Grandmother's Wrap Update

After a long Thanksgiving vacation, I went back to work today and back to my commuting project, Haruni by Emily Ross. On the way home this evening, I completed row 28 of Grandmother's Wrap which is 3/4 of the way through the 1st repeat of Chart A. It is looking good and you can see the leaf detail clearly, but there is a long, knitting way to go. I am so glad I got the Addi Turbo Lace needles -- they have really made a difference.

Two Quilt Tops Completed

I finished two quilt tops and sent them off with my knitting sister to my other sister who has a long arm quilting machine. I love to design the quilt tops, but I am not so fond of the actual quilting. It is not really easy on a regular machine and since one of my sisters has her own long arm, I avail myself of her talents a lot. The picture above is the finished boy design shown in my last post.

The other two pictures are blocks from the girl designs in process. We made six total girl quilt tops in different combinations of hearts and butterflies. It was two more girl quilts than I needed to finish, but babies seem to come quick and I can always use extras!

Happy quilting!

Quilting in a Post Thanksgiving Carbohydrate Coma

 Teaming up with my knitting sister and my beautiful daughter, we decided to knock out as many baby quilts as possible for some newly arrived residents of this world (and a couple that have yet to make their appearances). We are trying to make the quilts bright and colorful, while keeping the complexity low. Hence all of them will have 4 big blocks and a pieced crazy piano key boarder. Using my favorite method of fusing and coloring page designs,we came up with a couple of "girl baby designs" and a couple of "boy baby designs".

My knitting sister came up with the crazy piano key boarder idea. I had suggested a piano key boarder (see the one I did on another quilt, here); however, she hates cutting fabric, so since wonky cutting is easier -- little measuring -- and faster -- again, little measuring, she suggested crazy piano keys. Knitting sister quickly started cutting out fabrics in color palettes, some for boy quilts and some for girl quilts.

Reds, browns and blues in one boy palette for for a sports themed quilt and pinks, oranges and yellows for a butterfly and hearts themed girl quilt. I have finished applying machine blanket stitching on one 4 X 4 block center of a heart themed quilt and have completed parts of two other baby quilts. But I have seven baby quilts to make in all.

With so much left to do, why am I still blogging?

Happy Quilting!

I Couldn't Stop at One

Starry, Starry Night Chullo

I have to say that I love this pattern. Not only is the Southern Lights pattern one of the cutest hats I have ever seen; it is one of the easiest that I have ever knit. Add to that the wonderful colors of Noro Hitsuji and it is hard to knit just one.

My beautiful daughter, Jacklyn, who is home for a visit from college, took one look at my South Bound Chullo II and requested that I make her one, too! She picked the yarn on a quick trip to my LYS, Wool and Co. Of course, I told her to pick one of the available colors in Noro's Hitsuji variety. So here is my third version of this hat -- Starry, Starry Night Chullo.

Urban Hunter

I did a couple of modifications to the pattern at Jacklyn's request. She wanted it to come lower on the back of her neck. I could have knitted something more like the Urban Hunter -- also a cool looking hat -- but I did not what to loose the ear-flap look and she loved the "braids", so I knitted the ear flaps only to the point where each had 20 stitches. I then connected them with the pattern directed 8 backward loop cast on stitches and knitted for about an inch back and forth before finally connecting the front of the ear flaps and knitting in the round.

As for the braids she wanted them longer so I knitted the i-cord a total of 20 inches before starting the ear flaps. For what ever reason, she did not want the pom pom on the top of the hat either. But that really was good, as I had only a few inches of yarn left.

Fun with Chullos?

LESSON LEARNED: When completed, her hat does not come down quite as long as she would have liked. I think that when I make the next one, I will want to buy two skeins of yarn. My gauge was good on the stitches, but somewhat shorter on the rows, I didn't worry too much as I knitted up the required number of inches before starting the decreases. HOWEVER, the error in my calculations did not consider that my smaller gauge would make a smaller "circle" in the crown, thereby bringing the sides up higher to the tune of about an inch. What I should have done was to knit an extra inch or so to make up for that loss in the center. Like I said -- lesson learned.

South Bound Chullo II

By the way, South Bound Chullo was lost only two weeks after I finished it and I recreated it with South Bound Chullo II. All in all, this is a pattern I will do again and again -- especially if I keep loosing them!

Happy knitting!

What happens when dye meets wool?

Take one skein of 100% wool, add 4 packages of Kool-Aid, heat and water!

I decided to use up some left over Kool-Aid from my dyeing experiment of two weeks ago. I had two skeins of Paton's Classic Wool in a heathered light grey and decided that I would try to dye one of them with Kool-Aid in the microwave. I wish that I had taken pictures during my process, but alas, I wasn't thinking.

I made a hank of yarn out of one skein of yarn using my Niddy Noddy that I made and tied the skein using figure eight ties.

I took two envelopes of grape and two envelopes of fruit punch and mixed each color with about 3/4 cup of hot water. After soaking the yarn in warm water as per my usual method (described here), I laid it out in a glass baking dish poured the dye mix over the yarn and used the microwave to heat it.

It was kind of a wing and a prayer experiment. I can't remember how long I let the microwave run, but I let the yarn cool, rinsed and voilà! Color!

I am thinking about knitting a hat in color-work with both the dyed yarn and the original light grey yarn.

Happy Dyeing!!

Spinning Progress -- How Long Does It Take to Spin a Pound of Wool?

Baa, baa, black sheep,

Have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes, sir,

Three bags full;

One for the master,

And one for the dame,

And one for the little boy

Who lives down the lane.

I'm guessing those bags only weighed about a 1/3 of a pound! Now, I know that I am new to spinning and that it takes longer to spin with a spindle as opposed to a spinning wheel, but that laundry basket full of wool really has not been reduced much. The spinning that I have done only amounts to 142 grams of yarn. Since there are 453.592 grams in a pound, there are approximately 311 grams left (less the 80 grams or so that I have given to friends for their knitting and felting projects).

Happy Spinning!

Knitting with Lace Weight Yarn and Having the Right Needles

I began knitting another lace shawl. This is the lovely Haruni by Emily Ross. This is one of the first lace patterns that I fell in love with, but have put it off as I thought it was too hard. I even posted about the yarn I bought to do this project over 6 months ago. However, things change and I am doing this project with a completely different yarn than planned. I decided to use the Cascade Alpaca Lace in Garnet that I bought on a lark a couple of months later.

This yarn is 100% baby alpaca and is the finest yarn that I have ever tried to knit. This was the crux of my problem. Through knitting about 32 rows, I was repeatedly tinking back to redo stitches that I picked up under the row beneath that which I was knitting. This error basically un-knits the stitch and creates a slip stitch of the row beneath and a long loose yarn over in the same place. Of course, if not caught, the pattern is  ruined. I was also struggling with trying to SSK (slip slip knit) -- my Addi Turbos just did not have enough of a point.

I had "graduated" myself to Addi Turbos over a year ago when I got a great recommendation from my knitting sister who convinced me to try them. I have been a rabid convert ever since. Today, I am trying the Addi Turbo Lace. So far this has turned out to be a good decision. I have knitted only a couple of additional rows and it has made a huge difference. SSK's are much easier and I am not slipping under the stitch.

In the picture on the left, I think you can see that the points on the Addi Turbo Lace (the gold needle) has a longer and sharper point than the regular Addi Turbos have. In addition, the Addi Turbo Lace needles seem to be slightly less slick than the regular Turbos. This might be a benefit as the only drawback to the Addi Turbos have been that they are almost too slick for lace. It is true that the right tool for the job makes all the difference.

As long as I am talking about the baby alpaca yarn being the finest that I have ever knit, I thought I would give you a visual on different yarn weights.  Here is a graduation of different yarn weight of yarn that I have in my stash. On the left is the lace weight yarn in question, Cascade Alpaca Lace. It is followed by a fingering weight yarn, sock weight, sport weight, DK (double knit) weight, worsted weight and bulky weight. Of course all of these yarns are different manufacturers and fibers, but I think that you can see the differences between most. Prior to the Cascade Alpaca Lace, the finest lace I had used was the fingering weight yarn which I used for my Alexandra Gold.

Well, I have some knitting to get through, so I will sign off. Happy Knitting!

Spinning: Lessons Learned ... So Far

Practice does make a difference. After several days of spinning yarn, I have been able to get my yarn  much more consistent in thickness. In the picture above, the roll on the left was made before the roll on the right. I can see that there is some variance in both rolls, but less so in the second roll which is on the right.  I am still over-twisting my yarn, but it is not as bad as it was. I have been practicing so much, my right shoulder is hurting from holding my hand high when drafting.

Doing something new is frustrating and fun at the same time. You would think that I was watching a football game on TV with all the "OH NO!'s", "Gggrrr's" and "Come ON!'s" coming out of my mouth. Just when I think that I have drafting down pat, I pull so hard that I rip off a piece of roving. But I love watching the yarn form as I spin away.

There are lots of things you can buy to make your life easier. I now know that I need a Niddy Noddy, a Lazy Kate, Bobbins and a Swift. And there are some things that you can make pretty cheap -- if you don't care about pretty. I can't afford it all, so some leftover PVC pipe and glue made a quick homemade Niddy Noddy -- that saved me from one purchase. I will put the money saved in a jar and name it "Spinning Wheel Fund." And now you know what tool I really want!

Happy Knitting!

P.S - If you are interested in making your own Niddy Noddy, you can avoid all the re-cuts and adjustments that I made by watching this video by Camaj Handspun. I did glue all the parts except for one arm which I can pull out to release the yarn. I made my arms longer and stretching the tied and wrapped yarn over the arm would be difficult.

All the Pretty Colors!

Here are the results of the Kool-Aid dying day. The colors in the sunlight are wonderful. Yum!

Fun with Kool-Aid

In my last post, I told you how I bought an entire pound of Bluefaced Leicester ("BFL") roving and that I planned to dye 12 different colors with Kool-Aid. I started with my first two colors last night and then dreamed all night about dying wool and spinning. I was awake early and had my next two colors in the pot by 8 AM this morning. The beauty of using Kool-aid to dye wool is that it is readily available at just about every grocery store in the country.

The un-dyed wool

I have read several on-line articles and watched some Youtube videos on dying yarn and basically decided to go with the most commonly used process that I saw: Kettle dying. In order to kettle dye, you need a kettle which is basically a cooking pot. Since I am using Kool-Aid which is a food product, I don't have to buy a pot to use specifically for dying; however, if I decide to begin dying on a regular basis and use other types of dye, I will have to buy a separate pot.

The next item that you must have for kettle dying is acid. The acid helps the dye adhere to the protein in the wool. This dye can also be a food grade product like vinegar or citric acid. Again, Kool-aid is great for a first time dyer as it already contains plenty of citric acid so it is not necessary to add more.

Since you will be working with bright colored dyes -- even food grade ones. You may want to use gloves and wear old clothing as blue fingernails take a while to fade. I didn't use gloves but the old clothes came in handy.

Step one in preparation is to soak the roving for at least half an hour to saturate the wool. Just like when you block a finished knitted item, it takes awhile for the water to penetrate the fibers because of the natural lanolin in the wool. Since I was going to dye two colors at a time, I set it up so that I had one bunch of fiber covered in hot water in a bowl weighted down with another bowl with wool and hot water which itself was weighted down with another bowl with just water. The bowls on top kept the wool entirely under water.

While the wool was soaking, I put two pots on the stove with water and set them to boil. When the 30 minute soak is done, I carefully remove the wool and gently squeezed it dry. Wringing the wool could have damaged the fiber. I added 4 packets of Kool-Aid to each pot, using a Kool-Aid color chart that I found on line.

According to all my sources, the amount of water does not matter at all, it is the ratio of wool fibers to the Kool-aid that matters. I had separated out all of the wool into 35 to 45 gram amounts so all the colors should be even in depth, but I had no idea how bright the colors might be.

I turned off the heat on the stove, boiling could have caused the yarn to felt and that is not what I wanted! Then I added a batch of fiber to each pot. The wool sucks up the color really fast, but leaves the water behind so that after only a few minutes the water goes from colored to near clear. According to the pros, this means the dye is "spent" and the fiber can be removed from the pot. Pour the fabric into a colander and drain out the water. You will want to leave the wool to cool a little and then rinse with hot water. Don't put cold water on really hot wool or you could felt it.

I rolled the fiber into a towel to squeeze the remaining water out and hung the freshly dyed wool in my laundry room. After a long day of dying, my house smells of an odd combination of wet sheep and fruit, but I have lots of lovely colors. I was able to get three gold/wheat colors, 2 purples, 3 greens, 3 reds and a pale blue.The BFL wool started out a grey color with lots of white and black hairs in it. So the colors have lots of depth. When it is all dry, I will try to take a picture outdoors to get better pictures, but on a cold, cloudy day, the laundry room picture will have to do. Can't wait to spin it and knit it.

Happy knitting/spinning/dying.

Dying for beautiful wool.

A few weeks ago, my boss told me that my company had hired someone to head a new project. Little did I know, this person would not only be a knitter, but a spinner!!! I heard through the grapevine that I needed to introduce myself. And introduce myself I did!

I love the knitting world. It only took 10 seconds and I thought I had known her forever. We met for lunch and she gave me my first spinning lesson and loaned me an extra top whorl spindle and gave me three types of roving to get started. Oh and am I hooked. I went home that night and ordered my own spindle and 16 ounces -- yes, ONE POUND -- of Bluefaced Leicester wool.

Bluefaced Leicester are a long wool breed of sheep. longwool types are easier to spin. The "blue" is due to the color of the skin, not the color of the wool. Their faces are bald and their noses are "roman" which makes them look a little sad. According to the breed standard, "On both white and natural colored Bluefaced Leicesters, the wool should be tightly purled, fine, dense, semi-lustrous, and when parted, it should open cleanly to the skin. There should be an even, consistent fleece coverage on the body, and the fleece should be free of hair and kemp. There should be no tendency for the main body of fleece to “peel” (the fleece breaking and sloughing off).

The Bluefaced Leicester is classified as a longwool breed with a staple length of 3-6 inches, a fleece weight of 2½-4½ lbs., and a fiber diameter of 56s–60s count, or 24-28 microns. It creates high-quality semi-lustre yarns with soft hand, beautiful drape, and excellent dyeing properties."

I separated the wool into 12 pieces of 35 to 45 grams of roving and ran out to 3 different grocery stores to pick up a variety of Kool-Aid packages. Yes, Kool-Aid. Yes, you can dye wool with Kool-Aid. I just started with two colors tonight and will blog about the dyeing tomorrow.

Happy Knitting, errrr, Spinning, no Dyeing!!!