A perfect day

Yesterday was a really, really good day. Despite the fact that some small wretch shifted the time on my clock so I woke up at 7:00 am, and leaped out of bed swearing because my clock said 8:00 and the neighborhood garage sale was starting in an hour and I had to unload more stuff, get change, and finish pricing everything. And Boo, the blame rests squarely on your small shoulders.

In any event, post-garage sale, Ironman and the girls picked me up, we went and got sandwiches and went to the local Audubon Bird Sanctuary for a picnic. We saw snapping turtles, snakes, bullfrogs and minnows. The girls threw bread to the fish and the turtles. It was a gorgeous day.

Boo fell asleep on the way home, so we poured her into bed and Ironman took a nap too. Dev and I watched a Peter Rabbit video, and then dyed half a pound of merino in some lovely colors (Jacquard Acid Hot Fuchsia, Violet and Turquoise - yowza!).

Last night, I spun up the second half of 4 oz of alpaca/merino/silk blend (65%//20%/15%) and it was like spinning air. Tonight I'll ply it and give it a bath (and consider overdyeing it, since I've got a bunch of dyes to use up).

I've also got 4 oz of undyed sock yarn that I might dye in ridiculous colors for these socks (it's the year of playing to my not-so-inner science geek I guess). Life is good.

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.

FO: Manon

Self-portraits

Pattern: Manon by Norah Gaughan, in Norah Gaughan Vol 1
Yarn: worsted-weight no-name wool purchased in Florence, then dyed using Jacquard Acid dyes. I had two big skeins of this, and ended up using just over one, so I've got plenty left for something else.
Needles: US 9/ mm
Gauge: 18 st/24 rows = 4 in
Comments/mods: To start off with, I think this is the best sweater I've knit for myself so far. I loved the construction - the peplum gives a lot of visual interest, but the upper body isn't to busy - and the way the pattern fits together. The dyeing worked out incredibly well; there some varigation to the yarn, but it doesn't pool or stripe or do anything terribly funky.

Thankfully, IM took some other shots

I did a number of modifications, so I'll try to remember them all.

1. I knit the fronts and backs together, splitting at the armholes and then finishing each section separately.
2. I left off the daisy chain stitch on the lower seams.
3. I completely ignored the directions for the sleeves and knit them as set-in top down sleeves a la Barbara Walker. Since my arms are somewhat generous for the size of the rest of me, I can avoid having too tight sleeves this way. I did knit the cuffs separately as in the directions and then mattress stitched them on.

Now I have to decide on some kind of closure. I've been wearing it open, which is fine for this time of year in Houston (or the weather last week in Houston, since it was 80 degrees today!), but I suspect I'll need something to keep it shut next winter.

One last self-portrait...ooops!

Manon issues

So waaaaay back in September, Devil and I dyed some Eye-talian wool that had been marinating in the stash (and hopefully spreading around some wonderful Firenze cooties to the rest of the gang) for a couple of years. And then I blithely cast on for a sweater by one of my favorite designers.

I'm afraid my brain seems to have been permenantly damaged by motherhood, because I have now knit the peplum for this sweater approximately 42 bazillion times. The first part (center triangle) went just fine.

Then came the sides of the peplum. Having made a previous NG sweater, I didn't have any problems with the construction. I happily picked up stitches and went on my merry way. One side finished, I went to cast on for the second side and realized something.

Click for notes

While the center triangle has three garter stitch ridges at the base, the peplum sides only had two ridges. I went back to the pattern repeatedly, checked the errata, checked Ravelry threads, hemmed and hawed, but could not convince myself that I was misreading the pattern.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal, right? But somehow I fixated on this as a huge problem. So I figured I would cast on for the other side and work three ridges, just to compare.

Before I knew it, I'd knitted the entire other side of the peplum, without pausing to check and see if I liked three ridges better. I think I subconsciously decided that I was going to rip out the first side, and I didn't want to give myself a chance to change my mind, since why knit two sides when you can knit three? Or four? Or x+infinity?

In any event, I now have completed the peplum. The trauma of repeated reknitting notwithstanding, I have gone on to work the fronts and back all together. I made it up to the armholes before my brains melted and poured out my ears, and that's where things stand now.

I've been enjoying my new stitch markers though - from a swap for a skein of Essential on Ravelry. I definitely got the better end of that deal! And I'm loving the way the variegation on the dye job is playing out. So far, so good, but now I've got to get back to the Christmas presents. The list hasn't gotten any shorter.

Dyeing with Devil and Boo

I've been doing some dyeing with the girls recently. The first attempt, with Devil, resulted in some lovely brightly colored Romney locks, which I got as a gift with my hand carders.

Violet, Scarlet, Turquoise and Sun Yellow - colors picked by Devil and dyed with no standards whatsoever (i.e. Devil dumped in a bunch of 1% stock into a jar until she liked the color and we put some locks in). These were microwaved for about 6 minutes each I believe. We rinsed them out in the big dye box, spun out the excess water in the washing machine, and hung them out to dry.

Now the question is what to do with them. They'll be good practice for the hand cards, but what sort of gawdawful yarn will these colors make? Yikes!

Our next project involved the turkey roaster. I had a little problem the last time I ordered dyes - somehow I found myself on the roving page at Dharma Trading Company, and ended up with a box containing 2 oz of dye and 2 lbs of wool. Hunh. So I'm looking at this massive pile of wool and wondering what the heck I'm going to do with it. And sitting next to the pile was the Fall issue of Interweave Knit, which contains the pattern for the Peacoat of Gloriousness (Rav link) that I am completely in love with. Not that I need a wool peacoat in Houston, but heck, next fall I will definitely want one. So my new spinning goal is to spin up enough yarn to make it.

The first yarn (worsted weight) is going to be from this wool, dyed purple. I think the variegation in the fiber will work well as yarn, but I'll probably have to sample* a bit before I commit to spinning up the whole mess. The second yarn (the pattern calls for two different yarns held doubled) I think is going to be merino/tencel, dyed violet, spun DK weight. At least that is the plan. Who knows what it will actually become.

This attempt was somewhat less successful in that there is now a large purple splotch on my driveway (thanks Boo!). We did these in the roaster and I ended up dyeing with twice as much dye as yarn (by weight). I had to add a bit more water to keep things from drying out too much. 3 hours at ~175 degrees and then left it to cool overnight.

This is a lot of purple fiber, people. I've got two balls of this stuff now, and they are approximately the size of 40 lb pumpkins. Much, much larger then my head. Maybe Devil and Boo's heads stuck together. In any event, I'm either going to need a ball winder or many more bobbins to spin all this stuff up. Anyone want to take bets on wether or not I can get it done by next summer so I can knit the damn coat before it gets cold?

* Oh no, a second dreaded "S" word!