Sew I See!

Inspired by a tutorial video mentioned in an earlier entry, I decided to dye some semi-solid yarn. I started with cream/natural (I think they call it "aran") Fishermen's Wool.  Wound the whole skein onto the swift into a large hank and tied in a few places (as always).  Pre-soaked the yarn.  Heated a large stock pot.  Mixed up some food coloring... I basically followed the method in the video.  I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, and for a while I was concerned that it was going to be plain ugly. Fortunately, there's almost always the option of adding more dye, and until it dried, I was pretty sure that I'd need to over-dye (dye it again) to get some variation in color.  When it was completely dry, though, there seemed to be enough subtle shading to keep it interesting, so I wound it into a gigantic cake.  Not sure if you can tell from the photo, but that's a lot of yarn for one cake!   The winder could just bare...

Yesterday, I read this Ravelry thread on nickel-plated needles.  (It's good to know that other people have this problem, too.) So, it sounds like the thing to do for cloudiness (which apparently results in drag) is the following: 1. Polish with a microfiber cloth.  (Some suggest a jeweler's cloth-- usually for cleaning sterling silver jewelry.)   If that's not enough... 2. Polish with vinegar on a soft cloth.  (Someone else suggests a damp cloth and baking soda or toothpaste and a cotton cloth.) If that's not enough... 3. Clean/polish with something stronger.  (WD40?  Specially formulated tarnish remover for nickel-plating-- or possibly chrome?) Sounds like those methods may work for some people, but not for others-- and once the plating has completely worn through in spots, there's not much you can do, short of re-plating them, which isn't really an option. I've read that cleaning the needles with alcohol can prevent or delay tarnishing, b...

How's that for a title?  ;o) I bought a set of interchangeable knitting needles from Tuesday Morning several months back.  (Just checked.  It's been nearly a year.)  They are nickel-plated, Boye "Artisan" line.  I had some qualms about the nickel-plating, because I've had trouble in the past with nickel-plated embroidery needles.  (The nickel wears off.)  Well, it was a good price, and I hoped the coating of the knitting needles would be better than those cheap embroidery needles.  Worth a try. I've been using them now and then.  I don't knit that much, but still, they've gotten some use. Right now, the Frosting cowl is on the size 9's-- and this evening, I noticed that the surface of one of the needles is "cloudy" (the best word I can think of to describe it).  The other needle might be slightly cloudy, too, but the one is much more noticeable.  It's mostly on the "back" part of the needle, away from the tip, and the...

Here's a recently finished object-- something I've labeled my "Catch a Wave" doily . Janice (on her blog, Passion of Love ) reverse engineered from a doily in her collection, explaining it to her readers as she went, as well as providing plenty of helpful photos.  (Thanks to Pammy Sue for sharing the link!) Janice worked her doily in autumn colors to prepare for the next season, but when I looked over my own supply of partially used balls of thread, I found more blues than autumnal hues, thus the whole "Catch a Wave" thing. This was originally supposed to be a CAL, but I came to the party late.  That doesn't really matter, though, and the pattern's still there for any other latecomers. It was an interesting change of pace to work from something other than a traditional written pattern or a chart.  However, practically my first real project was worked from something written in the same "tutorial" style-- Lucy's (from Attic24)...

Back as promised with details from the dyeing! Administer caffeine now , because this one's a rambler... (Or, you know, skim and/or skip at will.) - - - - - - - The goal was to dye yarn with (what I believe are usually called) long color repeats. The key to long color repeats is to not just make one long hank of yarn by either whirling it onto the swift or wrapping it around chairs, end of a table, etc.  You can do that and carefully dip or paint sections in different colors if you want short repeats, which read as blips of color in knitted or crocheted fabric. For example, I dyed this yarn with lots of splotches of color, which was lots of fun to do: And then I knitted it into this hat, which I found disappointing: It was just too mottled for my taste. Striping it with another, darker yarn, though, yielded a result that I did like, because it broke up some of the mottling.  Still, though, I think you can see what I mean by "blips of color": ...

A couple of days ago, something reminded me of a scarf that I've admired for years-- Moonstitches' Rhubarb Scarf .  I'd like to make something similar.  The stitch itself seems simple enough.  It's a version of the well-known "Catherine Wheel".  What's more, there's now a free pattern inspired by the scarf , so you don't have to fiddle around with working out a pattern for yourself.  (It even includes a ruffled edge!) However, for me, the allure of the original scarf has at least as much to do with the color choices as it does with the stitch pattern (though that scrumptious ruffled edge has definite appeal).  But that yarn is Japanese, difficult to locate (possibly discontinued), and when located , is not the right colorway-- and costs more than I'm willing to pay, anyway.  The yarn in question (Diakeito Diamusee Fine) is a "light fingering"-- and I happen to have a few skeins of perfectly dye-able light fingering yarn in my s...

Still keeping pace, though behind on the photos... This blog entry will catch me up, though. For last week's clue-- squaring the decagon-- I was sure that I didn't have enough of that particular peach left to finish the "medallion", so I swapped to my new peach (ILTY brand).  I knew the two weren't exactly the same shade, but it wasn't until the next day that I saw them in better light and thought, "Hm.  The vintage peach makes the new peach look a little drab-- dare one say dirty ?-- by comparison."  But I left it.  Because I didn't want to rip back and rework.  (And I'm not sure I'd have had enough of my darker vintage peach yarn, anyway.  Yes, I'm using three shades of peach in this afghan.  What of it?) Anyway, I'm still telling myself that it'll look ok when it's done.  And to be honest, I'm not sure where this afghan will go, anyway.  It can be an emergency afghan for the car, or something, if the color choic...

I decided to start another WIP-- "Because I'm worth it!" ~hair flip~ Wait, don't go!  I was only joking!  Well, not about starting another WIP-- that part is all too true-- but about the obnoxious "worth it" statement.  (That old cosmetics slogan is eye-roll-inducing, but it must be working for L'Oréal, as long as they've been using it.) The new project is... a cowl! ~crickets~ Another cowl? Yes, another. And we might as well all get used to it, because I have too many to mention in my Ravelry queue.  Apparently that "thing" Hollywood wants us to believe about all women being addicted to (outrageously expensive) shoes and having a whole wall of the closet devoted entirely to shoe storage has instead manifested itself in me as a cowl obsession. ...Well, not really.  It would be much closer to the truth to say that I have a craft-supply obsession.  While other women (supposedly) hoard high-heeled shoes and designer handbags, I s...

I got a slow start on the past week's Mysteryghan clue. (Warning: I'm verbose on the subject...) Once given my full attention, the continuation of the "medallion" went pretty smoothly.  All those fpdc (and chains along the back) make for an extremely cushy fabric.  It would make a nice pillow cover (or seat cushion, as one participant has pointed out), though I'm not in the mood to make it again, at the moment...  (The increase, where you have to crochet into the top of a stitch that already has a fpdc around it?  That's the culprit.  Don't care for that particular maneuver at all.)  I also hesitated over this week's squares, because they were intended to be worked all in the color I've assigned to be "harvest gold".  Two problems with that.  One, I don't have a ton of that (long-ago-discontinued, vintage) yarn, and I want to be sure I have enough to spread around the whole afghan.  Two (and this was the bigger issue), I still th...

The collection of granny squares for the "Old-Fashioned" afghan slowly multiplies. They're such fun to make!  Mindless, carefree crochet.  The only downside, really, is all the ends to weave in.  Two per color, four colors per square = eight ends per square.  (Woo, basic arithmetic.) Whip up a handful of granny squares, and before you know it you've got 30 or 40 ends hanging there, taunting you.  It's a must to stop regularly and weave them in, because I hate having a ton of ends to weave at the end of a project-- really, really hate it .  (Confession:  I still haven't finished weaving in all the tails on my first hexagon-motif afghan... I'll try to work on it when cool weather comes around again.  It would be insanity to do it in the middle of summer.)  The palette is a bit restricted at the moment, but I think that it'll all come together, eventually.  That so-called palette is determined by what colors happen to be in my scr...