Spiral Rib Hat

This hat was knit with the plied Shetland handspun (see spinning) and worked on size 10 circular needles. The stitch pattern is K2,P2 ribbing for 4 rows and then the pattern shifts by ending the 4th row with a K2,P1 (stopping one stitch short.) Reset the row marker and start the next row with that last stitch (in other words, the stitch which should have been purled at the end of the 4th row is now the start of the K2,P2 ribbing for the next 4 rows). The complete hat pattern is copyrighted so I can't give more details but it's not any more difficult than working the stitch pattern for the desired length and following the usual decreasing instructions for the crown of a hat (google the keywords -- knit, hat, decrease, crown).

Pidge - 99% natural & 100% handmade

A pidge is a short scarf closed with two buttons and it was the perfect project for my handspun corriedale. (see Spinning). I wanted to use a natural dye for this project so I tea dyed 203 yards with an entire box of Twinings Blackcurrent tea.





I was also trying to make all the components of the pidge natural and handmade, including the buttons and I was inspired by this idea for handmade wooden buttons. We have 3 oak trees and 2 maples on our little suburban yard so finding branches to experiment with wasn't difficult. Hubby helped by cutting the branches and played around with sawing them at varying angles. I didn't like the idea of using oil on an object that is going to be used on a garment so I deviated at this point from the original tutorial. To finish the buttons I applied stain and polyurethane. My daughter Sarah pointed out that I lost the ability to call it 100% "natural" when I used the polyurethane. She's right. I should have used shellac. Oh well, it'll have to be 99% natural and 100% handmade!






To begin the scarf, the number of stitches to cast-on must be a multiple of 4 plus 1 and the pattern for each row is a simple *K2,P2*, repeating *to* and ending with a K1. Knit until you reach approximately 2" from the desired length. Make 2 buttonholes of appropriate size for your chosen buttons and knit an additional 2".

My inconsistently handspun yarn, filled with slubs and many thick and thin areas knit easily and beautifully into a pidge!

Notes:

Size 6 needles and 29 stitches.

The finished scarf measures 24½" long and 4½" wide.

For a nice finished edge I slipped the last stitch of each row purlwise.

Beaded Eyelet Rib Socks

I love these socks. They came out better than I envisioned (and that doesn't happen often!) and they look and fit fantastic.

I dyed the yarn with wine colored Rit dye and tried to achieve a Faux Ikat (see previous blog entry). I mismanaged the timing of the dye bath and the result was yarn that was basically a solid color. There were a few small light areas which gave a slight heather effect in the stockinette stitch of the sock foot but doesn't show at all in the eyelet pattern of the sock body.

Yarn: Fingering weight superwash merino/tencel blend from Mind's Eye Yarns

Colorway:Rit Liquid Dye - Wine

Gauge and needle sizes: I used size 3 needles for the cuff and 7 pattern repeats for the body and size 2 needles for the remainder. My gauge was 8 stitches per inch on #2 needles.

Direction knit: Cuff down.

Cuff pattern: P2, k2, p1, K2 for 1"

Body pattern:

Slip bead: Move yarn to the front (as if to purl) and slip bead down, slip next stitch purlwise and move yarn to the back.

Stitch pattern in multiples of 7
Row 1: *P2, k2 tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk; repeat from * to end of row.
Row 2: *P2, k5; repeat from * to end of row.
Row 3: *P2, k2, slip bead, k2; repeat from * to end of row.
Row 4: *P2, k5; repeat from * to end of row.

The total length of the body (including cuff) is 8" ending with row 4.

Heel pattern: The Sherman Heel (see Ripple Stitch socks for details.)

Foot pattern: The foot was knit in stockinette st.

Toe pattern: The Round Toe from the book Folk Socks by Nancy Bush.

Notes:

The cuff could also a pattern of K5, P2

The standard way to do a ssk is: slip 2 stitches as if to knit then k2 tog through the back loops. An alternate way to work the ssk is to slip 1 knitwise, slip 1 purlwise then k2 tog through the back loops. The claim is that the alternate way lays flatter. For this sock I worked the standard ssk and the way the stitch lay didn't strike me as an issue, but it's something to keep in mind for future patterns.

Dying some more yarn

Bouyed by my success of dying with Kool-Aid I decided to experiment with some dying techniques using Rit dye. I attempted the Faux Ikat Dyeing Technique described in the book The Yarn Lover's Guide to Hand Dyeing by Linda LaBelle.

Because Kool-Aid is food safe I was able to work with my kitchen pots and pans but with Rit dye I moved to the basement and used pots that aren't used to cook food. I rigged this table to make a longer skein (don't you just love duct tape?!)


Unfortunately, I didn't time things right and I couldn't achieve the desired results but I did get a very pretty wine colored yarn which made a gorgeous pair of socks (details next blog entry!)

After this dying experiment I discovered a personal dilemma. The amount of water used to wash the dye out of the yarn was enormous. Rit dye works on both cotton and wool and because I was dying 100% wool yarn, the unused additives and dyes intended for cotton were being flushed into the water supply. Dying your own yarn is NOT eco friendly. What to do? I had two packets of Rit dye and 7 skeins of bare yarn! I decided to use the dye on a few of the skeins but I resolved to use only natural dye techniques for any future projects.


Daughter Laura was home for fall break and willing to help!

Rit colors Pearl Grey and Scarlet. I achieved the variations in grey by simply leaving the skeins in the dye baths for varying amounts of time. The bonnet is for Laura's Halloween costume (the Sunmaid Raisin girl!) Unfortunately, the fabric must be a cotton/poly blend (there was no label) because the bonnet did not come out the beautiful red that the yarn did.

Spinning

I'll admit it -- my spinning, using both the spindle and the wheel, never really got out of the park and draft mode. However, at some point I felt I acquired a decent sense of handling the drafting triangle and was beginning to spin a more consistent yarn.
After my first spinning attempts I spun 8oz of corriedale cream top purchased from Alpaca Direct. This produced 279 yards of single spun yarn. I tea dyed 203 yards and kept 76 yards in the original color.

I also spun 4oz of shetland roving purchased from Iron Horse Farm. I did ply this yarn but the ply came out so loose that I don't think I did it properly. The skeined yarn hung remarkable balanced both before and after setting the twist but it looks just barely plyed -- more like just holding two single strands together. This produced 111 yards of 2 ply yarn.


I did like learning to spin but I never took to it. I love touching and handling yarn but that tactile enjoyment did not transfer over to roving.

Ripple Stitch socks

The wonderful thing about knitting socks is the ability to design them yourself. The dozens of ways that the cuff, heel and toe can each be knit combined with thousands of stitch pattern choices means that the possibility of designing a one-of-a-kind pair of socks are pretty darn good!

So here are the details for my Kool-aid dyed yarn and my first attempt at sock designing:

Yarn: Fingering weight superwash merino/tencel blend from Mind's Eye Yarns

Colorway: Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool-aid dyed in a gradated pattern (see Kool-Aid dyed yarn post)

Gauge and needle sizes: I used size 4 needles for the first 4 inches of the cuff and body and size 3 needles for the remainder. My gauge was 7 stitches per inch.

Direction knit: Cuff down.

Cuff pattern: K1,P1 for 1"

Body pattern: Ripple Stitch from Vogue Dictionary of Knitting Stitches by Anne Matthews (1984). The total length of the body (including cuff) is 8".

Heel pattern: The Sherman Heel. The Sherman Heel is a short row pattern but does not use the wrap technique. Instead slip stitches and the techniques of knit and purl encroachment are used. My references for this heel pattern and how to work the stitches are:

A toe up sock pattern by Mary Lycan.
Knit Encroachment (k enc)
Purl Encroachment (p enc)

Foot pattern: The instep/top of foot (1/2 of the total stitches) follows the pattern for the body. The bottom half is stockinette stitch.

Toe pattern: I couldn't find a name for this --it just seems to be the standard pattern for toe decreases when working a sock from the cuff down.

The stitches are distributed as follows:
1/4 of the stitches are on needle #1 (the center back of the heel), 1/2 of the stitches on needle #2 (these stitches are the top of the foot), and the remaining 1/4 on needle #3.

Needle #1: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1.
Needle #2: k1, ssk, knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1.
Needle #3: k1, ssk, knit to end of needle.
Work an even round.
Alternate decrease rounds and even rounds until 8 stitches remain.

Notes and observations:

It took a couple of swatch samples to select the right pattern for the self-striping effect of the yarn. The stitch pattern was written to be worked flat using two needles but was easily converted for circular knitting.

I decreased the toe down to the recommended 8 stitches but I think I like a wider toe and will try 10.

Kool-Aid dyed yarn

The easiest way to dye some yarn is to use Kool-Aid. The upside is that you don't need a separate set of pots because Kool-Aid is food safe. The downside is that you are working with a limited set of very bright colors (to some dyers this is not an issue) So for my first dyeing attempt I decided to give Kool-Aid a try.

My spinning has yet to produce a quantity large enough to knit or crochet something with so I've been scouring the Boston area looking for yarn suitable for dyeing (known as "bare" yarn) and finally found Minds Eye Yarn, a gem of a store, over in Porter Sq. in Cambridge. This place is a yarn spinner and dyer delight! What a find. I purchased a couple 4oz. sock weight skeins of a Merino/tencel blend (added bonus - it's a superwash) along with some merino roving.

I thought finding bare yarn was going to be the hard part but it turned out that finding Kool-Aid was just as challenging! I needed to find the old-fashioned packets where you add the sugar. The local grocery stores in my suburb of Boston only carried the sweetened varieties of Kool-Aid and I didn't even try the multitudes of health food stores -- after all, if this stuff dyes yarn what are we doing drinking it?? I finally found a good selection in Natick at the Super Stop and Shop.

For my first dying attempt I was going for a gradation of a single color. I followed the technique used in this Gradated Dyeing Tutorial found at Knit Picks (they are an internet resource for bare yarn.)

My Notes:

This is just one of multiple ways to get gradated color. I had a great deal of difficulty managing the bulk of yarn at the top in the beginning dye phases. I ended up holding it with my hands instead of using the bar because I could not get the yarn to behave with clothespin clips alone.

I left the beginning sections in the dye bath too long so that once I got to the final section there was very little dye left to be absorbed. The counter to this is to add more dye each time you drop a section but I had mistakenly added ALL of my Kool-Aid packets in the beginning and I was now left guessing how long to leave each section in the dye bath before dropping in more. The result was that the last area to be dyed has a minimal amount of dye. Not what I was intending to achieve but this lesson was learned:

"Happy mistakes". The really nice thing about dyeing is that unless you have a muddy mess of color just about anything you do results in a "designer" dyed yarn!!! It differs entirely from knitting or crocheting where you can rip out your mistakes and redo. No-can-do with dying (well actually, you can over dye but that may be even riskier.) What really happens is you learn to be make good and be happy :)

I used 5 packets of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade

I did use vinegar. When dyeing with Kool-Aid some people do and some people don't. There is a lot of debate about this on the dye forums. I figured it couldn't hurt and would possibly help, so I added vinegar.

I used the following references for Kool-Aid dyeing:

Dyed in the Wool by Kristi Porter

Dyeing Protein Fibers with Kool-Aid: Basic How-to

Koolaid Dyeing - using the kids' drink to dye your yarn

Wool Works: dyeing fibers

Kool-Aid Dyeing Tutorial

My first project with my hand dyed yarn is a pair of socks. Details on the designing of these will come when I'm finished but I think I found a good stitch for this first batch and I'm getting a striping affect as well -- So far it's looking fine!