Dyeing Yarn

I have been dyeing some yarn again, with my beloved Kool-aid. It's just so fun and easy and the colors you can get when mixing are just incredible. Of course, it's pretty expensive here in Finland, as only a few stores carry it. When I finally get to the States on holiday, I wonder what my luggage will be full of when I come back...

Here is Hyacinth Blooms, dyed with Mixed Berry and Grape Kool-aid, mixed in different ways:

Then we have Watermelon sans the seeds, dyed with Watermelon (2 packets) , Cherry Limeade (2) and Black Cherry (1) Kool-aids:

In this one the yarn was originally light green. I wanted to do something with it but wasn't quite sure what. I went into the wrong direction first and was actually pretty sad and thought I might have ruined it forever. But finally with the correct ratio of Mixed Berry and Lemon-Lime I was happy with the result. There are still some purple undertones showing from my "failure" but I think they will blend nicely when knit up.

Seaweed:

Then we have two dyes I couldn't have done without Ghoul aid, the Halloween flavor of Kool-aid which seems to be somewhat difficult to find for even those living in the States sometimes. The first one is  dyed with two packets Orange Kool-aid, ½ packet Peach Mango and ½ Ghoul aid. Ghoul aid is pretty much gray and when you put in the water, you see all different color spots before it fully dissolves. It makes other colors less bright (as Kool-aid is pretty candy-colored) and gives them a kind of deepness that you might not otherwise get.

Saffron:

Okay, this one is my real love. I first dyed it with turmeric (months ago) but was a little unhappy with it. I don't know, yellow just isn't my thing. So it was previously like this:

But I overdyed it with two packets Lemon-Lime, ½ packet orange and 3/4 packets Kool-aid to this beautiful color I call Undergrowth:

Now that is some yarn right there!

November News

Again, it's been a while since I've last written, but you have to excuse me, life has been pretty busy. I am still suffering with my finger (see last post). I try not to knit and usually succeed for a week or so, and then I must knit until the left little finger starts hurting again. It's pretty bad and makes me quite sad... Not being able to knit as much as I want due to limited time is one thing but not being to knit even as much as I'd have time for because a finger hurts...! That's what's really bothering me.

Still, I have finished a few things since I last blogged and started even more.

The first is a free pattern by Jackie Jones, the dragonfly washcloth. This is pretty cute, and I think I'll gift it to my boyfriends mother. There are so many dragonflies where she lives, cute and small, and huge and scary ones, too!

Dragonfly washcloth

I've also finished a pair of socks, but only one, and for my boyfriend's birthday. The pattern is Fred & George Socks by Rachel Coopey from the Unofficial Harry Potter Knits magazine. I actually just read the last Harry Potter book for the first time just now. I had seen the films but only now did I read the book. I don't really know what to think of it, I have several complaints, but I am also glad to have finally read all the books.

Fred & George socks

The final thing I've finished is a fun little scarf designed by Caitlin ffrench. This was a mystery pattern, and there is no project page yet. The pattern can be found in her group on Ravelry. Here is the scarf as photographed today when it was beautifully sunny!

I also want to show you this beautiful yarn I got as a prize from Eden Cottage Yarns, who sponsored Cookie Crumbs KAL on Ravelry. I was lucky enough to win any in stock yarn from them, and I chose a laceweight that is 70% alpaca and 30% lace, Pegasus Lace. The yarn feels so soft, I can't wait to knit with it!

We organised a Halloween party a little over a week ago, below's my costume. I was pretty scary, huh?

I hope I can knit again soon, I have so many things on the needles! I am halfway through Gothic Spire by Cookie A. and almost half done with Dawlish by Rachel Coopey. I love them both, although the Gothic Spires may be gifted as they are a little loose for me. Here's hoping I'll have more to post soon!

Dyeing with Red Onion Skins

I thought I'd get green. I didn't. But I did get all sorts of beautiful browns, one pretty good ochre and a beautiful pinkish color! I made miniskeins of sport weight Novita Nalle, 75% wool 25% nylon, to test out all kinds of different combinations: I tried adding vinegar, lemon juice, salt and baking soda to my color broth and had a few separate broths with different amounts of onion skins. Finally I dyed Garnstudio Drops Fabel with a lot of onion skins and some vinegar and lemon juice. Here are the results:

Miniskeins!

Miniskeins balled up

Sock yarn!

I have not yet come up with a name for this new beautiful brown sock yarn, any ideas? As for the miniskeins, I've already started to knit something with them. I just couldn't wait, they were so beautiful and looked so good together. I am knitting Caitlin ffrench's Elk Tooth with all the pretty colors, starting with the darkest and ending with the pink - the same order as they are photographed in the first photo. I am knitting the third color now and it looks so good already!

My Awesome Dyeing Day

I spend another day dyeing yarn as I scored some really cheap white sock yarn at a local yarn store. This time, I wanted to try my hand at natural colors, namely onion skins! I got them for free from my grocery store (score!) so this is the cheapest dye I've ever done. I had about 85 g of onion skins and I dyed 300 g of yarn. (But they are not all the same color!) Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here is what it looked like in the beginning. Below is my 6 liter kettle with all the onion skins in.

I poured four and half liters water on top:

And then boiled for 45 minutes. Looks pretty different!

After taking out all the onion skins, this is what I was left with. Notice how you cannot see the white ladle at all, it fully disappears in the dye. And that's not just the picture, it really was like that!

Ok, now while I left the dye cool down a bit (my yarn was superwash but still, I didn't want to take any chances) I had soaked my yarn in vinegar water. I also added vinegar and salt to the dye, to get a nice even color and to make the dye sink in better. Then I put my 100 g of yarn in, heated and let it simmer for about an hour.

At the half hour mark I actually put another 100 g of yarn in. When I took the first patch in, I let the other one stay and after half an hour, put yet another 100 g in. But this last patch was not white, it was yellow from my previous dye with yellow food coloring (it's in this post). In the long run the light yellow just wasn't to my liking so I decided to try to dye it again.

Well, after that I hung the yarn to dry (yes, I'm keeping you in suspense little longer). The already yellow yarn became actually the exact color of the second white patch. I liked that color very much, but I didn't want to have 200 g of the same color, as I don't want to knit more than one pair of socks from the same color. So, it had to go back in the dye pot and this time I used blue food coloring. But alas, of course I put in two much and the yarn had a very artificial, yucky look to it. I didn't have any other color laying around anymore so I turned to my spice cabinet and put in turmeric! And the result, well, it's just beautiful! Below you can see all the lovely yarn that I am so happy with.

First patch onion skin dying - Spiced Pumpkin Pie

Second patch onion skin dyeing - Sunflowers

Yellow food coloring, onion skins, blue food coloring, turmeric dyeing - Green! Green!

The first patch, that lovely orange-brown really was a bitch bleeding but after letting it soak in vinegar for a whole night and then bringing it to simmer and letting cool I was finally able to get it dry. But I was going crazy with it, that's the truth. Luckily, the color is definitely worth it, at least now that all that pain is behind. The others weren't bad bleeders at all. Onion skin dyeing was fun and cheap, although I did use quite a bit of vinegar! Try it! Here is finally a group photo:

Picture post!

This post is going to be heavy with picture and not so heavy on text as I should be studying for an exam... I have been knitting quite a bit, I'm working on two pairs of socks: Kai-mei by Cookie A. and Pythagoras socks by verybusymonkey. I love them both, I'm knitting Kai-mei in a beautiful dark blue by a Finnish indie dyer, Tuulia of KnitLob's Lair. And Pythagoras, well you could say that yarn is also dyed my a indie dyer - me! I've also been further working on my 50's lacy cotton blouse, Bette, and a pair of traditional Finnish stranded mittens for my boyfriend's aunt's 50th birthday. And if that wasn't enough, I've also dyed some new yarn. And now for the pictures:

Kai-mei, they look much nicer on, but I didn't want to take a one-legged picture

Coming along nicely in my self-dyed squishy red

I'm calling this yarn "sphagnum" because of the colors, you know?

Dyed with left-overs from the dye above. Pretty good, huh?

About Yarn, Socks and the Spring that Didn't Come

I did an inventory today. I'm pretty sure you could call it that. I took all of my yarn that is stashed away in various places and put it on our bed. Suddenly there was no more bed! Wow, I really hadn't realized how much yarn I actually have... I also added it on Ravelry, on my stash page. I'm pretty happy having finally done that, now I have pictures of all my pretty yarn and I can easily look at it. At first I thought it was a silly action and that I could never have the patience to use so much time as to put it all in there. But today I did! It's maybe partly because I read about dyeing yarn with Kool aid yesterday and ordered some and since then have just been waiting for it  to arrive. But sadly, things ordered from the other side of the country usually do not come knocking as soon as you'd wish. Anyways, as soon as it does arrive I am going to have so much fun! (I think) Here is 16.1 kg worth of yarn:

Here it is: all of my stash

I also finally finished my second pair of February's SKA sockdown challenge. The pattern I used was another free pattern by Caoua Coffee, Compline. I really love her pattern, they are beautiful, well-written and free! Actually, as soon as I finished Compline, I started on another of her designs, Aramis. These I am knitting from dark red yarn for my boyfriend. Yes, they are for SKA March challenge.

The reason it took me so long to finish Compline was that I was knitting a mohair lace scarf for my boyfriend's sister's 30th birthday. The pattern was the lovelier than lovely Travelling Roses Scarf by Leanne (To Knit is Divine). It's a good thing her favorite color is pink which I do not really like, because otherwise the temptation to keep the scarf for myself might just have been too much! Here is me modelling it anyways. We hadn't seen sun in a while so my eyes are not accustomed to it shining... And there was a snowstorm later that day. Bye bye spring, thanks for stopping by!

New Year's Resolutions

Here is my first finished object of 2013, a pair of socks for my mother. I'll give them to her on Saturday when I see her, so I don't yet know whether she likes them or not! I however are really pleased with them, and they were lots of fun to knit, too. All the cables were done without a cable needle which was a new experience for me, and worked out surprisingly well. The pattern is a free pattern, found in Ravelry, called Bly by Caoua Coffee. They have some other fantastic patterns as well and I'm sure to try some of them later!

Bly cably socks for my mum

Now for my resolutions. I have a few knitting-related goals some especially for this year, others in a more general way that apply pretty much whenever. I decided to write down here to ensure a better follow-through or something...

1. To not buy any more yarn before I have finished even some of my ever-growing stash. (I think this is a goal many knitters share and find ever so hard to achieve)

2. Finish at least some of my nine projects marked as "in progress" on Ravelry

3. Decide what to do (finish, frog...) with some of the six projects marked as "hibernating" on Ravelry.

4. Knit this beautiful long cardigan with bunnies in the colours shown, I have them already in my stash

This pile of yarn will be a cardigan

5. Knit Magic Mirror mittens by Kristel Nyberg. For these I also have yarn (below) and am dying to get started! When I saw that beautiful light green I just could not resist!

Spring must be coming!

6. Knit more socks. Not because I particularly need them but because I have bought so much sock yarn. I have yarn for at least five pairs so those really need to be knit up. Luckily I am not short of sock patterns either, I have browsed through Ravelry in search of free sock patterns and found so many I love. (And let's not forget that I own Cookie A.'s Knit.Sock.Love which still has so many patterns I have not yet knit.

7. Knit three berets I already have yarn for: Selbu Modern by Kate Gagnon Osborn in white and the awesome multicolour yarn below. The colourway is called ´bluebell´.

Bluebells :)

The second beret is from A Stitch in Time vol. 2, it's the Sunday Pictorial Beret by Susan Crawford. I'll knit in stripy, like some people have done, in red and white. I think the candy cane -look suits a beret beautifully. The last beret is River Tam (by Jessamyn Leib) that I am going to knit in deep green. The name of the beret is a reference to a character in the awesome TV-show, Firefly, in case you were wondering.

8. Knit the Echo Flower Shawl by Jenny Johnson Johnen. For this project I also already have yarn, that is Malabrigo Yarn Lace in colour ´sealing wax´. The yarn is so awesome and the pattern so beautiful I cannot believe I haven't knit this yet.

Malabrigo yarn lace in sealing wax

Well, I think that is quite enough goals for one year, don't you? If I can keep my promise on number one, the rest will probably happen pretty much by themselves. I love yarn, I am always tempted by new colours and brands but there is only so much room in a 39 square metre flat!

Me and my boyfriend were in London for five nights last week so I though it would be good to finish this mammoth post with a good old-fashioned London tourist shot. Enjoy!

Yarn shopping

We went yarn shopping today with my boyfriend and found a perfect colour for his hat and also some perfect yarn for me to knit a hat from, more specifically Susan Crawford's Bobble topper, from the same vintage knitting book as Kasha. I love that pattern so much and the yarn I got is just the perfect shade. I have also noticed that after completing so many of my unfinished projects I am all of sudden swarmed with new ones and thus right back where I started. Oh well, such is a knitter's life, I guess :) The yarn shop I went to is called Villavyyhti, Finnish for 'wool skein'. I thought it was just too cute to have the brown paper bag with the name stamped on it and two wool skeins looking out :) So ye yarn I bought was indeed Cascade Yarn's Cascade 220 as I wrote yesterday. The colourway I got for him is 9428 and for me 8415.

We already made a little ball out of the green skein so I can start knitting today. I really should be studying for an exam I have next week but writing this and knitting is just so much more fun! Even reading Crime and Punishment which I'm halfway though would be so much more interesting than studying...

I am also eagerly waiting for the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Monckingjay, which I'm getting from the library in a few weeks. It's so popular that I have to wait for it but I think it's still better than having to buy it. Especially since I would only read it once, most probably. I haven't read the first one at all, I only saw the movie. The second one I borrowed from a friend and read it in one night. I don't really like the writing style too much, it's way too teen novel-y and while it is a novel for young people, it's still sticks out too much for me. But the story is pretty good and quite

compelling so I really must find out what happens before the movies come out. Also, I am not even really sure if the style really is the way I accused it  of being or if it's only the translation as I read  the second book in Finnish. The third book I am now getting in English so that uncertainty will be cured quite soon. ^^ 

I really liked the first Hunger Games movie. It is quite interesting that the actors are my age - or even younger. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) and Liam Hemsworth (Gale) have born in the same year as me, 1990, and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) in 1992! The latter, I think, is a clear sign that I am not in the movie's target audience since how could I ever drool after I guy who is two years younger than me ;) But still, can't say I didn't like the film... It's just interesting that Hollywood has actually started to employ actors that are actually pretty close to the age they are to portray, that 30-year-olds are no longer (necessarily) hired to play teenagers. And that I think is great. And this is perfect transition to start talking about Buffy again! Did you know that when the show started in 1997, Sarah Michelle Gellar was quite young, only 19, while Nicholas Brendon was 25 and David Boreanaz 27. But that's okay, I mean he does play a 240+ old vampire :D But 25 is pretty old to play a highschooler even if they say that men mature late ^^