I just found this shirt & I think it’s a must have.
There are so many knit t’s on cafepress but these take the cake for ‘cool’ I think.
I don’t think my husband would be too happy with more than one knit bumper sticker on the family wagon. But he may not get a choice in the matter! Anyone else in on an order to combine? I just don’t want to pay the shipping for one or two items.
For the life of me I couldn’t get a really true picture of the colors. It is somewhere between the dark of the yarn on the winder,
and the bright colors of the yarn outside in natural light,
I love the colors! And I like how it stripes each row going between the blue/orange on needle 1, blue/red on needle 2 and the blue/green/purple on needle 3. It’s fantastic & another order of knitpicks dye your own yarn has been placed! I have 3 more hanks of the sock yarn to mess around with in the meantime.
Another thing I really like about using this yarn to dye is that it is so soft and it stayed that way after all the manipulation of the dyeing process. I am using size 2 needles with this yarn and getting 8sts/inch. It works out well. My hands don’t cramp nearly as much as with the size 00’s! For this set of socks I am not sure what pattern I will do. I may just do some simple stockinette socks and let the yarn do the talkin’!
I finished the Noro sweater yesterday, it had a nice long dip in woolwash and is now drying. I love the spin cycle on the washer, it cuts dry time in half! I still need to steam the yoke shaping. You can see on top of the shoulders that after each decrease row there is a row that is knit tighter. That must be steamed & pinned to dry straight.
AND I actually wrote down the entire pattern while I was making it! So with no further ado…
It’s pretty decieving but there is a 3″ difference from the hip to the waist & then out another 2″ to the bust. I will do a picture of me wearing it once it’s dry. Let me know what you think of the yoke top with the shaping in simple stockinette stitch.
So Thuy had a wonderful post about using food dye to dye your roving. I had Tracy run over to Smart & Final on her lunch & get me the dye. Perfect! She drops it off at the house, I hank up a ball of Knitpicks dye your own merino sock yarn & off I go. I wanted to do the first hank with a section of each of the colors so I knew the true potency of the dye colors; yellow, blue, red. You can’t see it in the photo but I just went off my instinct on how much I used of each color mixed with water to make a total quantity of 2 cups liquid. I used the most yellow, then a bit less blue & the least red. I would do more red the next time to get it a deep red, not cherry red.
I dunked each section in the color individually then moved the hank around to the next color section and once again for the third color. I had a cookie sheet out with plastic wrap on it to lay the colored hank on. Once the entire hank had color I wrapped that baby up in the plastic and nuked it for 3 minutes.
I pulled it out, unrolled it so that it could cool faster & then kept poking & prodding to see the colors.
Here is where the yellow (on the right) and the blue (on the upper left) join. It’s a very pretty brown down on that yellow end. I kinda like!
Here it all is while it is cooling and below it is getting a rinse. I have to say I was rather surprised that the rinse went so quickly. I put it on a baking cooling rack and just let the aerated water run over it at very low flow. I used a teeny tiny bit of dishsoap in the pool of water that was running through it and who knows how much it helped but, as I said, the rinse went quickly. Like under 3 minutes.
All in all, I think the colors came out very pure, very vivid. I don’t particularly care for this color combination but that is not what this hank was about.
I do think it will make a very fun pair of socks though!
This is not a how to on dyeing yarn, by the way. I just thought I would share my tidbit of information.
I have noticed the past few weeks that there are a lot more socks than normal popping up on peoples blogs. Do you think it’s because we are getting tired of the heavy sweater projects? Possibly the knitting olympics just plain pooped everyone out & they needed something small & immediate for knitting recover? I think it is very interesting how we as knitters in the blogging community are so influenced by one anothers projects. There has to be someone that wants to do a study on why we all choose to start socks at relatively the same time without there being a contest or new pattern or secret communique. It’s been one of those ‘Huh’ things for me lately. I didn’t notice a bunch of other bloggers starting socks therefore I did. I just noticed that a bunch of people are done with one sock at the same time I am done with one sock. With plans for many more right now, I might add.
On the progress news, I am joined in the round and almost at where I will start the yoke decreasing on the Noro Kureyon sweater. I can’t wait for it to be done, but with my luck the weather will change next week & it won’t be cool enough to wear it until next January! So I am going as fast as I can so that I can wear it this week while it’s under 65F.
Christine gave me a great idea for socks using my Vintage Socks book. I had been having a hard time finding a yarn that I could get to match gauge that I liked. She suggested using KnitPicks dye your own merino sock yarn. Duh! It didn’t even cross my mind because all of it is in the bag with the Norsk Strikkedesign sweater that I will eventually work on. I grabbed one of about a million of the balls and did my swatch! Perfect match! So now I have knee high lace socks just barely started that I may leave natural or dye some beautiful color. The yarn is so soft, I love working with it. The sock yarn I am making the other socks out of is very sturdy, soft enough for the feet but nowhere else on your body. The colors are beautiful in the openwork pattern though.
So I have been a pretty good girl lately with starting a project, finishing said project. Maybe a small project or two during or in between but I am pretty proud to say that I am sticking with things instead of being totally knit-schizophrenic and bouncing around doing what the crazy cast on people in my head tell me to do. It’s rather satisfying. Now if I could only get some UFO’s done, that would rock the house!
I had half the post done & then lost it. That doesn’t happen very often but when there are pictures & links it can really make a girl pissy!
SO here is the post, again, but not quite so funny & chipper. ;o)
This weekend much good knitting was accomplished.
I worked on 2 projects, back and forth, all weekend. Last Friday I received the Lion Brand newsletter and saw the best gift for my cousin that had twin boys last week. The Bunny Blanket Buddy.
First one done out of Lion Suede that I had on hand. It didn’t take the whole ball of yarn, about 2/3 I would say. It’s nice & soft, it won’t pill or fall apart like chenille might. And machine washable! For the second one I have another ball of Lion Suede in a dark ranch red color. Once the second body is done I will stuff them and embroider their faces. It really is so cute!
I have been working on a pair of socks for myself also. Using Sensational Knitted Socks and gorgeous twinkletoes sock yarn in color Blue Goose from Over the Rainbow Yarns this is the pattern I decided on.
The second project over the weekend was a yoke sweater that I am designing out of Noro Kureyon #131 that I acquired from Thuy.
It’s a long body, 16inches to the underarms, with shaping so it’s not too gigantic. It’s ready to be joined to the sleeves
I am so excited for this sweater to be done! I have to make the second sleeve, join them all, then work the yoke top and crew collar. I may decide to do a boatneck but that will happen last minute. I am using size 8 needles with a gauge of 5sts/inch. Love it! And I am actually writing down the pattern as I go instead of doing it halfway & being too inconvenienced by it. I am hoping it turns out the way that I have it pictured in my head. We’ll see!
