Snow Day

Today was a snow day for our school.  While we did not get a lot of snow here, 4-5”, west of here there was a lot more.  I am taking advantage of this day off after the long holiday weekend, to just craft away.

Mittens have been on my list as of late.  Here are a few of the ones that I have finished.

The squirrel mom and baby were meant for a child, but they ended up being a small adult size.  These were made with Daletta yarn from Dale of Norway.

Next I worked on these mittens, again intending that they become a child’s mittens, but these were too small, so are heading off to Izumi.  Yarn is Baby Ull.

Having trouble getting my sizes correct, I finally asked a friend of mine who teaches 2nd grade to trace a couple of her students hands.  That was so helpful, and I finally got a right-sized pair of child’s mittens.

These mittens had been on my knit-to list for many many years.  When my son was little, his best friend Sam had mittens like this knit for him by his grandmother.  They used to love to play Stop and Go on the side-walk with these.

Vintage by Berroco was used for the mittens, I was able to get the correct colors and a machine washable yarn. Next, I needed to duplicate stitch the letters on.  None of the white yarn in my stash was the correct weight, so a couple of friends dropped some by and I was able to finish them up.  I am really happy with how they turned out.

So, I was on a roll.  The next pair is a Dale of Norway pattern, using Dale Tiur, which create a beautiful halo over the patterning.  Looks like a good child size fit.

Feeling that I had this sizing thing down,  I found these child mittens on a Ravelry search, and free to boot.  I fell in love with the cuteness of this pattern, and the fact that the mittens did not really match.  After casting on with Baby Ull, I quickly realized that they were going to be adult sized – 64 sts in a round, I should have known better.  In fact they fit my adult hand sized (which is large), so I opted to make them for myself.  I combined the bottom of both mittens first one on each side, and then added the top of the single snowman mitten and snowflakes repeated both sides.  I chose to put the thumb at the same side, so the result is that there is no right or left hand mitten, and each would have a slightly different appearance when worn.

These are big, I wish that I had done a simpler rib, I opted for a 1×1 twisted rib, but on every color change row, I knit the purl stitches to not have the overlap of color showing, which had the effect of not pulling in very much at the cuff.  And, I added a few more rows before the pattern which I should have probably left out.  The thumb could have been a couple of stitches wider and perhaps a bit longer.  In spit of all this, I do believe that they will keep me warm.  Now they desperately need a washing to ease the stitches, and the embroidery so that the snowmen will look like something.

And they do fit my big mitts.

My Turn

The past several months I have been preoccupied with knitting for others, from fingerless mitts for girls weekend, Estonian shawl for Go Red auction, Christmas gifts and goodies for a few special people.  Even though I still have a few projects that are languishing and begging to be finished, I feel like rewarding myself and starting something new, but still using yarn from my stash.  I really had wanted to make this hat, the Baa-ble Hat, by Donna Smith from the cover of this year’s Wool Week magazine, which I purchased when it came out, but for everyone the hat pattern is free via the above link. It was one of the most popularly queued patterns on Ravelry this year, and I think for good reason.

Upon closer inspection, that hat calls for an Aran weight Jamieson’s yarn.  I know that the hat will kit up quickly, and I still want to make it, but I resisted the urge to drive out to a yarn store, or to purchase something online.  It will be coming up soon though…

In the meantime, I pulled out this stash of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift

and decided that it was the perfect time to cast on for the Sheepheid Tam by Kate Davies.

The pattern has been in my procession for a couple of years, and I do have some Shetland wool of several colors that I was intending to handspan just for this, but will be happy to make the hat out of the yarn that I have on hand.

Next I want to plan a new sweater from some stash yarns, I have a couple of options that I am mulling over.

Dying yarn

At the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival on Saturday, Jane and I took a class on dying self-striping sock yarn. Not being a particular fan of self-striping sock yarn, the class title left me less than enthused, but it was open, and something to do for the afternoon.  I was wrong.

First off, the class was taught by Nancy from Nancy’s Knit Knacks, the place where Dan got my amazing ball winder for me a couple of Christmases ago. Nancy is a wealth of knowledge, she started out quiet, but really knows her stuff, and explained all of the math that goes into dying self striping yarn.  Her samples were perfect.

We set about choosing our colors of dye.

And coming up with a plan.  I had to adjust mine, as some of the dyes that I chose were empty.

Then painting the appropriate sections of the yarn that was already pre-wound to the correct skein length.

Edited for clarification:  Nancy pre-wound the skeins.  First you knit 10 rows with your yarn, and figure out how many inches that is in total. You then rewind the yarn to a skein that is that length (it is quite long).  Nancy based her calculations on a 64 stitch sock.  After you figure out what colors you want to use, you need to set up a pattern.  The “Faux Isle” portion needs to be at least 4 rows long if you want to do that.  You can do any combination of row colors to add up to 10 rows.  I chose 2-2-2-4.  Then you measure out the length that you need for each color section and dye that individually.  That section is then placed in its own plastic ziplock back, and saran wrap tied around the end of it (this was the hardest part!).  Continue dying each section and placing in their own plastic bags.  They then get put on a tray with a little bit of water at the bottom for steam and microwaved for 8 minutes.

After they cooked in the microwave, we hung them in the doorway to dry

Then we spread all of them out and talked about our skeins and what we were trying to achieve.

Here is my skein drying

And wound up, waiting to be spun into socks for me.  I am not sure that the “Faux Isle” section of the pattern will show up that much, but I like the colors.  Hopefully it will stripe properly.

Feeling Crafty

I have been on a binge with new crafting ideas (inspired by my sewing /knitting room which is coming along nicely). My latest trials were making soap with felted wool around it. Easy peazy.

First find a nice bar of soap, I used some handcrafted ones, and some colorful roving. Note it cannot be Superwash, and must be wool to felt properly.

Next wrap the soap tightly with some of the roving in one direction, not too thick, not too thin but making sure to overlap the edges.

 

 

Using as many or few colors as you would like, wrap the other way around (i.e. turn the bar 90 degrees and wrap).

The first time I tried instructions which stated to hold the roving firmly, have hot and cold water drizzling, add a bit of hot water and some soap. Rub vigorously with the finger on your other non-holding hand, and it will start to felt. Alternate between hot and cold water sparingly and rotate around the bar. Squeeze out the excess water and set to dry.

 

Then I tried an alternate method. Wrap in the same manner, but put the roving wrapped soap bar inside a nylon, and I used my Grandmother's washboard. This is an all wooden one from WWII that she had, note the V for Victory, not using any metal. My dad was flying over Germany when she washed her clothes on this. I can only imagine the fear and anxiety with which she scrubbed her clothes. It is worn and well used.

Just scrub vigorously under a bit of hot water with soap for agitation, rotating the bar around. Squeeze out the excess and set out to dry.

These are my first few trials, Sofia is being my product tester.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy