I Heart Handspun!

Lots of things going on around here! Namely illness and coffee makers. and a bit of lace. Sexy!

/snort

Check out my new friend. I love it. I may even name it.

In case you can't read the mug: Cooking & cleaning are for people who haven't discovered knitting yet. Fitting, no? If you like coffee and gadgets - this thing is for you!

After finishing the shawl, I had the urge to cast on for another. Particularly after I decided that a sweater-that-shall-not-be-named was not fun to knit and the pattern was written in such a way that really made me want to burn it.

I looked in my queue and decided to knit Deep Forest. I've liked it for a while, and I've been itching to knit with some of my own handspun! Here's what I've got so far:

I will say that the construction of this shawl has thrown me off. In my mind, I thought that the cast on edge was the top edge of the shawl.

As you can see, that is not the case - it's really the bottom edge! Oops!





No wonder the decreases start with ssk as opposed to k2tog! I have really had to fight the urge to start my rows with k2tog. It's made my brain hurt. Habit is habit, ya know? I can't think of a single stitch pattern I have knit thus far that didn't have k2tog before ssk.

Now that I've reversed my knitting polarity, I've been really happy with how this is turning out. And it's a quick knit, which is even better!

Speaking of shawls, Opal still needs to finish her Oyster Bay Shawl. Go and bother her until she finishes it. She's not that far from the end!

Aaaand We're Blocking......

Oyster Bay Shawl

Knit with Knit Picks Gloss in Sterling, on US 6 needles.
KAL with Cookie and Opal

Now what the heck am I going to knit/obsess over??

Well That Was Fun!

So this weekend, I had some lovely time to myself. Waking up to only to a dog who doesn't get up for a full hour after you do is a delicious thing. I also got to spend some time doing fibery things with our Zonda. She took all the good pictures, so go stalk her blog.

While I was enjoying the silence, I decided to play with some nekkid yarn and food coloring. Wilton's to be exact!

Using this fabulous article from Knitty as a reference, I heated up the crock pot, threw in some vinegar and had at it.

Here is a pre rinse pic:

And here is the end product!



I only used two colors - blue and green. I started out by pouring in the blue, then hitting the spots that were still light with the green. Initially, I had twisted the yarn a bit, and ended up with more white than I intended. Once the yarn had cooled off so I could examine it, it went back to the crock pot. I added more blue and just a snitch more green, which exhausted pretty quickly leaving still more white than I wanted. I quickly made up some blue dye, and then added a wee bit of green making a neat teal color. I dumped it in and called it a day.

I love it, and I learned some lessons.

1. It's fun to play with vinegar. For the green, I had secretly poured vinegar right where I wanted the color to go. I can say it worked, and worked well.

2. If the water is still hot, you can add more dye.

3. Next time, use the oval crock pot. The second go-round, I just put the yarn in, with no arrangement and had a lot less white, however, it was still tricky to get the dye into all of the nooks and crannies. Using my oval crock pot will allow a lot more room for play.

4. Dyeing yarn is just like any other fiber related play. Addictive.

Here's a sneak peak of another addiction.


And just in the event you needed an interesting factoid, today is the day, back in the 50's that LSD was deemed illegal.