Pictures of the Omens

Alrighty... now I have some pictures that go along with my previous post.

First we have a picture of the magic scarf:


You make this by doing a normal plain stitch (I did a tube of knitting) for about 1/3 of the final length you want the scarf, then you bind off every other one (dropped the stitches you don't bind off), and then you pull and drop all those stitches. I let my girls help me pull. This is just plain red heart yarn, like I said, I just wanted to try it after reading all those knitting books.


Next we have a picture of the singles of the blue/green yarn that appeared last post:


I dyed it when it was still single, and then plied it up. I think it came out nice.


Then the mystery item (in pictures):














Can you tell I'm a bit proud? I got thin (for me) consistent yarn on the wheel. Then dyed it as singles. It took a little while for the color to grow on me. I thought the singles were pretty ugly after they dried, and I was a bit worried, but after plying it... I think it came out cute! Then I used one of the Elizabethan scarf patterns (same leaflet but different pattern than my lace scarf, and bigger - US 7 instead of US 0) Comments?



I also got something in the mail today....



...more fun!

Catch-up

Another week disappeared into the every day routine....
So, since last Wednesday when I posted last:

I got a box of yarn from Annie:

for free! yes, good yarn, fun colors, for free... it was so exciting to get that box and open it up!

Then... hmmm... My daughter wanted to dye some wool and somehow have me make her a yarn pig. The pattern arrived today, but the yarn spent the week getting made:


The green with a tinge of blue was on my drop spindle, so I experimented with dyeing that, as these were done with food coloring and citric acid, and then i ran out, so i used some vinegar too. I'm thinking of plying that to see how the colors work.


I also cleaned some of my black/brown fleece:



I worked up some I-cord for a rug for my niece. This also worked well, as I was teaching someone to knit, so I have them start some, figured that they'd never forget how to knit after doing 10-12 yards of I-cord. I am currently sewing this up - hopefully a picture when it's done (soon)


I also mailed off the hats to Kate one is made by my mom, one is made by my sister... the rest were made by me.



And then I started a shawl for my older daughter (well, for either one really...) since I had some yarn I had bought for teddy bears, but didn't work out quite like I thought it would. I used the same pattern I bought for my bamboo shawl. The yarn makes a pretty shawl though, and it's washable and dryable, so the girls will *share* it until I get something made for the younger daughter

Projects Update

I think it's time to update my post from 9 Days Ago...

Projects:
Fish
Fuzzy Hats
Bear
Lace Scarf
Teased Wool


Planned Projects - (may be on the needles, or under needle for sewing, soon)
Felted Fish (for child 1, and maybe one for husband also?)
4 more bears and 2 more baby blankets
Another furry fuzzy hat (due by feb 28th - mailed before then of course)
A felted bunny rabbit
A project with my new yarn from yarn swap (maybe dyeing and spinning wool to go with it?)
Spinning more yarn to send off to my pal in February
6 more skirts
some handkerchiefs

The fish are done
The fuzzy hat (one in progress, and one planned) are both done





The bear is also done


The lace scarf - I haven't touched... maybe soon?

and the teasing of wool, well, I got enough teased to do this:


Yay! more wiltons dyeing. This, depending on how it spins up, will be used with my yarn swap yarn.


I also got to some sewing:




I currently am working on or still have to do:
finish spinning yarn for yarn swap (pictures sometime in February)
work on that lace scarf
maybe some more fuzzy hats if I find more fur yarn
2 more baby blankets and 4 more bears
my felted rabbit
Spin up that dyed yarn to use with my yarn swap yarn
4 more skirts
and some handkerchiefs

Some Finished Objects

Here are a couple things that I have finished the past week:


The other green blanket



Home-Dyed and Spun Hat



New wool Dyed



(will insert picture after February)
...and a skien I am sending off for a spin swap.

Olive, Rosemary, and Rust

I've been experimenting with dyeing different colors - I didn't take pictures of the seperate colors, they were pretty much what I wanted. Now that it's being spun and balled up it looks a bit different - I'm waiting to see how it looks knit up.



The natural color is dyed with rosemary - just curious how that would work, since I have that in my garden. It did come out nicely - just a bit darker than pre-dyed. The olive and rust were dyed with wiltons and citric acid - all in the microwave, dyed and then carded.

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

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...

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.

Spinning Progress

I finished my neat green wool. It's 180 grams and a little over 220 yards. I think it's pretty - has some specks of aqua in it also. I tried Navajo plying - that was some fun! It worked though. We'll just have to see how it knits up - I was thinking some hats or maybe more....

Wilton's Dye

The first time dying wool - I ended up with an orange-y shade (used christmas red dye), and someone else knit it into a small shallow hat/bowl.



I've since dyed some green (with some blue in it) and I have yet to spin that.... sometime soon i hope! -btw, that's one bag, just different angles to get all the shades