Even though it's too hot to knit...

I just had to start in on the Peace of Pi :)

Adventures in dyeing

I was going to use Procion dyes, but they are rather expensive. Then I found Dylon dyes at Walmart and they were much cheaper. Especially since I wanted primary and secondary colours. Procion does have brown dyes and I might just splurge for those, for another project in the future.

Dyeing is messy, certainly, but if you have everything set out and ready to go it makes the job much easier.


I used a foam dauber thingy to paint the yarn. I did it outside and the hose was nearby. I probably mixed in far more powdered dye than I needed, but I didn't measure it out - I just guessed at half the packet. If I had used the whole packet I could have dyed about 20 skeins of this yarn.



That's the final product after washing out the excess dye. The white-ish bits are because the yarn is half acrylic and that didn't take dye. I rather like the effect though.

I like the Dylon dyes (so far, I don't know how well it will hold up to washings) and would consider using them again, especially if I find cotton t-shirts that fit me, but come in nasty colours. I do wish they had brown dye though.

Peace of Pi

I decided to call these design ideas "YABIs" (Yet Another Brilliant Idea) because I will get a design stuck in my head and there's no hope for it until I actually try and make it. Usually it fails, somehow, and I can at least tell that designer in my head to shut up for a while. But sometimes it works out OK. And this project is possibly one of the ones that will work out OK, but first I have to get some dye that will work on cotton. I thought kool-aid would work, but, alas, it won't - not on cotton.

The idea popped into my head on July 4th, which was damp and chilly here. I was wearing a t-shirt and wishing I had brought a jacket when I saw some girls walk by wearing shrugs. Shrugs are basically sleeves of a sweater, attached at the back. (I don't like the ones that tie right under the bust, that only looks good on a girl who looks more like a boy ) I was thinking that it'd be cool to have a Peace sign on the back and how would I do that? Cables? Naw - I-cord would be easier, but can I knit a flat circle?

Turns out the answer is "Yes". Elizabeth Zimmermann answered this question years ago when she unvented her Pi Shawl. The increases on her round shawl are based on pi.

And that just gave me the worst pun ever - The Peace of Pi Shrug!

I want to dye the cotton yarn in rainbow colours, then knit it up and attach I-cord in dark green for the peace sign and edges. I debated about just knitting it up and then tie-dyeing it before adding the I-cord, but I think I will prefer the colours all knitted up.

I'll have pictures, whenever I have anything to take pictures of.

more knitting ponderings

I have a possible hat pattern stuck in my brain and the idea is simply not letting go, so I must attempt it! :)

I'm imagining it in suede, but I'm not quite willing to rip that stuff out yet - or look for the remaining ball.

I have some variegated cotton, although I truly doubt it's enough to do what I want. But as I'm really just messing around I'm sure I can fudge it a bit. If I get desperate then I'll go in to walmart! :)

I have to try and calculate how many stitches to cast on and work with this pattern. I think I'll do 120 stitches - size 8 needles - peaches & cream cotton yarn.

Knitting update

I'm working on the last panel of the poncho and decided to try out the applied I-cord that I had planned for the edging. I'm doing this for several reasons:

1. The yellow I have is in many small balls, so, if I used just that there would be a great many extra bumps in the edging.
2. I probably don't have enough yellow to do what I want.
3. Because I don't exactly know how much I will need, I'm doing a bit more than 12 inches and then I will rip that out and measure it.
4. I needed to actually try out the stitch and see if it looked OK.


#4 backfired on me - it looked awful. I could see a line of the panel colour showing through where I attached the yellow! I tried several things last night, adding a yarnover, applying it with the wrong side facing me, with the right side facing me, nothing looked good.

So I just set it aside and worked on the last purple panel. This morning I got the brilliant idear of doing a line of crochet (I'm pants at knowing what stitch I'm actually doing, I'm sticking the hook into the ladder between knit stitches, hooking a loop, bringing that loop up and then through the loop already on the needle) (this procedure is done with right side facing me) THEN with the right side still facing me, doing a 3 stitch applied I-cord. This method gets the result I wanted!

Now I just have to find the wrappers so I can determine what colour I have - there are two yellows in this Silky Wool - sunflower and gold. And it's difficult to tell which one I have from the teeny pictures I see online, plus the inevitable colour changes that occur when you post pictures on the net and view them through different monitors.

See - this is why I save all those wrappers! Although they're strewn about the house, so it's not really doing me much good at the mo! :)

It's March!

And it's actually windy! I think this is the first time in several years that's it's been windy during the first part of March. It's a cliche to say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Well, it hasn't happened that way for at least three years, it's been backwards, and we've had simply awful growing years.

Dare I hope that we have a good gardening year? I'll let ya know in October :)

I still haven't felted that blue purse. Haven't sold the brown one either, but that could be because I'm using it. :)

If I ever get my connection sorted out I'll upload some pics to flickr. The last time I tried it was just disastrous and I have been lax at trying again.

Been grooving to Boston Legal Season One thanks to Netflix. Been knitting Tilted Ladders with Silky Wool and it's just gorgeous. The plan is to make it a rectangular poncho.

Still undecided about what cable to use for the Tree Shawl - the library found me two of the Harmony Stitch Guides, but that half-remembered cable that I think I saw last year isn't in either of the books. :(

I should be copying stuff off my harddrive. I finally ordered Tiger OSX for Angus and as it's the full install, not just an upgrade, well, there's stuff I wanna save.

Maybe later. I'm hungry.

halfpast february...

I ordered seeds! Why are there just sooooo many yummy sounding tomatoes? And no matter what we grow we always fall back on Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter. But, we won't find the Absolute Perfect Tomato unless we experiment with new seeds! :)

I get very excited over planning the garden - trying to decide what gets grown where, what we have to keep separated to save seeds.

grumblegrumblegrumble

I have pictures I want to upload and I keep getting disconnected...