No longer the color of a band-aid

10 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: , ,


Before.

I’ve written before about a top I was knitting with some really cheap bamboo yarn that was a 

After.

 ghastly color. Gray, beige, greige…with a little pink thrown in. Maybe some of you thought, oh, just wait til summer, and when you get a tan, you’ll look better.

 Um. No. I’m pretty pale. Even in August, I just get pinkey-beige…greige, if we’re being honest..

So, since I can’t color myself, I figured I’d dye the sweater. There is a bit of risk in this – sure, maybe the yarn was a 2 dollar investment, but the time is a big deal. Spending a month of free time working on something I can’t wear is disappointing.

Each package of dye cost about $3. I only used one, but I wanted a back-up.

I doubled my investment with a packet of dark brown Dylon dye from the craft store. I chose it over Rit because I have used both before, and Dylon seems stronger- it dyes deeper and seems to last longer, too.
My concern with dying an already-knit item was that the knit stitches themselves would act like tie-dye, so it wouldn’t take up evenly. In this case, I didn’t need to worry- the color took really evenly, and it is even a bit darker than I expected. I love my new sweater!
Judging from some of the searches that have found me, people want to know if Kool Aid works for dying cottons or other vegetable fibers. As far as I know, no. I do know they will stain cottons, but I don’t think they will be colorfast on anything other than wools and silks. That is why I went with a packet of relatively toxic dye for this sweater, and why I didn’t let my kids help me with this project.

 I followed the directions on the package- I have an enamel roasting pan that I only use for dye. I used disposable spoons to stir with, I wore gloves, and I didn’t do it at a time when the kids would get underfoot. The dye is most toxic when in powder form- it is not something anyone wants to breath in.

I mixed the dye according to package directions, and did most of the dying outside.

 However, once it was mixed, I didn’t want the boy hopping through the kitchen and spilling a gallon of dark brown liquid. Yikes! can you even imagine?

I washed the sweater first, then left it wet and put it in the dye. The directions say to stir for 15 minutes then let it set for another 45. I kind of got distracted and left the pot on the back porch for over an hour. It may have done some longterm damage…but I can’t tell at this point. I’m really happy with the color, and can’t wait until it’s warm enough to wear it.

Norwegian Lagoon Socks

11 Feb 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts, favorite things Tags: ,


Here’s why I love Facebook: I grew up with a friend, since 4th grade, when we were in girl scouts, all through middle school and high school, then we graduated, and never saw each other again. Small towns being what they are, I heard about her. She was in a band, got married, lived in California, but not much else. Then shortly after I joined FB, I saw that she was on, and I was so excited. We friended each other, and I get to see what her life is like, and read her blog. http://chksngr.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50

If I go to the reunion in 8 years, it’s only if she’s going.
Anyway, about the socks. Every Monday, on her blog, she has a Muse post- usually short, an image that inspires her, maybe a red plate on an apple green tablecloth, or just after Christmas, I think, a Norwegian lagoon, with brilliant blue sky, white iceberg, reflecting a brilliant blue sea. I happened to be knitting a pair of lace socks in shades of denim, and the stripes were stacking up like that Norwegian lagoon. I was going to comment on her blog, but I can never get through her security- my pop-up blocker blocks her comment thingy, and I lack the patience to figure it out.(yes, I recognize the irony, here- I have patience to knit socks by hand, but not to figure out a comment thingy. I’m an English teacher, I recognize irony.) I showed DH, and he said, oh, you should send a picture to Felecia.
I kept forgetting.

Meanwhile, they have become my favorite socks- I got the yarn last summer in Massachusetts, (yes, I went yarn shopping on vacation, why do you ask?) and these are the socks I pull out of the drawer whenever they are clean. So soft, and even if they don’t go with everything I wear, I make them go. Sky goes with everything, right?

Pure wool, hand dyed in the great Northwest. Love these socks.

The Band-aid Colored Sweater

03 Feb 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: , ,


At the halfway mark of a top down sweater...

I have been cranking along, about an inch per day on this short sleeved sweater that I started last…maybe…August? Part of the problem is that I don’t love the color- on the ball it was kind of pinkish, but knit up, it is weirdly grey. Beige. Greige… is greige a color? Because that’s what this is.

I found the yarn, a very thin bamboo, at the Habitat thrift store, for 50 cents a ball. It is super soft, and who could resist that price?

I got the pattern from Knitting in the Sun- great book, that I have used for a couple of patterns. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_19?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=knitting+in+the+sun&sprefix=knitting+in+the+sunThe detail I love is the waist shaping- gradual ribbing. First 1 perl stitch for every 7, then 1 in 3, then 1 perl, 1 knit, then back up again. Love it. 

Waist shaping detail

 However, the detail is really a pain in the neck to knit. I am almost through with the pain in the neck part, and then there will be about another 6 inches of length. Ugh. Then the sleeves. The goal was to finish it in the month of January, but obviously that didn’t happen.

So maybe sometime by the end of February, I’ll have a weirdly colored sweater. Maybe I’ll dye it.

Just Right

11 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in learning Tags: ,


Finished the hat this afternoon- the girl is happily wearing it now. Can’t prove love through material things, I know, but there is love in every stitch. I hope she can feel it.

Just in time for icy weather...

Pink and Pink

10 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


About half of a hat- there is a way to make the color changes less obvious, but I haven't learned it yet.

I am cruising along on the girl’s two toned striped hat. I actually did a swatch, which I hate doing, but I really hate finishing a project and discovering it is too huge or too puny. So, I actually measured the girl’s head, made a little swatch, measured, counted and multiplied.
I cast on last night just before we put in Hot Tub Time Machine- and knit about 4 inches up the hat by the end of the night. HTTM is a good knitting movie-not a good movie…a good knitting movie is one where it is brightly lit and not mysterious. Everything in the movie was telegraphed- no inferences needed to be made. I was never wondering who the obnoxious guy might have to have sex with in order to ensure that Jacob would be born. I knew before the characters did which beverage needed to be spilled on the Hot Tub control panel. Anyway, this is devolving into a review of a bad movie, instead of a hat pattern.

I decided to make uneven stripes, in a fibonacci pattern, because I am pretty nerdy: a fibonacci sequence adds the 2 previous numbers to get the next one in the sequence. The first pale stripe has 1 row (which I forgot to do- oops) the next has 2 rows, the next, 3, the next 5, the next 8, and so on. Actually, I plan to stop at 8 and go back down. I think an uneven stripe is more visually interesting than even stripes, but I also likethere to be a pattern in the chaos. 

By the way, I am writing this pattern in case anyone is looking to make a hat just like this- but I have to say I’m more of a believer in making up your own pattern design. Once you know how to do a basic hat, (and this one is about as basic as you can get), you can do anything you feel like. Also, this is not remotely a copyrighted pattern- I learned how to make a basic hat from “Stitch and Bitch”http://www.amazon.com/Stitch-N-Bitch-Knitters-Handbook/dp/0761128182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294612345&sr=8-1, a long time ago. I made so many hats I  memorized the pattern, changed it, added stripes, etc. Now, for the first time I am writing down how to do it, while I am doing  it.

Stripey Hat pattern

Knitpicks bare fingering weight, dyed in 2 hues of the same color.

 size 5 needles, 6 st. per inch for a 21″ hat. Main color- approx. 120 yds, contrasting color, approximately 80 yards

Cast on 108 stitches, work in 2×2 ribbing for 1 inch. Increase evenly around to 120 stitches and switch to cc. follow the fibonacci sequence for the light colors, but knit 4 rows for the dark stripes every time.

Continue knitting, following the fibonacci pattern, until 7 inches up from the cast on row, place markers every 12 stitches. On the next row, knit 10, then knit 2 together before the marker, then slip marker. Continue each row this way, switching to double pointed needles or 2 circulars, whichever you prefer. Once you get to the final 10 stitches, cut off the yarn, thread it onto a tapestry needle, and stitch through the remaining stitches.

No New Projects! Well, maybe just one…

02 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts Tags: ,


As part of my resolution to be more organized this year, I decided not to start any more knitting projects during the month of January. I knit compulsively, and I still have about 3 long term projects that I will just never finish, unless I really work on them exclusively. For example, there is a short sleeve sweater in a very thin bamboo yarn, on ridiculously skinny needles. I timed it today, and it takes me a full ten minutes to knit one round of this thing. The pattern is knit in one piece, from the top down to the waist, and I am about 10 inches down from the collar. Did I mention that the color is kind of band-aid pink? When I started I thought it would be subtle and natural-looking. Now, I just don’t know. No pictures…
There is a pair of brown socks, very easy ribbing pattern that I have memorized. That is my portable project, for meetings, and car rides. No pictures of them either. My camera is in the car, and it’s just too cold to go get it. I’m also in my pajamas.
The third major project is a circular afghan. Afghans are big, if you hadn’t noticed. and the thing about knitting in a circle, is they get bigger every round. It just takes for ever. Right now, it has a radius of about 12 inches. Not really big enough for an afghan yet. I don’t expect to finish it during my self-imposed ban on new projects, but it’ll maybe go to a 16 inch radius?
There’s also a hat that will take maybe half an hour to finish up on, and it’s charity knitting, for the preschool silent auction.

Now, the girl asked me today for her own hat. Red and pink stripes. And I have this really pretty wool and silk blend, that we could dye. And she’s due for a hat- the one she has been wearing constantly I made about 6 years ago. For her brother. So, she’s totally due.

 No new projects. But watch for a dying tutorial…

Blood, toil, tears and sweaters

20 Dec 2010 2 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, favorite things, learning Tags: , ,


I highly recommend using sock yarn for sweaters because it's machine washable.

I knit for fun, really I do. I like to have something to do with my hands when watching TV, or riding in the car, or waiting at the dentist.  I also like to plan projects, and see them come alive.  A couple of years ago, the girl was reading the American Girl books, and when reading the Kirsten series, she asked me for a sweater like Kirsten’s mom made for her. It was cute- a black and white, Nordic ski sweater. I had played a little with knitting in two colors, and felt comfortable with it, so I took on the project.  http://www.amazon.com/Changes-Kirsten-Winter-American-Collection/dp/0937295949/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292820841&sr=1-1

We wound up misplacing the book- it turned up later in the closet under the stairs, so I couldn’t make up the pattern by looking at the illustration on the cover.  At that point I didn’t feel comfortable looking at an illustration and making up a sweater pattern anyway. 

The inspiration for the sweater. we never made the hat or mittens.

Actually, I don’t think I could do that now, either… So I found a pattern in “Knitting Without Tears” from the library. This is a book I highly recommend, by the way, if you are ready to graduate from scarves.

I cast on about 200 stitches in sock yarn for the body, and started on the patterns going up the body to the armpits. It was kind of fascinating- you hold the black yarn in one hand, the white in the other, and go across the rows, knitting four of black, 3 of white, or whatever, and row by row the pattern builds. Checkerboards, snowflakes, giant backward letter “s” . With the amount of work this was going to be, I wanted it to fit for a  few years, so I made it extra long, and by the time I got to the armpits, it was time to start the sleeves.  This was where I got stalled. 

You look at a sleeve, and it looks small, but it winds up being more than a quarter of the size of the body of a sweater. I cast on what I thought was the right number of stitches, and went about 4 inches, before I thought of trying it on the girl. Too small. It is now a mini dress for Barbie. Start over, The other thing about sleeves is that they can’t be just cylindircal, because arms aren’t. But the thing about working with two colors, is most of the patterns have repeats of 8 stitches, so increasing gradually messes up the pattern, and increasing too suddenly makes the arm look goofy.  Ask me how I know. 

By now it was March, and even though in Norway, I am sure people wear Norwegian sweaters well into summer, here in Northern Colorado, we are riding bikes and playing soccer. I put away the sweater for a while as being just too frustrating.

Took it out again in the fall, ripped out the sleeves, reknit to make sure they matched, then attached them to the body of the sweater. At this point, I really started cruising. It still took a while, though.  The girl’s school had a spirit day, whose theme was “Dress as a book character” I made it down the home stretch and finished the Kirsten Sweater in time for her to wear it to school. 

Now, the reason this has come up now, 3 years after I started knitting that thing, and 2 and a half years after I finished it, is that when I picked up the girl the other day at school, she was wearing it. “Oh, you haven’t worn that for a while.” I said.

“Yeah, I just found it in the lost and found.”

Yikes- the school newsletter had just announced that as of  Friday, anything still in the lost and found would be taken to Goodwill. As I said, I knit because I enjoy it, but that sweater has a little bit of my soul in it, and the thought of it being sold at a thrift store was a little jarring. I’m glad to have it home again. Don’t ask me what I’ll do when she outgrows it. I’m not ready to think about it.

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