Secrets

It's been AGES since I last wrote a blog post, and I think that's partly due to the disaster that was the vlog.....stupid computer screen kept blacking out and by making it come alive again the sound/picture sync was lost. I will try again some day but I think I need a better camera than the one built into the actual laptop. If anyone has any recommendations I love to hear about them.

So whats on the needles??

That's the problem with Christmas, lots of stealthy knitting goes on so I can't show much. What I can say is that I think I'm nearly done with the knitting, just a sock really to go and a Hulk or two, lol,.

I think this one is rather obvious

The world and his wife knows that I have an affinity for Stylecraft Special DK and I have to say that a fair few Christmas knits are made out of it. The above project is bottle green and silver while the below is being made using lipstick and royal blue.

I just have wee Spidey's arms left to knit and then the fiddly details, but I have to say its such a great wee pattern that I'm going to buy the Hulk and use Meadow green and Emperor purple to knit him up.

I've also been knitting extremely secret things for the Christmas swap....so I can only show you a very unhelpful picture, lol. All you know is that its in Lion Brand Cotton but I'm sure you could take a stab in the dark as to what its to become.   This is technically finished, just the ends to go....and they'll probably be sorted 10 minutes before I need to leave the house to attend the very swanky Christmas outing (its in the Titanic complex this year, nothing but the best for us knitters!)            

What else have I been up to?

I've been bitten by the dyeing bug, and to date I've 6 skeins under my belt -  all dyed differently to try out various techniques. I've 2 new ones to show off, a rather subtle one I dyed for a friend....I call it "Peaceful, easy feeling" and I really like it. Its not bright and in your face like some yarns I've dyed up.      There's nice light and airy colours in this one, light blues, greens, pinks, yellows and silver.  The recipient seemed to really like it which is the main thing.

In stark contrast is "Kiss the girl"! This one is greens, blues, pinks and hints of purples and it turned out completely different to what I had planned in my head (but it seems that these things always do!) but it is so much better than what I thought it would be like.

This one is projectless so if you have an idea what you could do with it, make me an offer and its yours! Its 100% superwash merino 4ply and is 375m.

Deadline? What deadline?

I'm in the midst of a deadline to knit a pair of socks for a fellow knitters daughter. Of course things like dyeing and procrastiknitting are getting in the way BUT last week I finished the first sock (this girl has feet the same size as my BROTHER! Thankfully the leg is on the shorter side!) and the second is underway....I took this snap on Sunday so I can see the progress I make.

I'm hoping to have the majority of the remaining Christmas knits finished by Sunday so I can spend the remaining few weeks on the lead up to Christmas frantically knitting the things I forgot about in the first place......and finally give poor Spider-Man his arms which I know I'll leave until the last minute! He can't be a web-slinger without arms....

Dare I ask how your Christmas crafting is coming along? Or is that something we just don't talk about??

Everytime I look at you, I dye a little

Sorry about the lack of posts the past few weeks – I did have a vlog/podcast thing done but its rubbish. The sound isn’t in sync with the video because the screen kept going dark on me… I’ll try it again this weekend and see what happens.

At the end of August, I took the day off work and headed up to Whitehead to Lighthouse Yarns for a dyeing workshop with Terri from FineFish Yarns.  I can not tell you how EXCITED I was to dye something. I had tried many years ago with koolaid, a sock blank and a microwave but I’ve shied away from using it because I didn’t want it to fade away into nothing.

There were too many of us to dye in the yarn shop, so we hopped over to the community centre across the street, got our tables set up and learned the mechanics of dyeing – basically there are none so just wing it!

So, after smothering the table with cling film, we picked our dye powder colours and drenched the yarn with a mixture of warm water and citric acid. The dyes were also mixed with the same solution and then the fun began!

After that workshop I just couldn’t help myself. I ordered some yarn blanks on Knitpicks and some dyes from Amazon.  I’ve only dyed up 3 skeins so far:

I’ve plans for more…..once I scrape the money together for more yarn blanks!

But there’s the problem. Does the handdyed yarn count as stash? Does my stash increase with every skein I dye? Or should be counted as an entirely separate stash?