Thanks To Cherry and Grape Kool-Aid!

So, I eventually took a break from knitting baby socks after knitting up this last pair at the end of 2008, a pair I'm highlighting, because I knit it from yarn that I finally love after dyeing it twice!

The yarn started as Spunky Eclectic's undyed superwash wool sock yarn. Back in 2007, I experimented with acid dyes and handpainted a skein along with some fibre. Unfortunately, I didn't like how the colors came out on the skein, so I let it get buried in my stash and didn't do anything with it until this past November when I got this crazy urge to do some dyeing. So, I dug out the offensive sock yarn and the Kool-Aid packets and found my recycled containers to do some simple overdyeing. I wish I had a "before" picture of this skein, but lazy me didn't take one. Anyhow, on one end of the skein, I dip-dyed the skein (prepped and pre-soaked with cold water and a glug of vinegar) with two packages of cherry mixed with about a cup of water, and on the other end, with a package of cherry and a package of grape mixed with a cup of water. After dip dyeing and placing the colours on either end of the skein, I just pushed the entire skein into the dye jar to absorb every last bit of dye before heat setting in the microwave.


It's amazing how the vinegar helps the wool to just suck up every last bit of dye from the Kool-Aid liquid. (How anyone can ingest this "drink", after using this as a dye, is beyond me.)

After the skein came out of the microwave and air dried, the skein completely transformed from a loud, ugly mix of teal blue, navy blue, white, canary yellow, and grass green to a glorious mix of warm, autumn colors that blend well together. I don't think I'll ever be able to reproduce this skein again, but that's ok, I really love the serendipity of the dyeing process! I'll have to carefully choose the rest of my projects for this single yummy skein, but I'm thinking Jaywalkers or a baby sweater at this point... For now, I can enjoy the baby socks on K, which almost fit perfectly on her curling, tiny feet!

EZ Best Baby Sweater

I've been a bad blogger the first couple of months this year. More accurately, I've been very short of energy to blog, despite wanting to knit more and spending too much time on Ravelry. Now with one more week of work and expecting a baby any day now, even though the due date is during the first week of March, I am knitting as much as I can to finish up baby projects already started and near completion. I say this just because both D & R were early babies. Anyhow, here's a finished variation of EZ's Best Baby Sweater without the lace that used up some of my hand-dyed, handspun merino wool and handspun "Denim Dreams" (wool and part mohair fiber bought from Paradise Fibers). I quite enjoyed knitting up this little sweater with the exception of the realizations that I may not have had enough hand-dyed handspun to finish the project after knitting the yoke (so I had to start spinning and plying some of my "Denim Dreams" right away in January) and that I had forgotten to knit the buttonholes in the yoke of the sweater since Elizabeth Zimmermann doesn't even mention buttonholes until further into the pattern instructions. I ended up making bobble buttons with chain loop closures to remedy the lack of buttonholes on the yoke. The bobble buttons were made by casting on a stitch on a DPN, leaving a 3" tail and then with another DPN, I kfb in the stitch until there were 5sts on the needle. I knit the next row and purled the following row. On the fourth row, I knit the row, but then passed the second, third, fourth, and fifth sts over the first st. I cut the yarn, leaving a 6" tail to thread into a yarn needle for gathering up the edges of the bobble to make a ball, stuffing the bobble with the cast-on tail. I made only three bobble buttons for the yoke to make a swing-like cardigan and did not do the decreases at the end of the pattern. The little cardigan was finished on February 6.

First FO of 2007

I never thought I'd enjoy knitting with DPNs until I started and finished Ann Budd's Cowgirl Slipper Socks (with a yarn substitue, of course Using the suggested Buffalo Gold would have cost me $60/skein or $120 for the pair of socks!!!). I initially learned how to knit socks using the Magic Loop method, but now I think I've been converted, since it's a lot easier to move the stitches around using more than one needle. This little project dispelled notions that the stitches would be so slippery on DPN's that a jolt from one of my kids would send stitches flying off the needles, triggering a cardiac arrest and then causing a traumatic incident in front of two kids under the age of five. Using DPNs was quite the contrary despite using aluminium needles and not bamboo.

So how do you like my very own variegated, hand-dyed, handspun yarn? Luverly, isn't it? This is my first project using my own handspun. Totally exciting! As a bonus, I even learned the stretchy Norwegian cast-on method. Can't wait to delve into the next project! Just choosing one is the problem......

Cowgirl Slipper Socks
Started: January 1, 2007
Finished: January 12, 2007
Pattern: Cowgirl Slipper Socks by Ann Budd in IK Winter 2006
Yarn: My own, acid-dyed, handspun merino (fiber bought from Paradise Fibers)
Needles: 3-1/2 mm aluminium DPNs
Notes: Cute simple sock pattern for instant gratification! No modifications other than the yarn substitution.

Amazing Jellyfish!

Happy New Years Everyone!

Look where the boys and I went on Thursday......the Vancouver Aquarium! The Aquarium has recently set up a room to highlight their beautiful collection of moon jellyfish. They're just the coolest looking creatures up close! D is looking at the biggest jellyfish that we found in the room. They're called Lions mane Jellyfish.

After the Aquarium, I couldn't let the opportunity slip to pay a visit to Dressew, since I was passing through the downtown area. Some call me crazy to take two young boys to Dressew where there is such a big potential for the two of them to get into trouble, but I've been thinking of going there for the past three days!. Besides, R was so tired after the Aquarium that he fell asleep in the car and I only had one child to deal with while the other one slept in the stroller. Just look at the great buttons I found for my Flora that's waiting to be finished. And look a little closer at the prices!!! When the selection and prices can't be beat, I'll risk being yelled at by a Dressew salesclerk who might tell me to stop my boys from spinning all the button racks all at once or having other customers give me the dirty looks, because the two of them are running up and down the busiest aisles. (Yes, these aforementioned things have actually happened to me before at Dressew on other occasions.) The only difficulty of this visit to Dressew was carrying the stroller down two sets of stairs with a sleeping R in it to the basement where the buttons are located. C'est dommage! There's no elevator at Dressew.

So, this is what I've been working on lately with my latest hand-dyed, handspun. Care to take a guess? I'll post the FO as soon as I can.