One Sock, Two Sock, Green Sock, Gray Sock

I was a little exhausted after the quick finish to the Girasole Throw. Pairing that with a nasty cold that left me apathetic about nearly anything creative, knitting and crocheting fell to the wayside in early February. I'd work a few stitches here and there, but my heart and hands weren't in it. I seem to have recovered -- I can breathe clearly now, the cold is gone. Today, I finished the first of a pair of socks that had been languishing.

This is one of the Paper Moon socks that I've been working on for a while. I cast on for them in late December while in Germany, and hadn't touched them since the flight home until this weekend. I had to stare back and forth from the sock to the pattern for 20 minutes before I could even grasp what I'd been doing with these -- what size I was making, where I'd left off. But I got a lot of work done on them yesterday, and this morning I finished the cuff and bound off. Better start the second right away, I think.

Yesterday I got to know and spend time with a knitter I'd never met -- always a fun way to spend a beautiful day. Kris is a friend of Janelle's who I know from her blog and a few social media connections. She happened to be here for a conference, so we set aside some time for a mini yarn crawl yesterday. We ended up hitting two shops, driving around a big part of Austin and grabbing some coffee. Knitting happened, of course. Afterwards we ran by the house, went with Jeff to take the dogs for a quick walk, and then all went out for some Texas barbecue. It was a great time, and I look forward to seeing Kris again. I swear we'll get back up to Pennsylvania one of these days. I promise!

While shopping, I couldn't resist this striking light gray Shibui Stacatto sock yarn, a merino/silk blend. The colorway is called Ash. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Sock yarn is the only kind I buy without a plan for what I'll do with it. I think I'll just enjoy looking at it and thinking about the possibilities, for now.

Special Delivery

A package came in the mail today for me, filled with knitterly goodness.

I’d set out to get some green sock  yarn to use for the one tri-colored pattern from 55 Christmas Balls to Knit. Since I was using KnitPicks Stroll for the red and white, I thought I should stick with it for the green. I found this nice Aurora Heather color. A nice deep green with some highlights, I think it will work great. I’d also thought it might work as a good toe and afterthought-heel color for some Felici sock yarn I have called Green Veggies – but it might be too dark. We’ll see about that later.

But I didn’t just want to order one ball of yarn. So, to make the shopping and shipping worth it, I got a copy of Clara Parkes’ The Knitter’s Book of Socks. After reading Janelle’s glowing review, I knew I’d need to get it eventually. And it was on sale. Then, I remembered that I hadn’t been able to find my retractable tape measure for a while, so I had them throw one in.

Other than that, I’ve been focusing on the Men’s Sweater. I’ve put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn, and I’m to the endless round-and-round of 6x1 ribbing. But I’m making progress.

Oh, and I bought some yarn for a super nice project for me – but more about that later. It’s time for me to make supper. Kung pao!

Splice Splice Baby

Today was a day for tying up loose ends, so to speak.

A few days ago, I looked down into the craft bag that I keep beside the chair I knit in , and was appalled at it’s sorry state. Needles everywhere, half-wound balls of yarn, torn up ball bands, color cards, DPNs everywhere – it was a mess. So today, I dumped it out and cleaned house.

I pulled out the straight needles and put them in a vase (I’ll find something better later), threw out a LOT of useless ends and scraps, made sure all the right circulars were in their correct bags, organized my DPNs, and put together some things to donate. This mess you see here is not neat and tidy and only 1/3 full. Maybe now, Kate won’t be tempted to stick her nose in there to see what she can find.

Which leads me to project number two and this post’s title. Last winter, when Jeff and I were out of town, Kate got into some of my knitting. Some of the stuff she ate I didn’t really care about, but she did manage to mangle a hank of Lorna’s Laces in a one of a kind color. Seriously, the color number is 000, but strangely, it has a dye lot number of 34…  I started to toss it, but it had a pristine mate, and knowing that it was irreplaceable made me a bit more dogged (so to speak) in my determination to fix it. So I put this sad shredded mess on a swift, and spent a few hours gently teasing out the pieces and splicing them together. It turns out there were only about a dozen pieces, and two sections were quite long, so I think it was worth it. I’d kind of forgotten about this yarn, but now I’m already thinking of possibilities.

And finally, progress was made on the Pavement Scarf over the past few days. It’s a satisfying pattern, easily memorized within a few pattern repeats. The numbers 6 and 7 figure in the pattern a lot, and it’s clever how it’s reversible – a handy feature for a scarf. Unlike most cabled figures, there is quite a bit of purling into knit stitches and knitting into purl stitches, but once you see where things are going, it does make sense. It is a bit lacier than I thought it would be, and the whole thing could be done on smaller needles, but the drape will be nice and I’m hoping it will fill out when blocked, which this garment sorely needs.

This was to be my over-the-winter-break knitting, but I may finish this faster than I expected. I’m really digging the color.

Today Was a Good Day to Dye

I had fun today doing something with yarn that I don’t normally do – changing it’s color. In my early knitting days, I experimented with dying using Kool-Aid, but hadn’t done much more than that. Doug, one of the movers and shakers of our men’s knitting group (Ravelry link), has recently gotten into dying and is making quite a go of it. He set up a workshop today at an Austin LYS, Gauge, and invited people to come try their hand at dyeing. He had a lot of takers! Everything was well organized and I walked out of there with some lovely sock yarn in brown. But a very vibrant brown!
Doug does really cool things with dye. He combines colors in cool ways and isn’t afraid of the bold and bright – like some people I know. What I really love about Doug is how enthusiastic he is about dyeing, and what a great teacher he makes – drawing people in, getting them started, and then letting them run free with their ideas.
He’s done dyeing sessions for his mom’s friends, and his dad even put together a little device to help portion out yarn for dyeing in striped patterns – I’m sure it has a name, but I didn’t catch it. His dad even drove it up from Houston this morning just so Doug could use it today. Nice! Doug has started a website where you can find out about his dyeing and perhaps snatch up some of his lovely work. You can see some samples above, but also check out White Bear Fibers – I’ve added a banner in the Look! section on the right.
I got to Gauge late-ish, and a lot of the activity had dyed (ahem) down, but I got to see a lot of the work other people had done – neat stuff, in some really cool colors. I loved seeing it all outside, drying in the sun. And yes, northern readers, it got up into the low 80s on this, the penultimate day of January. I’m sitting here writing this after 7:00pm, hoping the open windows will cool the house down a bit. I just can’t imagine turning on the A/C in January. Winter is supposed to come back in about 48 hours, but today sure was lovely.
My brown yarn turned out quite nicely. I dyed the whole skein in a watered down version of the chocolate dye, to get kind of a mauve-y effect. Then, I over-dyed a few sections in a slightly less watered down version. Finally, I used a brush to add some full on chocolate-y low-lights. I did miss a few sections here and there, but all in all, it should turn out good. My skein is hanging up in the bathroom right now – I’ll wind it up in a few days. I can’t wait to make some socks out of it.
Thanks, Doug, for a very fun and creative afternoon!

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid®

Seriously. Have you ever really looked at that stuff? Use it for something way more useful -- like dyeing sock yarn!

Janelle and I had planned to do this when we were up visiting this summer, but never
got around to it. As a Christmas gift, she brought me some Kool-Aid®, some undyed sock yarn from Knitpicks, and accoutrements for the whole process. What a treat! We did all this yesterday. That's Janelle's finished hank on the left, and mine on the right. Let's just say that, in many ways, I'm more tightly wound than Janelle.

I decided to do mine as a self-striping yarn, while Janelle went for the hand-painted look. The process is pretty simple. Soak yarn in warm water, mix Kool-Aid® in a container, put yarn in containers, heat for a while, remove, dry. Okay -- that's pretty simplistic. I won't go into details -- there are plenty of sites that do that. Your results may vary.

You can do it either on the stovetop, as I did, or you can opt for the yarn casserole, which Janelle used. She used a baster to dribble the dye on her yarn in interesting patterns. It was amazing to see that after half an hour of baking, all the dye had been soaked up by the yarn. From experience, we can recommend wearing gloves while doing this.

Then it's all over but the drying and the winding. We left the yarn draped over lawn chairs in the backyard. Mine dried by that evening, since it was spread out into a thinner round. Janelle's, still in the original hank, took overnight to dry.

Oh -- and the final step -- naming your new "colorway." Thinking that I will probably only ever wear socks made from this yarn on the 4th of July, and fondly remembering the ice cream truck that used to drive by my grandma's house in San Antonio when I was a kid, I name this yarn...

BOMB POP!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to this image from the manufacturer.

Thanks, Janelle. I had a lot of fun doing this. I'll post when I dye my second hank, and when I knit something from this.