Finished Child Rainbow Scarf

Here is finally a picture of the finished rainbow scarf - I used a pattern from yarn harlot's blog and the rainbow yarn I made of course. It has been shown off many times already and is very loved - of course, with the warmer than normal temperature outside (40s) it is being used but not yet really needed....

Child Scarf - Step 3

All the appropriated wool is cleaned, dried, teased, carded, and dyed... The next step was to stagger and spin them...





Then I Navajo plyed all singles (the original bats had nine color repeats - the singles were split onto two bobbins - 6 and 3, and the finished yarn had to be broken into 4, 3, and 2 color repeats)






That's the four and three repeats - the two was completely used up in the scarf...

The scarf is actually finished and used three repeats (the middle of the three pie is empty) but as it's in use now, I'll have to snap a picture sometime next week... The needle that you see in the picture is another gauge swatch for a matching hat

Some More Dulaan Knitting

I finished the scarf (same home-spun as the hat) and here it is:

Child Scarf - step 2

Well, I had the wool all cleaned and teased. I managed to card half of it, and dye that half some pretty colors:



I used wiltons and vinegar and attempted to dye using the microwave (I've only done stovetop dyeing up until now). I'd say it worked pretty well. However, the smell made my dear husband gag and stay in a closed room until it had vented, so I researched alternative methods....




I now have some powder citric acid, which I used to dye the second half:




In case you couldn't tell, child 1 loves rainbows right now and wanted a rainbow scarf - I figured if I was going to dye that many colors I might as well do a bunch so I could have fun with the yarn after. I think my next project in dyeing (a couple wee-- well, at least a week from now - after christmas) will be dying multiple colors on a single sliver or bat. We'll see...

Some Dulaan knitting

Some knitting for Dulaan. Just another 4 to go to reach my goal - I already started a scarf with the same yarn. Does the yarn look familiar? It should, as it was my second attempt at wilton dyeing, and my first attempt at navajo plying. I think it came out pretty nice. This hat is sized to fit child 1, and she loved to try it on, and kept hearing me say that it was going to go to people who were cold and didn't have a hat.

Bamboo Shawl photos

I feel like I'm cranking them out, even though it's been a week since I posted I have finished multiple projects in that week... Here's the shawl.





I didn't block it yet, not sure if i will, as I didn't think it would help, as the bamboo doesn't have memory like the wool does. Just to recap - This is bamboo that I bought - about two pounds worth, and spun and then knit into this shawl.





I really like the pattern that I choose for the shawl





AND I still have a small amount left... including a small amount that took some orange dye... not very well as you can tell.

felt blanket felted

It felted a bit more than I had hoped as I was distracted and so it finished the full wash cycle - lesson learned - but it will make a great infant blanket or child carrier blanket.

felt blanket done

The knitting was completed on thursday night - felting done friday. I don't have the felting picture up yet, will soon. Here's the knitting though!

Another boring blog

Ok, I've now updated for the past two or three weeks... sorry about the retro-dating, but all are accurate! I'm now working on the felt baby blanket (almost done), the bamboo shawl (just started) and a couple of other odds and ends (bears, lace scarf, etc) stay tuned for more pictures - I should finish something over the next day or so!

More wool to play with

No picture, but then again, I don't know that you'd want one... I picked up some old wool from my mom today - she still has a number of fleece in big black bags that are more than 20 years old. They clean up fairly well, but I have no clue any information about them other than those facts (wool, very old, cleans up pretty). This is actually where I got the wool that I made green and orange/red. This time I am planning to card and then dye and then spin... we'll see how well that works out. My original goal is a pretty color scarf for child 1. Depending on how long it takes to dry it might be warm by the time I finish... Once I'm knitting then I'll decide how big to make it :)

So today I did step one and washed a nice amount - now we just wait a couple days for it to dry, while I keep working on my other in-progress projects.

While I'm at it...

I figured that while I was showing off finished yarn I'd show off half finished yarn.... This is just the smallest little bit of dark brown almost black wool I have - bought multiple pounds and I will slowly (?) be cleaning, carding, and spinning this. Unfortunately when I was spinning the bamboo I needed the bobbin this was on (note: need to go buy more bobbins after christmas) and I didn't want to run the risk of it rubbing any color/dirt on the bamboo, so i took the single off and cleaned it and hanked it up. I think I'll have enough for a sweater when I'm done with it all, I'm thinking something cable-y and aran-like... but first I have to make it into a nice pretty consistent yarn... This is a great first step though! - sorry for the shiny out of focus picture!