Domestic Bliss
It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...
New toy.
I bought myself a gadget yesterday. That thing that looks like a small sun tea jar? That would be a yarn-tainer. It's a clear plastic jar that has a hinged lid with a hole in the top and a handle. The first time I saw one of these in a catalog, I thought, Wow, what an unnecessary piece of junk. Why would I pay $15 for such a thing? Then on Sunday, I was browsing some yarn with a friend and saw one at the store and thought, Actually, that's kind of neat. But I don't want to pay $8 for it. And then yesterday I was at Target and saw one for just under five bucks, and decided, Okay, for that price I think I need one of these after all.This thing is great! It holds three large balls of my hand-dyed worsted yarn, and it's been really nice to knit without having to pick the ball up off the floor because it keeps falling off the table/couch/lap. My yarn is gathering a lot less of my hair now. (I have long hair, and I shed. There is hair everywhere, especially on the floor. I always end up pulling long strands out of whatever I'm working on.)
The piece of knitting in that photo is the first sleeve of my Kool-Aid sweater, which is turning out quite nice. The front and back are both finished, and the front is blocking:
I just realized that in that photo it looks like I've pinned the edges crooked. I assure you they're actually pretty straight. If you look closely, you can just see that I've put garter stitch stripes every 10 rows to add a bit of texture; this has the added benefit of making it really easy to count rows! I think this is the largest thing I've ever knit without using a row counter.
Almost done, but...
Ran out of yarn. Dang it.
I've e-mailed the manufacturer; we'll see if they decide to make this right and send me enough yarn to finish. If not, then I guess this will end up with a pastel toe.
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Update! As I was posting this entry, I got this e-mail:
Hi Bliss,
You found the magic ball and won the prize!!! Actually, I wish I could
say it was intentional, we have never seen that before either! We will
send out a new ball of blue green (the variegated color way right?) and a little
something for giving us such a chuckle! We certainly apologize.Well, all right then. Now I have to say that this company rocks!
Ice cream, yarn, and Gilmore Girls.
My husband left a few hours ago for a road trip - he's visiting friends in Ohio and will be gone until Sunday or Monday. I just got back from running some errands, and while I was out I picked up a few items to tide myself over the weekend:
- Two more skeins of Fisherman's Wool and several packets of Kool-Aid for more dyeing experiments
- Six books from the library
- Ingredients for beef and mushroom stew, which I love but never make
because he won't eat mushrooms - One pint of pineapple-coconut ice cream, my favorite flavor which is nearly impossible to find (don't count on this lasting through the weekend)
- Gilmore Girls Season 5 on DVD (Disc 1 arrived today from Netflix, and Disc 2 should be here tomorrow)
So I'm pretty much set.
I should finish the Soy Socks tonight, and then I can start on the wool sweater. I need to remember to keep it simple so that I can finish it quickly; I have a tendency to be overambitious on projects like this. Must remember: no cables, no fancy stitches, just a simple sweater with maybe some garter stitch stripes for texture.
Yesterday I signed up for The Amazing Lace. (I signed up for the webring too.) I figured I might as well participate, seeing as how I've got two lace projects going anyway. It's not about finishing a project in a certain amount of time the way the Knitting Olympics was; I think it's going to involve taking a lot of photos of myself and my Dainty Bess in various locales. Right now I'm brainstorming about what I'll do for our Official Team Photo for Challenge #1.
Live & Let Dye.
Since I'll need another project once the Soy Socks are done, I decided to make a child's sweater for the Dulaan Project (I'll have to get going on that since they need to receive it by July 1). I wanted to use wool for warmth, so I headed down to Big Box Craft Retailer to see if they had anything suitable and reasonably priced. They had Paton's wool for five bucks a 100 gram ball, but I kept looking and came across the Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, which I didn't realize they carried. Six bucks for an eight-ounce skein! I picked up two, and when I went to the register I mentioned that I didn't have a coupon with me, but the very kind cashier gave me 50% off one of my skeins anway. One pound of yarn = nine bucks. Score!The wool was undyed, and while natural wool makes lovely aran sweaters, I figured a kid would probably appreciate some color. This seemed like a good time to try dyeing wool. I found several websites about dyeing, and concluded that Kool-Aid would be a good medium to try. Turns out it was on sale as well - 8 packages for a dollar. I wound my skeins into hanks, mixed the Kool-Aid in a big pot, threw it all together and simmered it for 10 minutes.
The most amazing thing happened - the wool absorbed the color so well that when I removed it from the pot, all that was left was clear water. No mess! I was stunned. (I had filled the washer halfway with hot water, thinking that putting the wet yarn in there would be the easiest way to deal with dye runoff, but since there wasn't any, next time I'll just take it to the bathtub.) I rinsed the yarn, then added a little detergent and washed and rinsed again. I squeezed out most of the water, threaded the hanks on a mop handle, and set them across the top of the open washing machine to drip-dry.
When the hanks were mostly dry, I took all the coats off the coatrack and turned it into a yarn tree.
By the next day, the yarn was completely dry.
I'm quite pleased with the results, even though I was going for warm purple and ended up with kind of a russety rose. Most of the skeins came out reasonably even; I wanted some color variation, which I got. The one on the far left was the first one into the pot, and it got more of the dark color than the others, but it turned out the best. I'm hoping there will be enough yarn in the other 5 hanks for the sweater so I can use that one for a hat.
Love that soy.
One Soy Sock is finished! I'm using an Inox circular needle I picked up in Savannah (I've never seen them for sale in any of the local shops) - that sucker has the sharpest points of any needle I've ever used. I'm surprised they haven't drawn blood from my index fingertip (yet). They're awfully good for the toe decreases, though. I really like the way this yarn feels. It's called Wick (because it's meant to wick away moisture, so it's good for sweaty feet) and it's 53% soy silk and 47% polypropelene. It has a nice hand and it's machine washable (I have enough non-machine-washable socks). It's a good thing I made this an anklet sock, since I only had two yards left over. (Whew!)
I wanted to go ahead and cast the second sock on immediately (to avoid SSS), so I got out the ball winder and balled up my second skein. When I got to the end, I was in for a little surprise.
These are the last five yards of my skein. This piece of yarn was attached to my blue yarn by a big-ass knot. I really hope they didn't count this toward the 120 yards of #688 Blue Green I paid for! I'm pretty sure this is #191 Soft Petals. I could maybe understand this if the colors were close and someone at the yarn factory thought it was a piece of Blue Green when it was actually Ocean because they were working in crappy light, but these colorways aren't even the same value, let alone the same color. I'm hoping that this is just waste yarn they used when winding the skein that someone just forgot to remove, because if I run out of yarn before my second sock is done, someone's getting an e-mail.
Progress.
Check out my new progress bars over there on the right! Syntax very kindly set them up for me. Many thanks to Matt over at Unlikely Words for the tutorial. (I am finding so many cool knitting blogs by clicking on the links in the comments on that page!)
Tonight was Date Night for us - we were celebrating Syntax's latest report card. Since he got a B in the class, we had Buffalo wings and beer and went bowling. (I don't know what we would have eaten had he got an A.)
Still here!
I don't know what happened. I was blogging nice and regularly, at least once a week, for a good long stretch there, then I took a short break, and then... inertia. I've thought about writing several times over the last couple of weeks, but then I'd think, I have to write about Savannah. But I have to get the pictures from Syntax. Then I have to crop them so they look better. Then I have to organize them. Oh, that'll take too long; I'll just post later. And now it's three and a half weeks later. Ack.
So, no pictures of Savannah for now, although I'll get around to posting them eventually. I will say that we had a wonderful time, and that waiting in line in the hot sun for 45 minutes to get on the list at The Lady and Sons so that we could come back 5 hours later for dinner was totally worth it.
At least I've had time to do some knitting during my inadvertent hiatus. I've got three works in progress, plus one that I just finished.
WIP #1: Dainty Bess scarf. I think this will look really nice when it's blocked.
WIP #2: Old Shale scarf, like the ones I made at Christmas. I work on this one when reading the Dainty Bess chart gets to be a strain, since I have the Old Shale pattern memorized.
WIP #3: Soy silk sock. I just started this tonight while at the Tourists game; I wanted something to work on during the lulls and lace just isn't that portable.
And finally, the finished project:
I made these at the request of a coworker who decided her yellow flip-flops weren't quite festive enough and that they needed Fun Fur trim. Aren't these hilarious? I cast on 10 stitches on a size 3 needle, knit for about a foot, cast off (leaving a long tail for sewing), then sewed the long sides together around the foot straps. I looped the knitting around the toe piece, which secured it so that it wouldn't slide around. I think she'll like them.
