It's cooked

It took a bit of time to post about it but here it is my last dyeing & knitting project from start to finish. In case you can not tell what it is: a yarn cozy. It's designed to hold my ball or "cake" of yarn to protect it and to keep it from getting tangled up. Notice there is a center pull hole at the bottom should I choose to use that feature.

I find when I use a "center pull" the yarn sort of collapses towards the end and gets all tangled up. This clever holder prevents that, the wool sort of sticks to the yarn and keeps it from tangling. I try and use what is considered a rough wool and bright colors also add some stitches that maybe fun to do. I used food coloring to dye the yarn and steamed it in the vegetable steamer.

This particular project I knit the bottom by "short rowing" making a circle. If you want the pattern for the bottom scroll down.

Approximate gauge: 5 sts = 1"

(Gauge is not that important here because this is going to be "felted")

1. k
2. sl1, k10, turn
3. yo, k to end
4. sl1, k9, turn
5. yo, k to end
6. sl1, k8, turn
7. yo, k to end
8. sl1, k7, turn
9. yo, k to end
10. sl1, k6, turn
11. yo, k to end
12. sl1, k5, turn
13. yo, k to end
14. sl1, k4, turn
15. yo, k to end
16. sl1, k3, turn
17. yo, k to end
18. sl1, k2, turn
19. yo, k to end

Knit all the yo's together to eliminate the holes.

(kyotog - knit yarn over together with the next stitch.)

1. sl1, k1, kyotog, *kyotog*, to the end of the row.
2. k

Repeat rows 1-21 six times bind off.

Sew the edges together to make a circle and weave in ends. Throw it in the washing machine with hot water and your other wash. Let the whole cycle run take it out wet.

This will be the bottom of the bag. While it's wet I pick up stitches all around the circle bottom by poking a small crochet hook and pulling the yarn and placing it on a circular needle. (It molds better and will dry as you are knitting.) Then knit 5 rows, turn around knit 5 more rows the other way. Using the yarn over technique to prevent the hole where you turned around.

Happy Knitting

What's cooking in my kitchen.

I'm almost done with the project I'll share soon.

What

I'm a better knitter than a crocheter but

I'm trying to improve my crochet skills.

I was at Wildfiber on Wednesday night and saw a scarf made with this pattern. (Large Wheel Stitch aka. Catherine's Wheel) I liked the way it looked, especially the one Terri was making. She offered a class to learn this crochet stitch but I missed it. One of the reasons I don't crochet more is I usually feel that the fabric crochet makes is not as attractive as knitted fabric. But of course this depends on the eye of the beholder. Because I don't have enough projects going (LOL) I thought I would start one more. I often get bored with a project or my hands need to rest and switch around with the repeated movements. Sometimes my right thumb starts hurting if I knit too much and switching to crochet helps to rest that part of my hand.

I really like to crochet it's so portable and seems easy, except when I'm trying to follow charts and directions. This is not my best forte anyway but I'm determined to learn this. Learning new skills is always good for the brain, so they say. This can be very satisfying or very frustrating depending how well things are going.

Even if I do not accomplish a whole entire scarf with this pattern, it's giving me satisfaction that I can learn a new skill. The YouTube video really helps, I can't seem to figure out charts and symbols as easily as some of my friends. I'm more of a visual person, YouTube Rocks. I'm hoping my good friend Ellen Bloom will help me out with this, she is a wonderful crocheter. I will be seeing her this Thursday night at the Original Farmer's Market in West Hollywood.

Large Wheel Stitch - Catherine's Wheel - Harlequin - Triple Crochet

12 chains to complete each segments. Starting with 38 = 3 wheels.

What's a blog without a dog

I'm so tempted to give Lucy a few highlights. She has the perfect hair just begging for a few maybe blue tips on the end of her little curly tail. She is so little and so cute and so full of life and mischief. Adding a little color to her fur coat would look wonderful. But then sometime her owner is full of mischief too. Do not worry I will not use the Microwave, I will skip that step.

Also I would only use Kool-Aid or food coloring and would be careful not to touch her skin or hair she can reach to lick off. I promise I will not torture the dog too much. For that matter she tortures me plenty and as we all know pay back is a bitch. (Oh no I did not say that!)

What a difference a dye makes

Before:

And after:

I am now busy "hanking" and playing with my "dye lots". So far it's just been fun "willy nilly tinting" but in order to make enough yarn to be enough for a project is another matter. For some of the sizes I knit, (ok my size) I need more than one hank of yarn. Now the challenge is to be able to make enough yarn for a sweater with the same sort of colors, in other words make the same dye lot.

I fell in love with my Winter Wonderland sweater and wore that thing till it almost fell off me and or till the weather will not permit wearing it. And I miss it so I decided to knit a summer version of the sweater in a similar colorway but a lighter weight yarn.


I still had more of the periwinkle or robins egg blue yarn left so I decided to tint it. The colors worked well, yes that is more like it. Now to have the time to tint the rest of the hanks and then to knit it all. I may not have time for anything else.

Here I am wearing my Winter Wonderland on my way to Port Ludlow, heading up to the Sock Camp organized by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Tina Newton. Tina is Blue Moon Fiber Arts-Socks That Rock- Sock Summit fame and one of her classes I took was dyeing yarn.

Let me at it I took to this like duck to water. I could have spent the whole time up there dyeing yarn. It was so much fun, not to talk about the beautiful scenery and all the knitting activities Stephanie and Tina dreamed up for us to do. I must confess I did not participate in all of the activities I wanted to relax a bit but what I participated in was a lot of fun.
I am paying very close attention to this, here we are in class with "Cokeyed" looking on Tina demonstrating the technique.

The picture below is a picture I took in Portland at the Sock Summit 2009 with Stephanie, Meg Swansen, Barbara Walker & Tina. And they are doing it again in 2011 back in Portland, I have a feeling this time it will be HUGE. Who would believe that sock knitters from all over the world gather for a "Sock Summit" and I was one of them. I was told that they had 5,000 attendees and they expect to top that next year. And I will probably be one of them.


Here are some pictures from Port Ludlow earlier this year, just for fun. I needed a little mini vacation this morning so I ended up revisiting and got lost in the pictures and good memories. My good friend Leslie who was my roommate and driver in her super car that I love and some scenes of the hotel and the bay.

Tinted cotton

I am still experimenting with different techniques. You can not tint cotton with food coloring, I had to resort to Rit Dye. I had some in the laundry who knows why I bought it and who knows how long I've been keeping it in case I wanted to dye something.

The day has come, I used purple and blue and yellow.

Here is the result: "kaleidoscope"

Stash management

Now that I have all these "over dye" possibilities I felt it was time for me to evaluate my stash. Sort of doing a late spring cleaning. I keep my yarn in plastic bins, some are huge and others are smaller. I find that some yarn like cottons are heavy and if I fill up a large plastic box it gets too heavy for me to lift. It's bad when you can't lift your box of yarn.

To my shock I have much more yarn than I thought. The bins number well into the double digits, not triple digits but... ok under a hundred but hovering around the 50's. Compared to some this is huge but I've known other yarnaholics who have more, not that this matters but I thought I'd throw that in there. The storage space is the biggest problem, we just don't have enough "real estate" to house all of our collections. Yes there is more than one collector in my family, I guess it's genetic or magnetic. When you have a lot of yarn management becomes a difficult task so I do not do it that often.

Each season I try and evaluate the leftover from the last winter or summer knitting. In the spring I start gravitating towards the cottons, rayon and silks because the weather starts being too warm to knit on a heavy wool sweater. Also I like to make a new piece to wear according to the season. One of the bins I have is called "Frog it or Finish it". In this bin I found this wonderful summer sweater that I think I started a couple or three years ago. Ok it was in one of the bottom bins and I have not seen it for a while.

Nice little sweater almost done all it needs is a front button band. I now remember that I wanted the button band to match the gusset and the dark green stripes. Now I know I had plenty of this green boucle rayon yarn but where is it? Organizing, labeling, sorting for about 2 weeks now and I am running out of places to look. I know I had some of this yarn..... where is it?

I was talking to my friend Leslie and she said to me oh that's easy the very last place you will look there it will be. And son of a gun she was totally right. I almost gave up on this and was ready to do a redesign and there it was at the bottom of one of the last little boxes I looked at. Small things make me happy but this was one of them.

Now to start knitting, select buttons and finish this sweater the hot weather is around the corner.

Tinting Wool

Tinting wool with food coloring is fun and easy! The first question everybody asks is will it last? Because I just started this and can not tell you first hand I do not know for sure. From my human hair tinting experience I can tell you that I'm pretty sure once the color is deposited in the core shaft of the hair it's there to stay. Some colors may fade faster than others but once the color is set and the water is clear when you rinse it out you are good to go and it will stay and last.

Try it out, it's not messy or toxic and the dye is readily available at the super market. If it tints your hand because you forgot to put on gloves, no worries just do a load of dishes and it's gone. I have been using my crock pot and my microwave oven. I like to use glass dishes because it's just easier to wash them out and see the colors.

Stick to the basic primary colors available red, yellow, blue, and mix colors for shades you want to create, use your imagination let the artist come out. You do not need any special equipment or special yarn. There is one rule you can only tint animal protein fibers with food coloring, wool, mohair, alpaca, cashmere, silk etc. Man made fibers and cottons will not work, we need "hair" to tint. You do not need special "blanks" which is wool that has not been dyed, you can use the "over dye" method. Take a skein of yarn that you have and may not like the color so much and over dye it.

Animal protein fibers only although some blended yarns will work if there is a high percentage of animal fiber mixed in. Oh yes food dye will work on human hair too it helps if your hair is "bleached" up first but if your hair is a light blond or dare I say gray, you can use food coloring to make your hair purple or blue! But I digress.... I used to be a hairdresser .... maybe that is why I'm so fascinated with this process.

How to test the fiber? I use the simplest method the burn test. Carefully burn the end of the strand and if it melts it's man made, if it goes to ash it's organic. How to tell the difference between cotton or wool? The smell will tell you, wool will smell like burnt hair and cotton or rayon will smell like burning paper or wood. I'm sure there are many different ways to test but this is my method and it seems to work pretty well for me. When the yarn is mixed I can sort of tell how much of it melts and how much goes to ash. Test swatch is the answer here.

The method is pretty similar to Kool-Aid dyeing but I find liquid food coloring is easier to mix and control colors. No powder to inhale no little mystery packages and it's cheaper than Kool-Aid packets. I've been buying 8oz bottles for under $3.00 at my local Smart & Final Market. Some people keep meticulous records and formulas but as you may have guessed I'm just not that type. I just jump right in and consider most of it as an art with a sprinkling of science behind it.

For example, my good friend Molly is not the jump right in sort but the type of knitter who will swatch and swatch and research and study and will meticulously keep wonderful records and will follow the exact directions on labels. She invited me over to work on a program for children she is teaching this summer (I'll be her assistant) at the Fairview Library in Santa Monica. She is dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid and teaching the kids to knit.

We had a wonderful time in Molly's kitchen testing out all the colors and fibers.




Molly was measuring labeling and keeping very detailed notes, I was just eyeballing. Hoping that I will remember what I did. Ok my method may not be the best I see that maybe a few labels and some notes may be needed here. I'm off to cutting labels and getting my old tint box that I used for my hairdressing days and keeping records. (Maybe)

There is an article on Knitty describing dyeing with Kool-Aid click here.
http://kathrynivy.com/patterns/extras/dyeing-yarn/ Paas

This is cotton dyed with Rit Dye...... I'll tell you about this method after a few more test runs. I'm very happy with the outcome of this. I crocheted an iPhone and wallet cozy to hang around my neck for those quick access occasions.

Work in progress

Ok some of the yarn is hanked. (I'm not really sure yet if this is a real word or not but you knitters out there know what I mean.) And the wool fibers are soaked and waiting for their color bath. Yes I know this is crazy my friend Marla carefully rolled the yarn into nice neat balls of yarn from a hank of yarn. And now I'm unrolling the ball back to a hank of yarn so I can over dye it. Whopie what fun!


I test "swatched", which is something I rarely do. Just like knitting a gauge swatch I'm not too crazy about planning precision, measuring etc. I am of the ilk just to jump right in. Test is in the outcome. Somehow the knitting and fiber angels are with me on this one most of the time it's worked for me. As they say don't try this method at home, my advice is to plan ahead write down the recipe for everything and then follow the pattern or the recipe exactly. Do as I say not as I do.

Here we go, soaking yarn, crock pot ready, sink all clean and shiny ..... let there be color.





Come back for the results, I will post about it I promise.

All tied up and waiting

I've got some great wool that I've "hanked" up to dye but it's rather time consuming to do this. The part that I really like here is the over dyeing. I have lots of really nice wool but the color is not exactly what I prefer. Why did I buy it? Maybe it was a really good price and I figured I would learn to like it or it was such nice wool that I just loved the fiber.

Either way it sits in my stash and waits for a project. Now that I have discovered over dyeing this has opened up a whole new day on this stash of mine. I have some friends with wonderfully organized yarn collections but my collection I feel is "raggedy dooo"...... some beautiful yarn and then some weird stuff that I just could not pass up.

I am on a mission to organize.... (even I had to crack a smile at this one)..... organize I will. But then again I'm constantly organizing and still end up with too much STUFF!

Then I went to have lunch and knit at a friends house. Oh no.... she is bringing out bags and bags of yarn. I mean big garbage bags FULL! I suddenly see all these "over dye" possibilities! Yes you guessed it more yarn has come to my possession. More hanking, more organization.... but it's such lovely wool.... I'm only doing food coloring so I can only dye protein fibers. (Thank goodness)

I say thank goodness because there is a whole garbage bag full of cotton yarn too... I'm addicted to yarn what can I say. Yes I still have two bags of yarn in the trunk of the car that I'm going to see if my friend Molly will take for her "Fairview Knitting Circle". Molly teaches at The Fairview Library in Santa Monica.

Fairview Branch
2101 Ocean Park Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 458-8681

Planning Ahead

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I belong to a knitting guild and I am the "program" chair person. (I find the "talent" and book the "talent") So far this past month in April for the spring workshop we flew Amy Singer out here from Toronto, Canada. The workshop she gave was "Plug and Play - Design your own lace shawl."
(Amy is the creator of Knitty.com)

Amy and I had a great time visiting Venice Beach. If you have ever walked along the Venice Beach Boardwalk, you know what a fun and what an unusual place it is. I love visitors because it gives me a chance to go down there and act like a tourist. Look at all the "artwork" the streets performers etc. Lots and Lots of "stuff" to see.

Amy and I also searched local Japanese book stores for knitting books. I come to find out that most of the Japanese knitting books have charts that are easy to follow so you do not need to know how to read Japanese. There were some beautiful knitting books we saw. Like this one.

This coming October we are very lucky to have Anna Zilboorg come to teach us. The workshop will be all day Saturday and all day Sunday.

Saturday Workshop:
TWISTED TRAVELLING STITCHES

Austrian twisted travelling stitches create patterns in high relief that resemble woodcarvings. They are easy to do once one has learned a few special techniques (among them, how to interpret the charts) and had a little practice. They can also provide a wonderful base for embroidery.

The class will begin working in the round (since that is easiest with these patterns) making a water bottle cover. Then we’ll go on to flat knitting, with a cell-phone cover that could easily turn into cuffs for an elegant sweater.

Students will need to bring worsted weight yarn and 5 dp or two circular needles. (Dk weight yarn is also okay.)

Sunday Workshop:
Stranded Knitting or STRANDING

Everything you need to know about two-colored knitting will start with how to make a steek and slash it without a sewing machine. Then we’ll make a sun glass case practicing two-handed knitting in the round and carrying one color over long distances. Finally, we’ll knit backwards with one hand and with two, for those times when going in circles cannot be done.

Students will need yarn in two contrasting colors with dp needles.

If by chance you do not know who Anna Zilboorg is, here is a list of her published books on Amazon.

Read an article about Anna on the Knitting Universe site.

How much did you say this cost?

Is this a typo? I know I did not pay $195 dollars for this book. It is a wonderful book but almost $200 dollars for it? But if you go to amazon.com and search for this book you will see this outrageous price.


I guess it's true, it's out of print and very hard to find. I think I'll treat my $200 dollar book with new respect. I now remember buying this book at one of the Smithsonian Museums. At the "Renwick Gallery" in Washington D.C. What a beautiful Gallery a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Almost right across the street from the White House.

A craft museum, so I went and found a number of knitting books and this book. At the time I paid $24.95 for it and just knew that I would love it even though I had never dyed anything but always wanted to. It was crazy my suitcase weighed a ton from all the books I purchased.

My visit to Washington D.C. was fascinating, I had never visited D.C. before and went there just to see the Museums, the White House and all the American History. I loved it. I went by myself and had a great time visiting the museums and staying as long as I wanted and viewed what I felt like. My hotel was very close to the White House and I was intrigued by it all. Although it look so small especially with those large buildings on either side of the House. Quite frankly I've seen bigger mansions right here in Beverly Hills. But it was still very beautiful and interesting to look at. I walked past it every chance I had.

Seeing and meeting the very strange woman camped across the street Concepcion Picciotto. They say she has been there since 1981. Yes across the street from the White House and living on the street, sleeping on a lounge chair with some kind of makeshift tent. When I asked her about bathing and taking bathroom breaks. (Well I like to know details) She told me that she only leaves to take a half hour break and quickly comes back.

When I asked one of the many guards around if this was legal? Can you just camp on the streets? He was a handsome young man with a Southern Drawl "Mam there are no laws agains Crazy."

But I've digressed from my dyeing yarn activities, here are the "hanked" yarn waiting to be painted.
I've been "hanking"..... maybe that is not the right word or proper English but you know what I mean. It's the reverse of winding the yarn into a ball. I'm unrolling the ball and making it into a "hank".

Colors Gone Wild

A whole new world opened up to me in fiber arts now that I've discovered the wonderful world of dyeing yarn. I've been fascinated with the process but it kind of scared me and from afar it looked like it was a complicated process.

The dyes, natural, acid, kool-aid, food coloring? What to use and how to use it, most of all where to get it? Kool-Aid is the easiest get but it seemed childish and more of a play thing than really dyeing wool. Then I saw a lady with the most beautiful color mohair shawl. The color was a "Burnt Sienna" in my world a pinky salmon like pink coral. (I'm having trouble trying to describe the exact shade, too bad I did not take a picture.) Pink but not really pink, because I usually do not like pink but this color looked lovely especially on the lady wearing it.

When we chatted about her lovely shawl, ie. what yarn, what color way etc. She told me she had this ugly light beige mohair and she dyed it with Kool-Aid. Wow! Note to self: when I get home I must try Kool-Aid dyeing. I asked the first natural question that comes to mind and the same question people ask me now that I'm dyeing, "Will it fade? Does it wash out?" She told me not yet, and she's washed it once. Also said how often do you wash your shawls anyway? Not that often. Maybe a sweater more but only time will tell how much fading will occour.

Some colors may fade faster than others. Just like some colors grab easier than others, it's all a big experiment. But what fun! Here we go dye all over the outside kitchen, crock pots heating up, yarn hanging & drying...... I'm getting nothing else done.... but having a lot of fun.

The store I went to locally had a very limited range of Kool-Aid flavors but they had a whole range of food coloring. I bought food coloring and could not wait to get home to try this out. Oh yes before I went home I stopped by my local beauty supply and bought 6 tint applicatior bottles. They seemed to be practical for this task, they have ouce markings and a nice little spout to apply the color. If it works for hair it will work for animal hair/wool yarn.

Stay tuned I'm now taking pictures of all the yarn I've dyed....... will share it all later.

Happy dyeing.

Dyeing, knitting, teaching & taking pictures.

Shawl by Natalie

Shawl by Natalie, originally uploaded by BananaKnits.

I took a photo class yesterday and boy did I have fun. I'm exhausted today but I've learned some new techniques to photograph knitted projects. Here is the best shot of the day's shooting, my friend Natalie posing with her garter stitch shawl. Natalie calls it "Hollywood Shawl" at least her version of the pattern "Mara". The color is rich and rusty red, looks great on Natalie.

On Natalie's Ravelry page she describes it:

"This shawl is Mara-inspired but in the end bears no resemblance to the pattern. I added eyelet rows to lighten it up and went for a ruffled edge rather than the ribbed edge."

The pattern is available free "Mara"