recent yarn work

Have you noticed that everyone is pregnant with baby boys? Or so it seems!  Almost all of my yarn orders this semester have been for boys.  Here are a few: 

monsters, now and later, for my cousin

The navy one should fit for newborn pictures, but then he'll never wear it again, since he's due mid-summer and it will be far too hot to wear yarny hats.  The larger one should fit for his first winter, and hopefully get a lot more use. 

Two newsboy and bootie sets, one in navy, the other in black.

This was a parting baby gift for Jono's occupational therapist before he graduated (yay!) and she left for maternity leave.  She actually did not know the gender of her baby, so I made my favorite gift for babies of unknown variety-- a neutral bear ear hat, with a flower that can be removed if it's a boy.  

And I made a butterfly beanie for the American Girls.  

These are my favorite types of projects--small, fast, instant gratification.  And it's a good thing I  like them, since let's face it--that's about all I have time for these days! 

learning something new!

It was time. I can crochet and sew competently. I love yarn and fiber arts, so I tried spinning (a blast!) and it was time to bite the bullet and learn to knit. I have had some impromptu knitting lessons with my friend Cynthia, have watched my mother and sister-in-law, and have spent hours on www.knittinghelp.com (where I was told that any person of reasonable intelligence should be able to teach themselves to knit--ha!), but I needed a professional. So with my birthday money, I signed up for a two week class at my local yarn shop--Yarntopia. Why do yarn shops always have such stupid names? The first two hour session was today, during which we learned all about different yarn fibers (wool, cotton, acrylic, etc), gauge, how to read the band on a ball of yarn, etc (stuff I already knew from crochet), and then we learned to cast on and knit. Here's my swatch so far. (I think it's garter stitch?)



I'm to return next week with it twice as long as it is wide and we'll learn to bind off, fold it in half, sew up the sides, and fill it with lavendar to make a sachet. I thought that idea was brilliant. My teacher said that most beginning knitting classes make a scarf, but she thinks it's intimidating to make something that you or someone you love might want to wear--newbies are too concerned about their mistakes that way. So she likes sachets. They make for good practice, good smells, and can be buried in your lingerie drawer if they're ugly.

Next week we learn to purl so that we can make another sachet in stockinette stitch. I can hardly wait!

handspun yarn!

For the past 6 weeks, I've been taking a spinning class at the Fort Bend Museum. We started on drop spindle, then progressed to the great wheel, then to the treadle wheels. We could only spin on the wheels in class, but I got to bring a drop spindle home to practice. It was so much fun! I was so sad to give it back yesterday, and am looking into getting my own. They're fairly inexpensive, so I think I can swing it. Wheels, on the other hand, are not! Maybe some day...

I'm very much a beginner, but here's my first handspun yarn, spun on a drop spindle, dyed pink with Kool-Aid. Our class has a luncheon next Wednesday for our final gathering, and I'm going to try to crochet something with my yarn to take to show. I'm not sure what, yet, since I haven't counted to see how many yards I have. It will certainly be something small! And don't worry--I'll update this post with a completed picture.

Update: I had approximately 30 yards of yarn on my spindle when I unwound it. It was enough to crochet two flowers (plus a smidgen left over). I decided to felt one of them, which was only marginally successful--mostly the hot water just faded my Kool-Aid dye job! I have no clue what I'm going to do with these little flowers, but it's so satisfying to know that I spun the yarn myself and actually made something. Very satisfying indeed.

look what DAVID made!

It's a yarn swift! I'm told that really nice yarn (the kind I'm always tempted to buy but still shy away from) rarely comes in tidy little skeins like the yarn at Michael's that pull neatly from the center. Therefore, in order to work with it, it must be wound into a center-pull ball with the help of a swift and ball winder. I have a ball winder (something like this) on my Christmas list, and I found plans on-line to make a simple swift. David had been itching for a wood-working project, so he whipped it up for me. It looks great and I'm so excited! Now I must need to buy some really nice yarn, huh?

the north Houston LYS circuit

I had such much fun yesterday visiting all of the north Houston LYS's (Local Yarn Shops). Would you believe that there is no yarn shop in Fort Bend County (where I live)? That should be a crime. So when David had a conference in The Woodlands this week, I went with him and dedicated one morning to LYS hopping. Here's a summary of my experiences and purchases...

Twisted Yarns is a darling shop in Old Town Spring. Old Town Spring is a few blocks worth of shops containing antiques and collectibles, jewelry and random treasures that is fun to spend a day wandering through. I learned yesterday that it is also home to my favorite north Houston yarn shop. Twisted Yarns has everything! The ladies who worked there were so friendly and helpful. They were happy to show me around quickly and then leave me alone to browse and pet all of the lovely yarn. I came away with a long list of ideas and projects that their yarns would be perfect for, but I only bought one thing. I fell in love with this organic cotton yarn and bought a skein of it in the "sand" color. It was tremendously difficult not to buy it in every color--it's so soft and beautiful. I feel passionately that every baby in the world deserves a hat made of this yarn. Next friend to have a baby gets one! The only bummer about Twisted Yarns is that they are very knit-focused. None of their example projects were done in crochet. They only had a small selection of crochet hooks, and all of the classes they offer are geared toward knitters. I can forgive that little oversight, though, considering how impressed I was with their yarns and customer service. I even got a free tape measure since it was my first visit. No such thing as too many tape measures!

The Hen House--Also in Spring, the Hen House is a combination yarn shop and quilt shop. Mom and I made a stop there this summer, so this was my 2nd visit to this store. The interior could not be cuter. It's made to look like a barn, well, probably a hen house, with wood floors and wooden walls and apple baskets full of yarn. It's a very inviting place. For my purposes, however, it's not the greatest LYS. They carry many, many, many specialty yarns, most of which are too frilly for me to want to work with. I don't like hairy or fuzzy or ribbon-y yarns. I like soft cottons and wools that look like your grandmother would have used them. None of this new trendy yarn for me! I must say, though, that if I'm ever in the market for some gorgeous HPY (hand painted yarn), I'll have to take a trip back. Their selection of locally dyed HPY was to die for!

Merribee Needlearts--I made my first trip to Merribee a few months ago in search of the perfect wool for my on-going felted basket project. The little lady who owns this shop is so sweet and will sit and talk with you forever about your ideas. She was a tremendous help to me when I was debating which yarn to use and how to construct the so-called baskets. Her shop is very large, and is dedicated to needle crafts of all types, including embroidery and needlepoint in addition to knit and crochet. This shop is very crochet-friendly, a trait I admire. In fact, the owner was crocheting a sample from a new wool yarn she had just ordered for felting when I was there, and we had a lively debate on hook size for worsted weight yarn. She's pretty sure I always use a smaller hook than I should, and let's face it--she's probably right, but I'm stubborn! Merribee is not a fancy shop, though. No HPY, no organics, hemps, or linens. Not even some of the classics that you expect to see in a LYS like Cascade, but a sweet shop and an owner that makes you want to visit again and again. I did leave Merribee with a small purchase, too--some yarn for the Christmas swap on the 'pin!

Oh the fun that can be had...

with a big ole' skein of fisherman's wool! I spent yesterday afternoon dyeing wool yarn with Kool-aid. Kool-aid is supposed to be a permanent dye on all animal fibers, like wool, silk, mohair, etc. We'll see how it holds up, but it sure was FUN! I used these instructions from knitty.com. The article gives three different methods--stovetop, microwave, and "painting" a variegated yarn. I tried one of each. I thought I'd share my process and results with you!

"Black Cherry" on the stovetop

First, I bundled my yarn in "loose hanks" and chose my "flavors", about one package per ounce of yarn. Then I soaked my yarn in warm water with a glug or two of vinegar for 20-30 minutes until it was good and saturated.

Meanwhile, I mixed my Kool-aid with a very little bit of water--just enough to dissolve the powder. Then I put the Kool-aid mixture in a large pot on the stove, added the yarn, and enough water to just cover the yarn. I saw the yarn soaking up the dye almost immediately. I heated the water to nearly boiling (good and steamy) and then put the lid on the pot and let it sit for 30 minutes or so. I did stir it a few times, but I was afraid of felting it, so mostly I just poked the parts that looked like they needed a little encouragement with my spatula! The most amazing part, I thought, was that the yarn really did soak up all of the dye out of the water. Towards the end of its time on the stove, the water in the pot truly was clear and the yarn was red. Unbelievable.

After the wool had cooled down enough for me to handle it, I rinsed it under warm water until the water ran clear (which took seconds--the wool was really well set with the dye) and laid it out to dry. I let it dry overnight and rolled it into a ball today. Ta-da!


"Blastin' Berry Cherry" in the microwave

The microwave method was not my favorite. My wool didn't come out colored as evenly as it did on the stovetop. I started off the same way as the stovetop--soak the wool with a glug of vinegar, mix the Kool-aid with a little bit of water, and put in a microwave safe dish. I spread the wool out as best I could in my dish, but I think I should have chosen a bigger dish. I don't actually know if I own one that's bigger but would still turn well in my microwave, though. Bummer. And again, I filled it up with enough water to just cover the yarn. Then I zapped it for 2 minutes on high, let it rest about 10 minutes, and repeated the process two more times--zap, rest, zap, rest, let cool.

One of the reasons I wasn't too fond of the this method was that the dye didn't seem to heat-set in the microwave as well as it did on the stove. The water in the dish never was clear and when it was time to rinse this one, it took *forever* for the water to run clear. It finally did, though, and here's my result:


and the Grand Finale.... a variegated yarn using "Lemonade", "Lemon-lime",
and "Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade"

This was the most fun! Again, I soaked my yarn well with some vinegar while I mixed my three flavors. This time I put my flavors in three measuring cups, with about a cup of water each. I laid my yarn out flat on the floor with some trash bags underneath.

Then I poured a bit of one color and then another, one at a time, and patted it to make sure the dye saturated all of the yarn layers. I tried to use colors that wouldn't look tacky if they bled into each other, which is good, because they certainly did!

This is what the yarn looked like before I heat-set it in the microwave.

I put it in a caserole dish and zapped it twice for 2 minutes with a rest in between. There was no more colored water in the bottom of the dish after that, so I figured it was done.

This one rinsed clear almost immediately like the first one, and went on the drying rack with the others.

Here is the outcome of my variegated labors:


And one more...just to show off...

Now, don't you want to try???

organization

My yarn and sewing supplies were taking over my guest bedroom, so here's my new "craft cart". It's actually an old, sad cart that I had in my classroom, but I'm glad I can give it a new job. It works well, but it's already FULL! And that's my new sewing machine on top (in it's case). I'll showcase her in a later post...