in which I find great solace.  I treasure my memories of my Mum coming on field trips with me (especially to the Toronto Zoo in Grade 3) and one of my 'jobs' at the school is to help with the Knitting Club.  

FO Friday - I was in need of a quickie...

I was staring at my "needs to be sorted" stash last night and felt the need for some instant (almost) gratification.  My family's been going through a bit of a stressful period lately, and despite the good work that I'm doing with my WIPs, I really needed a quick fix of a completed project.

So I pulled out the 2 hanks of Katia Iceberg that I picked up at a warehouse sale 2 months ago and set to work on a big chunky cowl. I always find it fun to use my 'comically oversized' needles and they were the perfect fit for this project.   I improvised the pattern (the kind of knitting that I find most relaxing) and here it is (albeit in a really, really rough format)!

Kirsty's Relaxin' Chillaxin' Mobius Wrap

Yarn: Katia Iceberg (or a similar Super Bulky Yarn), 2 hanks (200g/66m)

Needles: 19mm/US35

Gauge is not important for this pattern.  Have fun with it!

Abbreviations:
Sl1K: Slip 1 stitch knitwise
YO: Yarn over
sl1 k1 psso: slip1 knitwise, knit1, pass the slipped stitch over
k2tog: knit 2 stitches together

Pattern:
Loosely cast on 16 stitches.

Row 1: sl1k, [YO, sl1 k1 psso] to last stitch, K1
Row2:  sl1k, [YO, k2tog] to last stitch, K1

Repeat these 2 rows until you've only got enough yarn left for one more row to bind off leaving a long tail.  Around about 50 rows.

Bind off loosely.

Block the piece as a flat rectangle.  Once dry, giving the  piece a single twist, sew the ends together using a mattress stitch.

That's it.  Easy-peasy lemon squeezy!

Weekly WIP(s) - Week 1

I always seem to have multiple projects on the go, but rarely do I document it.  When friends ask how long it took to create something, I usually hum and hah before making a very non-committal answer.

That being said, I really enjoyed documenting my dyeing experience on the weekend, and even though I may be the only one reading and re-reading my blog entries, I'm going to start to measure my progress a couple of current projects (mostly of the knit variety) here.

Current Project #1: The 7 Year Sweater
I could probably create an entire separate blog just for this sweater!  When I picked up knitting 11 or so years ago, I promised to (one day) knit a sweater for my husband, once I felt more comfortable with my skill set.  I had knit him a sweater before we were married, but something happened with the neck hole and, well, we nicknamed it 'El Grosso'.  (Hey, you never know, the off the shoulder look may come back into style!) So, after 2 babies and many, many baby sweaters to hone my craft, I decided it was time to knit a man-sized sweater.  Yarn was purchased, a pattern was picked out and stitches were cast on.

But they were all wrong for each other.

Two years later, I purchased the Patons Men pattern book with the intention of knitting the Top Down Fair Isle pullover minus the fair isle, but I couldn't wrap my head around the wrap technique and after 3 attempts gave up.  I convinced my husband that a Guernsey would be a better choice.

The Guernsey pattern was easier, but boring.  I dropped that one after 12 inches of the back was complete.

After another year, I decided that despite my husband's protestations, that a cable knit sweater would be the best thing to keep me interested in knitting the darn thing.  The albatross of sweaters!    But with the complex pattern not something that I could easily take with me to the soccer field or on long car rides, it was tucked away and forgotten.

So, finally, the guilt of so many birthdays and Christmases without a sweater wrapped up for the love of my life,  I cast on the Top Down Fair Isle again about 2 weeks ago.  I've made several projects with wraps and short rows in the years since I last attempted this sweater, and get past them this time around as a breeze.  The sweater is coming along quite nicely.  I've only got about  rows to go until  I can start to separate the sleeves and the body.  I'm adding stripes instead of the snowflake pattern and  the seamless, in-the-round pattern will be a perfect project to bring along with me to a Spring and Summer full of soccer.

Current Project #2: The Lonely Tree

Loving my newly dyed worsted, I sought out a shawl pattern last night and came across the Lonely Tree Shawl on Ravelry.  I cast on last night and have already finished Chart A of the pattern and I just love, love love it! The leaf pattern is showing off the delicate variations in my hand dyed yarn so nicely.

Current Project #3: Entrelac Bag

I love the look of entrelac and it's been years since I've worked anything in this basket-weave effect in the past (I've made a cushion cover and a little purse),  but I've never felted entrelac, which is the aim of this project.  I'm working with Patons Classic Worsted Wool and I've completed the first two tiers.

Adventures in Dyeing - Part 1

Two summers ago, I had some success dyeing wool with Kool-Aid and Wilton food colouring.  I wasn't too impressed with the results from the Kool-Aid (and BTW I will NEVER let my kids drink that dye source ever again), but the results from the Wilton gel dye were pretty impressive.  I needed to use quite a lot of the drink mix to get an intense colour and I just could not stand the fake, fruity smell.

Grape/Lime Kool-Aid

Grape/Strawberry Kool-Aid

Wilton Blue/Purple gel dye

I've been pretty fascinated with the concept of dyeing my own fibre ever since, but have been a nervous about experimenting with the process beyond popping a bowl of dye and yarn in the microwave.

I've finally built up the nerve to start experimenting with colour and have stockpiled about a dozen or so hanks of bare wool from Knit Picks.  My initial plan was to dye the yarn in the heat of the summer in the back yard using a variety of colour sources: plants, veggies from the garden, food colouring, and eventually commercially prepared dyes.   But we've had a really long winter here in Eastern Ontario and with the temperature hovering about 4 degrees above 0C today, the warm, sunny days of summer seem really far off and, well, I can be a pretty impatient person when it comes to wanting to try something (especially when it comes to crafting!)

So, today, I am trying my hand at dyeing some yarn with beets and tumeric, hoping for a peachy colour when all is said and done.  The beets should provide a pink base and the tumeric will (hopefully) add a tinge of gentle orangey-yellow.  As I said, I like to experiment.

I took a 2lb bag of beets, removed the root base and quartered them.  I covered them with just enough water and brought the stainless steel pot to a rolling boil.  They are presently simmering away on the stove in a stainless steel pot with about 1Tbsp of tumeric.  The smell is so earthy and much more bearable than the Kool-Aid.  I'll need to let that simmer away for a while before straining and adding the wool.  In the meanwhile, I'm going to soak the wool for a couple of hours (and decide which weight to use).  The wool needs to be completely wet and saturated before it can take the dye.

Later...

Using Earth Guild's general rules for mordanting as a guideline, I prepared an alum and cream of tartar mordant for the wool. I decided that I would use 2 hanks of Bare Wool of the Andes Worsted Weight from KnitPicks, and soaked them in water ("wetting" the wool).

As the guideline on Earth Guild's website is for dyeing 1lb of wool, I adjusted the mordant recipe as follows.

Earth Guild:  16oz fibre (dry) : 3oz alum : 1 oz cream of tartar

Me:  200g fibre : 37.5g alum : 12.5g cream of tartar

(At this point I was grateful for my mad math skills and my digital scale.)

After removing the beets from the pot, I added the mordant and stirred to dissolve it.  I then allowed the pot to cool down to room temperature as not to shock the wool (I do not want felted fibre!)  

I also dipped a square of paper towel into the dyepot to test the colour.  Pinky-orange as expected.

The wetted wool was added and the pot was then brought back up to a simmer.  My intention was to allow it to simmer for an hour, but life and chores got in the way and I left it for about 1h20m.  No harm, no foul, right?

The dyepot was then removed from the heat source and I put a lid on it.  The colour at this point was more pinky red than anything else.

Out of the dye bath, however, it was showing hints of yellow.

After letting the yarn cool and soak in the pot over night, I was surprised to see much more yellow than pink in the pot.

And the liquid was not a clear as I expected.  Hmm.  All the info I read had stated that the all of the dye should be absorbed into the fibre and the remaining liquid should run clear.  Hmm.  I know that with some acid dyes (eg. food colouring) vinegar and another 30 mins of  heat could take care of this problem, but as I hadn't read anything about mixing vinegar with alum, that was not an experiment I wanted to do.  So after dumping the remaining dye outside on the driveway (we're on a septic tank, so I didn't want to send any leftover mordant down the drain). 

As I rinsed the yarn, it seemed to lose all of its pink from the beets and only the yellow remains.  So what went wrong?

I can only guess that I either didn't use enough alum in the mix for the mordant, that the mordant reacted with the turmeric before the beets, or that there was a conflict of sorts between the beet colorant and the colour in the turmeric.  I suppose that I really should have started out with only one colour source as my first attempt at natural dyeing.  Live and learn, right?  (If you have any idea why the beet colour didn't take, please comment!)

The yarn is now out on the deck drying.  I'm actually really pleased with the final colour.  It's consistent in tone and I have no other yarn in my stash remotely close in colour or tone.  I'm not sure how colour-fast it is, so the next step will be to wash it with Soak and see how much more dye comes out of it before I knit it up.  I'm going to earmark it for a shawl to showcase the colour.