FF: BSJ production, Part 1

Note: apparently Fiber Friday is not limited to spinning, since today's post is about dyeing. Consider yourselves warned.

Last weekend we had a lovely visit from the siblings-in-law* who came down to make off with some of our baby stuff in anticipation of their firstborn's arrival in July. And while Mom-to-be is a knitter, she hasn't been feeling the motivation to do much baby knitting these days. So I, as Auntie-to-be, have taken up the gauntlet. I had some undyed Swish superwash leftover from my Fabulous Intarsia Experiment, so I handed SIL my Acid Dye Quick Reference and told her to pick some colors.

This is an example of how it's a good idea to get input from the intended recipients of a knitted item, because I would never have put these colors together.

The yarn soaked overnight, and I squeezed it out and laid it on some plastic wrap while I go the dyes ready. It was a bit windy, so quite a bit of VM ended up in the dye package, but it did no harm to the yarn, so far as I can tell. I used highly technological means to apply the dye (plastic water bottles with holes punched in the lids so I could squeeze the dye out). The parents picked Sun Yellow, Golden Yellow and Emerald, but I used artistic license to add just a squirt of Fuschia to the mix.

I wrapped up the yarn, put it in the roaster, and then took it back out again to spray it with citric acid (oops!). Then back in the roaster on a rack above about 1.5 inches of water at 225 degrees for about 2 hours. I rinsed out the yarn and hung it to dry.

Reskeined,

And balled up ready to go.

This will become a Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) - I'm just hoping I have enough yarn for it! According to Ravelry's fabulous BSJ Wiki, it will be a near thing, but I've got some other colors in the stash that can be used or overdyed to be more appropriate. So I'm off on another Zimmerman adventure.

* What do you call your sibling-in-law's spouse anyway? Sibling-in-law once removed? These are the things that keep me up at night.

Nana is crafty

While Ironman and I went gallivanting off to London a few weeks ago, my wonderful parents flew down from Boston and babysat the girls. Nana, not willing to be left without something to do (recent rotator cuff surgery not withstanding) asked me for a project. And so I put her to work.

A few months back, I found a great thread in the Cult of Lendrum group on Ravelry about wheel carry bags. There are quite a few out there, some good, some not so good, but one enterprising spinner posted some pictures of a bag she made herself out of a coverlet set she got at the store. Seeing as how Nana just finished a beautiful quilt for us, we had an old grungy coverlet sitting around.

So I favorited the post, gave my Mom my login info, and left, secure in the knowledge that she would sally forth and create something fabulous.

And she did. Behold, my new Lendrum bag:

She also made individual bags for the Kate, flyers, plying head, fast flyer and extra bobbins.

And there's enough extra space in there for a cubic buttload of fiber. Which is good, cause that's what I've got lying around these days.

The only thing I think I might add is a little pocket on the inside for extra brake pegs and drive bands (and maybe a slot for the seldom-used oil bottle). It's fabulous!

I left the wheel resting in it's folded up, newly-bagged glory for a few days and then got back to work, this time on some gorgeous BFL from Nikol. This is the third batch of fiber from Yarn School, and I'm remembering why I like BFL so much - the buttah of the fiber world.

I will be feeding my BFL fix alot in the next few weeks. The next round of the Ply by Night group is some BFL from Briar Rose Fibers. I'm anxiously awaiting it's arrival, but then I'll have to decide how to spin it. The group choose two patterns this time - Primavera Socks for thinner yarn, and the Chickadee Cowl for thicker yarn. Since my default spin is usually pretty thin, I'm kind of leaning towards a thicker yarn, maybe even a single ply for the cowl. Plus, I'm going to need lots of those next winter, right?

I want those four hours of my life back

If you're considering faking your death on the internet, please us this video as a primer so I can get some more sleep.

I will also add a postscript: going back to the community where you "died" as a sockpuppet but using identifiable aliases/similar email to register your new blog will probably not work out too well for you. Just sayin'...

What, knitting? OK, if you insist. Boo decided (after Devil wore her new socks for 36 hrs straight before I could pry them off her feet and throw them into the machine) that she needed new socks too. So she started pulling yarn out of the cupboard and holding it on her feet. And standing on it. I broke down and started a pair for her out of some Kool-Aid dyed Knitpicks Bare, red and pink, using Grumperina's model for helical stripe socks. They will not be done for the January progress report, but I have a whack-load of spinning to share for that.

Wee teaser: My WHMU(WHSKAL) buddies might want to take note of the spinning posts for the next few months. That is all.

FF: Sunshiney

There's a great Ravelry thread I've been following for a while now, where people post pictures of their handspun projects start to finish: fiber, spun yarn and FO. A brief discussion there generated a new group that I've joined - Ply by Night. This is a spin/knitalong, where everybody buys the same fiber and colorway, and then knits it up. For the first venture (January/February) we're knitting the Morning Surf Scarf.

Since I'm fascinated by the change from fiber to yarn to knit, this was the group for me. We picked superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms in the "Sunshine of your love" colorway. My fiber arrived right before we left for vacation,

and the day we got back from Boston I started spinning the singles. Let's hear it for spinning as recovery from 17 days with two small children!

The top was very interesting - one side was really saturated, the other side had splotches of white. I decided to try and blend those as much as possible, so I split the top into quarters, and then spun from two pieces of top held together to blend the saturated and white stretches. I ended up with two bobbins like this.

I knew I wanted to chain ply, since I really like the way a 3-ply looks in dropped stitches (as seen in my mini-Clap, also with handspun), so while I was home sick the other day, I plied everything up, soaked it for a bit in warm water and Eucalan, and hung it out to dry. I didn't really do any rough finishing since this is superwash, and the overplying evened out well after finishing.

Before finishing

Having finished a Tomten, and reinvigorated my mojo for another long-slumber WIP, I was going to hold out this stuff as a carrot to get some other things done. But...I couldn't do it. I now have about 8 inches of scarf already hanging off the needles. It's amazing. Should be done by Monday.

Final yarn stats: 126 yds of chain-plied superwash merino (8 oz!), 11-13 wpi before finishing, about 10 wpi after finishing.

Sticking the dismount

Or, in my case, not sticking the dismount. As in, taking a huge giant sideways step on the dismount, then falling on my ass and rolling off the podium onto the ground in a giant heap.

Can you tell I've been watching too much gymnastics? Or as Devil calls it, the monkey bars.

My grand, ambitious, long-anticipated Ravelympics project is probably not going to make it across the finish line. I'm loving the pattern, the yarn is gorgeously soft (mmmmm, baby alpaca!), and it's moving along. It's just that, well, it is kind of overwhelming. I'm maybe a third of the way in, and the rows are 400+ stitches and take about 12 minutes each. I'm finding that I want to savor this project, not rush through it. Plus black yarn plus black beads divided by spending much of my day in front of the computer makes for sore eyes. I worked on it on the bus yesterday, and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was knit stockinette sleeve caps. No more yarn overs, no more tiny beads on tinier crochet hook.

It is going to be absolutely phenomenally gorgeous when it's done. I just don't think it's going to be done by Sunday at noon. Oh well (Porpoise untangles herself from hurdle and stumbles across finish line).