THANKS!!

I am busy with preparing for Skt Hans tonight. Watermelon salat with feta, green salad with strawberries and cream dressing, olive tapenade and tzaziki. We are going to some friends tonight -and I just don't have time for posting tons of pictures :-( I have received lots and lots of wonderful presents. Thank you all!!!

And I now know who my Secret Pal10 is -purplejenknits. I'll just post one picture -of the beautifull shawl she has made for me!!! Thank you so much!

Kid Seta colours

The Kid Seta colour chart arrived yesterday. It is so soft and yummy. But it's difficult to choose between the colours. I think I have narrowed it down to the petrol or the bordeaux...hmmm...

Tons of presents

Have a look at this! Amazing or what!!! Just for once I will not sleep in on a saturday.

Clematis and hedgehog

No knitting, no crochet, nothing but tennis elbows. Sigh.
But have a look at this amazing clematis I have in my garden and say hi to our only pet :-)

Birthday presents have started to roll in. Wow. That Birthday group is great!

UFO

I am the lucky owner of 10!!! unfinished objects!! Wow. Actually 13, but some of them are a secret ;-) as they might be used for presents.

This is the back of a crochet sweater. It is too narrow and I will never finish it!! As it is mohair it is impossible to frog and I really don't know why I haven't thrown it into the bin.

Here is the back and half the front of a jacket-like thing. I hope to finish it...one day...but I am not too crazy about the yarn. (and I wonder where I have put the pattern!)

My lace sweater in white mohair is what I am currently knitting so I guess it is more of a WIP. I still havn't quite desided whether I like it or not! It's my own design, more or less, and I fear the stochinette part of the front isn't big enough, ie the lace part will start at the middle of the breasts. If it does it will look absolutly weird!

A cat 'n mouse potholder to be. It was supposed to be for my downstream secret pal....we'll see!!

My squares!!! Definately not forgotten and definately will be finished.
The back of a mohair sweater. I have started to use the yarn for the squares...one more thing that is difficult to frog and belongs in the bin.

I don't know why I never finished this shawl. I like the colour which is yellow/brown/goldish. Very warm autumn colours. I made up the pattern as I went along and am not sure I can remember how. Can't even remember which size hook I used.

A crochet 1-finger glove. If you know someone with only 1 hand and only 1 finger on that hand (the little finger) you can have it!!

A shopping bag!! Hmmmm!

My oldest unfinished object and the most time consuming one! I really enjoyed making it so far. Then my mother made a comment about it being very macho!! And she is rigtht. If I finish it I will never wear it and I don't know any men my size!

Stash

My tennis elbow has started to show it's ugly face again. So instead of knitting I decided to sort out my stash. I honestly didn't know I had that much yarn. Some of it I had forgotten all about! And I forgot to include my undyed yarn!!

Cap Shawl yarn -nope

I wonder how much yarn I have to order before I find the right one for The Cap Shawl.

And why is it that I only meant to order the petrol kidmohair but ended up with this:

The kidmohair was on sale, so figured I could always use some in black. I thought that maybe I can combine it with the rowan kidsilk (with I probably won't!) The lavender silk is for my downstream Secret Pal. The red/pink sock yarn was the last of it's kind -and very cheap! The selfstribing sock yarn...well... forgot my argument. The Addi needles -for the Cap Shawl.

But the petrol kidmohair just doesn't look very petrol and it definately doesn't tell me it want to be a Cap Shawl!!!

So, I might end up using a lot of money on a Kid Seta Mohair/silk blend.

Teacher

You have borrowed too many books about knitting, crochet etc at the library when they ask if you are a handcraft teacher!!

A not!

I can't think of a single good reason to chrochet this...this...this...breast warmer!

Which yarn to choose.......

I have never been very good at making up my mind. I meant to knit the cap shawl using kidmohair, but then my secret pal suggested JaggerSpun Zephyr, 50% merino 50% silk blend. And now I can't make up my mind!! I'd have to order it from the UK or USA(very cheap but not sure about the taxes and stuff) as you can't get it here in Denmark. I am sure I would love the Peacock colourway which I can only find in US stores.

Well, hopefully my kidmohair test skein will arrive tomorrow (waited aaall day for it, but no). In the mean time I have found lots of people who have made the Cap Shawl. They are all so beautiful:

Here and it looks great in red and this one is huge.

While waiting for the yarn (and needles ) to arrive I have practised the circle cast on and the first few rounds, but using 3mm needles (my 4mm were stuck in the lace sweater and I don't have any 4½mm)

Føs'dag 1 gruppen -Zoegabutik

We have had another birtday in "føsdag 1 klubben". This time Zoegabutik was the lucky one. And next saturday it me me me. It's like being a child again.

In love

I have fallen in love -again. The last time I did it was with the Mermaid -and it ended out with a perfect marriage. I guess I must believe in bigamy. This time "The Cap Shawl", from Victorian Lace today, is the one. I have already ordered a kidmohair test skein -I want to see the colour before I order the whole lot.

Two socks. Lost needle recovered.

It's 28 degrees celsius outside and I felt a bit silly walking aorund in wollen socks!!

Acid dip-dyeing

I have now moved on to dip dyeing. It has cons and pros!

I started out with a mega hank like with the microwave method. Remember to tie the hank together every 1-2 m. It really avoids a lot of tangling.
I planned to make 5-6 colour sequences but must admist I did a lot of adjustning along the way and probably wouldn't be able to reproduce the colours. Guess it only makes them more unique!
Below is my setup. I dyed two hanks at the same time -it didn't cause must extra work as the time consuming part was to wait for the liqud to get hot. Shortly afteer this photo was taken I placed the yarn just next to the pot on a container that was higher than the pot. This reduces the bleeding. If the yarn just hang from the side it will dripp/suck up more dye.
It took a looong time to dye the 6 sequences I ended up with!! Partly because I was very carefull in the beginning and afraid of heating the liquid too fast. I soon learned only to put just enough water in to cover the yarn and to put the hotplate on high. I kept the water just below boiling (you can feel it simmer when you touch the pot) and continued until the yarn had gained the colour I wanted (it took too long to wait for all the dye to be absorbed). It seems like I needed less dye with this method and once I even re-used the dye bath (after cooling it down) I have a couple of plastic bags with leftover dye+liquid. But I guess the end result this time isn't as dark as with the microwave coloured yarn.

After the whole dyeing proces (I started in the evening and continue the next morning!! Put everything in plastic bags to keep it wet and then went t bed!)) carefully rinsed the yarn (not as much left over dye as with the microwave method) And let it dry overnight
I had to redye one of the colours in one of the hanks as two colourmixes were so equal that you could hardly tell the difference. In the yarn on the right hand side I didn't colour the sequences in the same order. You can see that no 2 and 5 are almost the same. On the left handside I recoloured sequences no 2 which looked just like no 3.
When the yarn was dry I put it back onto the mega hank board and cut of the cotton string. Try to avoid twisting of the yarn, it makes the winding a whole lot easier.

Be carefull not to cut the yarn (like I did)

Then the yarn was winded into a bug round skein which looks just like the earth! Isn't it beautifull?
But I really like hanks so I rewinded it once more!
With dip dyeing the colours get more even and I guess that if you dye a lot at the same time you will save a bit of time. I sure didn't!

It isn't difficult to seperate the colours. I have one place where there isn't enough dye in the area between two colours but it isn't difficult to be quite accurate. (keep the yarn outside the pot higher than then pot)

Put the hotplate on high!! (Mine was on 5 out of 6) You don't have all night!

When you like the colour, remove the yarn from the dye!

You can re-use leftover dye -eventually you can add a bit more colour.

is you don't like the colour, colour it once more.

It is easier to add than to remove!!! Start out with less dye than expected and then add more dye if it doesn't turn out as deep as you want it to be.

Remember that this is my first go with dip dyeing :-) I am not axpert at all. Maybe you know a better way and can teach me!

One sock. One lost needle.

One sock -and now I can't find the fifth double pointed needle!!

Acid dying. How I did it.

It is time to tell how I dyed my yarn. I used omega dyes which is an all in one dye meaning you don't have to add vinegar or something like that. I made a portion of each colour in a plastic container. 1 tsp + 100 ml water. The day after I added 1/4 tsp as I wanted the colours to be darker.

I started out with testing the different colours as well as various mixtures. This is my set up :-)

And these are the results. They wern't as dark as on this picture.

I winded 85 g (300m/100g) of 100% wool onto the mega hank board. There is almost 50 cm between the nails and this gave me a 30 m hank, but with the 2 halfs together. The wool soaked for app 10 hours in lukewarm water with washing up liquid.I then sat down and decided the lenght and colour of each sequences. Each sequence was 1,5 to 3 m in length. The colours I used were: marine blue( i think, they have send me something wrong), moss, malachite and mahogny.
The set up for dyeing.

My Secret pal 10 has told me how she does and I copied her way. I kept the mega hank in a plastic bag and pulled out app 1½ m, placed it on cling film (normal one, not the one for microwaves) and painted as previously decided. I mixed the colours as I moved on using plastic cups and syringes. When a sequences was painted I wrapped the clingfilm around it and rolled it into a "snail". I used plenty (too much) of dye!

I then put the snail in a microwave steamer and put it the microwave for a total of eitght minutes. And got a shock when the whole thing more or less exploded. In the future I'll use less liquid, lower effect and maybe make holes in the cling film to let the steam out! Now it made it's own holes which caused some of the liquid+dye to escape from the snail and collect in the bottom of the steamer (use steamer!)

When the wool had colled down I cut it/pulled it out of the snail (the cling film goes hard, I wonder if it would be better to use microwave film). I rinsed it -a lot. There was quite a lot of left over dye. (use less next time)

I let the wool dry overnight.

And rewinded it onto the mega hank board. It seemed like the best way to avoid it to tangle. From the board I winded it into a skein (by hand) and then into a normal size hank using my winder.
And this is how it looks when knitted up (my first sock ever). In real the colours look more even.