Friday, June 30, 2006

Buttonhole Scarf - Manos Cotton Collection 3


I bought the Manos Cotton Collection 3 book at a CT yarn shop a few weeks ago just becasue of the Filigree vest/sweater in it. I also bought a skein of Cotton Stria to make the Cozy Cowl in the book. That became my train knitting for a work trip into NYC one day last week. I finished the crocheted bead drawstring today and will take a picture early next week. This scarf was also in the book and I dug through the stash for some Berocco Cotton 100 that was leftover from something. This was fun to knit but a little hard on the hands with 360 stitches per row and all the binding off and casting on. But it was fun, I attempted another knitting it vertically but that didn't work out and will take more thinking to figure it out and I don't want to do that right now.

My LYS has been having a 30% off sale the last two weeks, ends tomorrow. I bought some yarn to make the Filigree vest/sweater and much more. Those projects, I hope, will pop up on here soon.

I spent 3 days earlier this week at a work retreat in White Plains, NY. Tom Jones was staying in our hotel but I never saw him. I did take a Bikram Yoga class which was very interesting and I have been searching Amazon and BN for videos. Tomorrow is my nieces graduation party. I can't believe she is out of high school already.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Birch, not Birch, Birch again


I started Rowan's Birch with the lovely Jade color of Kidsilk Haze, but the needles just weren't cutting it so I ripped it out. The little pile in the front is the yarn that is tangled beyond repair. I plan to knit a Kiri with it instead and I think I found some better needles that are on hold at my LYS till their sale this week. The yarn on the right is Brown Sheep Naturespun Sport in a pretty maroony red. It is now going to become Birch. I have had a cold since Tuesday night and didn't knit at all till today. I am about 2 1/2 repeats into Birch with no problems with this yarn. When I bought this Naturespun I also bought some in a light blue to make the Fiber Trends Butterfly Garden shawl. I used this yarn for my Flower Basket Shawl and I really like it. The next time I am at this Not So LYS, I plan to buy some more in a brown shade to maybe make the Garter version of Birch to leave at work.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Yarn Dyeing



The blue/greeen skein is a lace weight skein from Yarn2Dye4. I used the turkey roaster and Cushing Dyes in Turquoise Green and Turquise Blue. The picture doesn't really show the difference in the colors. I did half of the skein in the Turquise Blue and then did half in the Turquise Green. For a while, I had the whole skein in the turquise green. I really like this skein and it is going to be the Adagio shawl by Candice Eisner Strick.

Emily asked about what I used to Dye Becky's yarn which is the picture with two skeins in it. Becky has a better picture of the colors. I used Cushing's Dyes. I bought Mahogany, Maize, Scarlet and Crimson. I don't remember which red I used in the multi skein. I used a turkey roaster and balanced the yarn not being dyed on some wood that sat on top of the roaster. I should have re-skeined the yarn but I was afraid that I would get it snarled up. I do have a few more skeins to play with and I want to try re-skeining one to see how it works. I plan to use the dye I have left to try to do another multi skein like that for me.

I had extra natural colored roving around so I ended up putting that in each dyepot to try to exhaust some of the dye. So, now I have some pretty roving to spin up. One didn't really come out that good so I just may re-use that as a tool to try to get the colors to exhaust out of the pot. I was planning on taking notes and pictures but I got caught up in the dyeing and ended up not taking any pictures or notes.

Monday, June 12, 2006

DyeORama - I got my yarn!


Lovely, lovely purple yarn. The pal who had me was DeDe of http://www.thedede.blogspot.com/ who has a great picture by picture post of how she dyed the yarn. Great job. Thank you so much. There are also two skeins of Classic Elite Flash in a gorgeous coral/pink colorway. I haven't tried this yarn yet so I am mulling some ideas. Ideas for the dyed yarn are also going through my head, shawl, scarf, mittens, maybe socks. There was also a Cadbury Dark Chocolate bar that is in the freezer and has already been opened and is very good.

The buddy I had also received her yarn today. I had Becky of http://knitting-interrupted.com/ and she has some nice pictures of the yarn I dyed on her blog.

This has been a lot of fun and I keep planning to get more and more yarn to dye as the ideas are just swimming through my head. Thanks to The DyeORama Mama's for planning this. It was a lot of fun and it will be fun to see what all the yarn becomes in the future.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Fiber Trends Landscape Scarf


The yarn is Artyarns and I just loved the color. It was a joy to work with and I am now trying to figure out what yarn to use to make a full size one. I may end up dyeing my own yarn for it.