Friday, June 11, 2010
The Ride Home
I took these pictures around town a couple weeks ago and they have been hanging out and waiting on my desktop for me to finally post them. I truly love where I live, here in the foothills. Things have a little more color on them now with all the rain we've been having but you can still see how beautiful the countryside is in the little town I live in.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Just Call Me Murphy
I don't know if it's creativity, a mischievious muse or maybe just pride that makes me look at something that's already wonderful and think, "Yeah, I can do better."
It all started with an idea. Let's have another TwitterKAL. I've had that Susie's Reading Mitts pattern in my queue since the last TwitKAL and 2 skeins of Lavish super-fine alpaca in a gorgeous blood color, sent to me by a fellow knitter in a yarn swap. In preparation for the cast-on date (which is Fri!), last night I took my beautiful yarn and wound it around the back of my Mom's couch so I could dye half of that skein and the yarn would self-stripe. (We discovered Mom's couch is actually the perfect circumfrence for dying yarn for socks/gloves so that they stripe in 2row wide stripes!)
For some reason the black dye I used didn't work. This morning I mixed orange koolaid with grape koolaid and the resulting color is very dark dried-blood/almost black which works for me cause I was planning on channeling Tim Burton's version of the Queen of Hearts with my mitts anyway. I'm calling this colorway "Iracebeth" in her honor.
It all started with an idea. Let's have another TwitterKAL. I've had that Susie's Reading Mitts pattern in my queue since the last TwitKAL and 2 skeins of Lavish super-fine alpaca in a gorgeous blood color, sent to me by a fellow knitter in a yarn swap. In preparation for the cast-on date (which is Fri!), last night I took my beautiful yarn and wound it around the back of my Mom's couch so I could dye half of that skein and the yarn would self-stripe. (We discovered Mom's couch is actually the perfect circumfrence for dying yarn for socks/gloves so that they stripe in 2row wide stripes!)For some reason the black dye I used didn't work. This morning I mixed orange koolaid with grape koolaid and the resulting color is very dark dried-blood/almost black which works for me cause I was planning on channeling Tim Burton's version of the Queen of Hearts with my mitts anyway. I'm calling this colorway "Iracebeth" in her honor.
Which brings us to Murphy's Law. If it can go wrong, it 
will. Great idea, bad in execution. The part that went wrong? The re-skeining. I made sure not to tangle or twist the HUGE skein while it was dying, being rinsed and hung to dry. I began to wind it around my swift to form a 2yd skein and got exactly 3 rounds before it all went to hell. Tangled. Terribly tangled. I think it took me 3 hours to untangle it. While I was working on it, I made homemade pecan cinnamon buns though so it wasn't a total loss.
will. Great idea, bad in execution. The part that went wrong? The re-skeining. I made sure not to tangle or twist the HUGE skein while it was dying, being rinsed and hung to dry. I began to wind it around my swift to form a 2yd skein and got exactly 3 rounds before it all went to hell. Tangled. Terribly tangled. I think it took me 3 hours to untangle it. While I was working on it, I made homemade pecan cinnamon buns though so it wasn't a total loss.But finally, I have my 200yd ball of dark red 
and darker red which will stripe in a spectacularly gothic manner. I wonder if I should try to wind it into 2 center-pull balls so I can make sure to make each mitt the same size (since I'm already 20yds short, gonna have to tweak the length) or if I should just wing it? After all, it isn't like I couldn't dye the other skein....
and darker red which will stripe in a spectacularly gothic manner. I wonder if I should try to wind it into 2 center-pull balls so I can make sure to make each mitt the same size (since I'm already 20yds short, gonna have to tweak the length) or if I should just wing it? After all, it isn't like I couldn't dye the other skein....Sunday, June 6, 2010
How About We Twit-Along?
At the beginning of the year SpazzyYarn hosted a Twitter-Knit-A-Long thru her blog. We voted on the top suggested patterns and eventually settled on knitting the Travelling Woman shawl (pattern available on Ravelry.) It was a ton of fun!
One of the patterns we voted on was Susie's Reading Mitts; an adorable fingerless gloves pattern that could be knit from wool to be warm for winter or from cotton or silk for a pretty little summer accessory. From what I've read while paging thru the pages and pages of completed projects they knit up quickly (graduation present anyone?) and seem to look good in solids and variagated yarns!
Let's have another Twit-Along, knitting the Susie's Reading Mitts! How about if we have a cast on date for this coming Friday, June 11th and a finishing date by Wednesday, June 30th.
The pattern for these mitts says it calls for approx. 220 yards of yarn, which I'm sure most of us have in our stashes. Join us! If you tweet about the KAL or your progress, make sure to use the "hash tag" #TwitKAL2 so we all can track progress!
One of the patterns we voted on was Susie's Reading Mitts; an adorable fingerless gloves pattern that could be knit from wool to be warm for winter or from cotton or silk for a pretty little summer accessory. From what I've read while paging thru the pages and pages of completed projects they knit up quickly (graduation present anyone?) and seem to look good in solids and variagated yarns!Let's have another Twit-Along, knitting the Susie's Reading Mitts! How about if we have a cast on date for this coming Friday, June 11th and a finishing date by Wednesday, June 30th.
The pattern for these mitts says it calls for approx. 220 yards of yarn, which I'm sure most of us have in our stashes. Join us! If you tweet about the KAL or your progress, make sure to use the "hash tag" #TwitKAL2 so we all can track progress!
This will be FUN!
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