Category Archives: Crochet

Yarn You Cannot Buy!

Knitivity Posted on by

Sometimes I make mistakes, and sometimes I just have a bad dye job that doesn’t measure up to what I can accept.

I have recently been exploring dry-dye techniques, and for the most part it has been going quite well.   And on many of the yarns, i’m getting a result I refer to as a sort of “marbling” effect, such as those that I showed last week on the 258-259 and 262-263 Twinsets — light and dark areas schmearing along the skein.   I like that effect.

BUT on this Twinset I dyed yesterday, on 100% Superwash Merino fingering, I DO NOT like the obviously undyed parts.  It just looks sloppy.

So I am going to pair these up with an unclaimed  Phydlbitz Sock yarn ….

and make Tropic-Strip wrap of some sort.  And, if luck is with me, those unfortunate undyed bits will work to my advantage.

So, while I can’t be happy selling the yarn as being up to my standards, I can turn the bad dye job into a glorious Something that maybe some one will want to buy.  🙂

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Fit to be Dyed!

Knitivity Posted on by

Way back on Nov 9 I showed the beginnings of a project — the Virus shawl, available on Ravelry here.

virusshawl-01

I  finished it last Wednesday….. just over 50 inches across the top.  That little blip of yarn is all that remains, after adding a row of double-crochet to stabilize the top.

virusshawl-08

The pattern itself is simple enough, and could be interpreted in a laceweight or a worsted, depending on what you like.    My intention, however, wasn’t for the pattern but for the holes.  I needed a quick-and-easy pattern with easy-to-find holes.  I needed the holes to bind it up for tie-dyeing.  I wove my tie cord in and up (up and down) through the outer row of holes, pulled it tight as I could, while simultaneously pulling the center-top point of the shawl away in the opposite direction.   This created easy-to-find pleats, theoretically radiating from the center-top point out to the border.  Then, it was easier to gently bind the rest of it into my normal dyeing pouch.

virus-dye-burgundy

It didn’t quite work out as I’d planned, but it was sometime I felt compelled to try.  It was what we in the industry call ABLE — “another blasted learning experience”.  😀

virus-dye-done

virus-dye-closeup

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What color do I want?

Knitivity Posted on by

Okay, so I’ve been working on this shawl pattern, using the new (as yet not-officially-named) fingering yarn, 80% superwash Merino/20% Silk, 430 yards.

A client asked for “Dusty Rose” and it took 3 tries to get it ‘dusty’ enough.  The first two were nearly alike, one only slightly more saturated than the other, but neither was right for the client.  So I kept these aside for myself to see how they work up.

I started with a familiar and simple pattern:  My Boxy-Boxes shawl from several years ago (originally done in sock yarn):

boxyBoxes4

and I just now realized on the original that the big squares are 5 boxes wide and tall, and I’m doing this current one with squares just 3 boxes wide and tall.  Oh well, whatever.

I started the shawl with the light of the two rose balls, realizing that when I run out and tried to change balls there would be a clear difference.  So when I near the end of this ball, I will end the current direction of my work, and use a contrast color around the bottom portions.

I took the second rose ball and over dyed it with electric purple (you can see a hint of the rose in the picture), and also dyed a sky blue and a teal.  And I’m not sure I like any of my options, but I’m going to leave this here and see which ones you think would work — the purple, the blue, or the teal?   Or some combination of them?  Keep in mind the contrast color will form the bottom “V” border, and perhaps a row or two across the top.  And I will be using a different stitch pattern, yet to be determined.

Or should I just go back to the drawing board and dye up another ball or two of really richly saturated Dusty Rose to make the border just a darker shade of the main field color?

The first pic is the flash, the second shot is overcast daylight without flash.

contrastSamples-1

contrastSamples-2

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Mundane Potholders

Knitivity Posted on by

Long, long ago in a past life …  well, okay, it was pre-Katrina, which seems like another life entirely — I found a cool deal on ebay.  It was a bag of Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton, along with a pattern for a crocheted vest.  There were tan, cream, green, and variegated balls.  I had no interest in the pattern, but I liked the colors and the combination.

My first project was to make a pot-holder.  I used a front-post/back-post basketweave pattern, for thickness.   That was sometime before 2005.   Then during the long power outage after Hurricane Ike in 2008 I made another one, also in the Fp/Bp DC basketweave.  And yesterday, since all the BRS were done and shipped and no custom dyeing to be done, I made another as the storms passed overhead.

Some of my other potholders are literally falling apart, but Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton remains solid.  Obviously with years of daily use and regular washings they are faded, but they were all made from the same original variegated colorway.  🙂

The new one was made in the round:

With a Size I hook, chain 60; without twisting the stitches, join into a circle.  Ch 2, skip the first chain, DC59, and slip join in the Ch2.  Ch 2, DC59, and join 18 rounds total (mine only has 17 rounds, I quit too soon)  The Ch2 counts as a DC, so there are 60 stitches around, easily divided by 2.  Join front to back by DC into each stitch from front and back layers, with 3DC at the last stitch; border the side by making 2 DC around 1 DC post along the edge, join the bottom edges by DC into each front and back stitch, making 3 DC at each corner.

I’m not good at writing crochet patterns, but basically you are making a tube, 60 DC around (or 30 DC on both front and back layers, and then making a DC border around the whole thing to hold the front and back together.

potholders

By the way, the chair was a rescue job — a dining chair from a set, this was the captain’s chair, with arms to be at the head of the table.  The arms and back spindles were so messed up, I simply sawed them off, and sanded the bits smooth with the seat, then refinished the seat and painted the legs.  Looks goofy but it is my most favorite working chair, and sits very comfortably.

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