Recently a friend was “de-stashing” (we all know about that, right?). Among other things, she tossed a ball of her first attempt at Navajo plied handspun yarn on the table and blathered to the knitting group, “This is so seriously overspun, it’s awful, if someone doesn’t take it, it’s going to be tossed out … blah, blah, blah.” (I just love the word “blathered” and couldn’t resist using it … no offense intended, D.)
It was pretty seriously overspun, no doubt about it. But her control of color was good and there are lots of uses for tightly-twisted fibers, right?
My brain went immediately to the Stow Away Shopping Bag pattern by Oat Couture, which I bought at Double-Ewe Yarn. The plan from the get-go was to surreptitiously knit it up and then give it back to her.
I didn’t have quite enough of her handspun so I Navajo-plied a bobbin of emerald green I had already spun and used that. Still not enough, so I took a little leftover reddish-orangeish-pinkish-purplish-with-sparkly-bits handspun I used to finish of a little cap, called That Hat, pattern also from Double Ewe Yarns. And here’s the finished product.
I have to say, this bag is such a great little project. I made one for my daughter before her trip to The Czech Republic. It folds up into a pack about the size of your two fists…
… and tucks into its own built-in pocket. Toss it in the back seat or glove box, or in a suitcase, and hit the road … easy-peasy.
(If you're interested, here's a good short video on how to do Navajo plying.)
Over a year ago I dyed a hank of sock weight yarn using gel frosting dye. I didn’t really have anything in mind when I dyed the yarn. It was just experimental, I hadn’t used frosting dyes so it was just fun to play around. I posted about the experience and said I’d write up how we did it but I never actually got around to it and in fact didn’t do any more dying with frosting dye, in spite of the fact that I was pleased with the brightness of the color
My yarn:
My wrist warmers (do you call them wristers or wrist warmers?) with this yarn looked sort of … well, frankly, like 60s tie-dye. (I should have taken a photo of them before dying but I didn’t … you’d really see what I mean!)
So anyway, I decided to bring out my notes from the initial gel dying and over-dye the wristers.
Quick explanation of dying process:
Gather up:
The item(s) you want to dye
Bowl or bucket in which to presoak the item(s) you want to dye
White vinegar
Water (room temp is fine)
Gel frosting dye (Wiltons, available at Michael's)
Plastic wrap
Rubber gloves
Microwave safe dish or bowl
Microwave
Hanger or rack on which to hang item to dry
Soak the item you want to dye in a mixture of water and vinegar. Thoroughly mix the gel dye in plain ole the water. I made just a tiny batch because this was just a tiny project. I put the wrist warmers in the dye water, swished them around to make sure they got thoroughly and evenly saturated. I probably left them in the dye bath 5-10 minutes. Then I squeezed out the excess water, laid each on a piece of plastic wrap, folded the wrap around it to seal, rolled each up like a cinnamon roll, put them on a dish and microwaved (microwave for 2 minutes on high, leave in microwave for 2 minutes, then microwave on high for another two minutes, remove, let cool until you can handle them, then unwrap, and hang to dry).
For this, I used only about a quart of water and ¼ cup of white vinegar in a plastic ice cream bucket to soak the wrist warmers. Soaked them for a couple of hours. Then I used 12 ounces of tap water to which I added 1 tsp each of red and burgundy gel.
And here’s the final product:
I am actually okay with the result. I have a purple suede jacket that I love, and the purple on the wristers (which doesn't actually show up very well in the photo) is a nice match.
So … see? There’s hope for some of those “really, I thought that was a good idea????” projects.
Andrea and I attended a yarn dyeing clinic on Saturday. We have dyed roving and yarn in the past, but always with an impressive MacBeth-worthy cauldron of boiling, nasty, chemically dyes. Especially in light of her pregnancy (oh, did you know Andrea’s pregnant?), we were pleased when Needlework Unlimited offered a “dyeing natural yarns with cake frosting dye” clinic.
The weather was gorgeous and we did it out in their parking lot. Andrea and I had pre-registered, but some people just walked up and said, “Hey, whatcha doin’? Shur looks fun … kin-I try it?” (That’s the way people talk in Minne-soh-tah). And the instructor (Caitlin) was okay with that. (It’s a “Minnesota nice” thing … who’s going to say, “no, go away” … not us, that’s fur-shur.)
It was just a laid back, almost a “chatting-over-the-back-fence” kind of day in the neighborhood, and we had some nice yarn when we were done.
I did take some notes and when I get a chance, I’ll write them up and add them to our DIY section. Steph will be in town next week and I hope we get a chance to do another dyeing session with cake frosting dye while she’s in town.
I have set the Holiday Stocking project aside for now and am just concentrating on the Sweater Sprint – the Bump Sweater project. I have completed the back, and have started the front piece. So I think I’m on track to complete that event on time.
Tomorrow morning Needlework Unlimited is having a Dye Party in their parking lot. Andrea and I have signed up to attend and play around with dying a couple skeins of sock yarn, using all-natural dyes of course (oh, did you know, she's pregnant?). It should be geat fun and I’m really really looking forward to it (dyeing yarn and being a grandma).
On my drive in to work this morning I was thinking about “the sweater project” and “the pregnancy” and “the baby.” Andrea asked me yesterday if I had a sense of whether it’s a boy or a girl and I said I had no sense of it. But on the drive in this morning my mind was filled with girl names and girl things … so I think somewhere deep in me is a sense that this is a girl.
We celebrated "second Christmas" on Sunday since Steph wasn't able to make it home from Boston for "real" Christmas.She's been a busy girl with work and school, but she still had time to complete some pretty fantastic homemade Christmas gifts. I was left slack-jawed when I opened my gift from her. She had made me an amazing pinwheel vest, using a combination of commercial yarn and her own hand-dyed, hand-spun! Andrea commented earlier in this blog that I might have teared up a little. She's right, I'm a wuss about stuff like that. And I know how incredibly many hours she put into that gift. I absolutely love it!
She used a free pattern from Elann as her starting point, then made it into a vest.
I just love it! I wore it yesterday and it made quite an impression on people at work, many of whom are knitters themselves.
We had our after-work knitting group last night and I added a few more inches to the Knit a Mile Project. So I'm up to maybe 325 yards done. It was fun to see what other people were working on, I wish I had taken some pictures. We had a needlepointer there, and a crocheter, in addition to a half-dozen knitters. One of the women brought her 7th grade daughter who does some crocheting already and is now wanting to learn to knit. I love it ...
Click on the photo to see a slideshow of some pictures of our dying party.
It's funny that I even wanted to do this, since I haven't spun in over a year and I have a mountain of fiber to spin (including a ton of handpainted roving from the last time we did this). I'm excited about these colors, though. I hope the fiber is dry in time to do some spinning this weekend.
