Wednesday 23 May 2018

Blanket-Along update: halfway!

We are now a little over halfway through the Blanket-Along that I am running in my Ravelry group,* so I thought I would give you an update on how I'm getting on with my projects.

First up we have the rainbow crochet blanket that I was working on. And it is finished! I used the Beatrice pattern by Little Doolally that I have used before and really enjoyed both times. Crochet is great for blankets as it grows so quickly. I actually managed to finish this one ahead of time as my friend's baby isn't due until July. I enjoyed working on this blanket in this colourway so much that I have already planned a second blanket project using the leftovers, but this time I'll be using a clean grey (Stylecraft Special DK in Silver) as the neutral. I can't wait to get started on this project as the grey really makes the rainbow colours pop. I'm thinking about using another of Little Dolally's patterns as I enjoyed the first so much, but I need to check that I'll have enough yarn first, otherwise it'll be another Beatrice.


The second Blanket-Along project is a second Peter Rabbit blanket in a slightly different colourway to the first. I finally got round to casting this on over the early May Bank Holiday weekend. I'm not sure that casting on a chunky-weight blanket on one of the hottest days of the year was necessarily a wise decision, and I only did the first border before declaring it too hot and putting it to one side in favour of a much lighter weight project. But as ever, once something is on the needles it does grow faster, and I have been back to it. I have now completed about half of the first row of bunnies, and really need to get a move on as its recipient will be here pretty soon!


There is still plenty of time to join in the Blanket-Along. The chatter thread has been excellent inspiration, and we're all doing a great job of cheering each other along. I'll be drawing prize winners from both the chatter and FO threads, so there's no pressure to finish your project - feel free to pop across, say hello and share what blanket you're working on.

Happy knitting!

*For full details, read this post. My Ravelry group can be found here; you will have to be a member of Ravelry to access this, membership is free.

Saturday 12 May 2018

Yarn dyeing with Amy

In October my lovely friend Amy came to stay with us for a few days, and one of the things we both wanted to do was to dye some yarn. I have dyed yarn before, using Kool Aid, and was given a yarn dyeing set for my birthday last year, so decided to go ahead and spend a morning dyeing yarn.

While I have dyed yarn before, it was a while ago, so I started by watching a few YouTube videos to work out what we would need and some basic techniques.* I quickly worked out that while I had a lot of the materials needed, a quick trip to the shops was required to pick up some extra bits and bobs, including a saucepan and some utensils that could be used specifically for the dyeing as you shouldn't mix dye and cooking utensils.

Emergency shopping trip!

Step one was to soak the yarn. Pretty boring, but also essential to ensure the dye penetrates the yarn properly. I bought the yarn from Devon Sun Yarns as her yarns were the best value if you only wanted a few skeins (postage is expensive from some of the bigger companies). We chose sparkly sock blanks and long skeins that could be dyed in stripes (not that we used those as we ran out of time).

Naked yarn having a bath

One of the most enjoyable bits of yarn dyeing was choosing what colours we wanted to use. We didn't have a particular colour scheme in mind, but both agreed that we didn't want to make brown yarn. The easiest way to avoid this is to use colours that don't make brown when mixed, so we chose pink, turquoise, blue and purple. If it did all get mixed together, the result would be pretty!

Mixing dyes

We agreed that it would be fun to dye each of the yarns we had using different techniques and have a bit of a play. I dyed my sock blank as a solid in a big pan of dye. I add the dye to the cold pan, gave it a good stir, added the blank, then heated the whole pan very gently until it all reached a gentle simmer. This took ages!

A watched pan never boils

Amy went for a different approach and painted her blank with spots of dye using measuring spoons.



Adding colour one area at a time
Once the pan had simmered for a bit, I added some darker shades of blue to the hot pan. Then simmered it for a bit longer. As the dye was being added hot, it stuck to the blank instantly, resulted in a lovely mottled effect.




Adding depth to the colour with darker shades

Amy's yarn was set using the microwave while I waited for my yarn to cool down, then we rinsed the blanks out.


Removing excess dye after setting

I also had a skein of undyed yarn that I had in the stash that I decided to wind into mini skeins so we could try out a few techniques. We tried cold dyeing these skeins, them microwaving them to set the colour. We also sprinkled the mini skeins with some neat dye particles to add speckles. This was great fun, and much quicker than the stove top approach!




Cold dyeing mini skeins
At the end of the day we came away with some beautiful yarn - not a hint of brown! I love my sparkly sock blank, and Amy's is so pretty too. I have gifted some of the minis to other people, and plan on using the rest as bright contrast pops in socks. Our day spent dyeing yarn was really good fun, and I'm sure it's something I'll do again (especially as I have now largely forgotten how much mess it made! Maybe I should do it in the summer so I can do the majority of the work outside where I'll be less bothered about the mess!).



The finished yarn
I haven't yet knitted my sock blank up, so I think I'll aim to do that for the Marathon Sock KAL. I can't wait to see what it looks like as socks!

If you fancy dyeing some yarn for yourself, you might like to look at the DT Craft and Design website run by Debbie Tomkies. The site stocks a large variety of undyed yarn and all the dyes and materials you'll need; it's where my dyes came from. Devon Sun Yarns also has an excellent selection of yarn dyeing materials suitable for beginners.

*You Tube videos I found useful:

Wednesday 9 May 2018

The Yarnometer: April 2018

March wasn't the best for finishing things, or for not buying yarn.  So what did April bring?

Well, first up, I had a birthday, and birthdays always equate to yarn (or they do here anyway!), so there might be slightly more yarn than you would otherwise guess (unless you've already established that I do acquire quite a lot of yarn, which you probably have...).


Projects finished

April was an excellent month for getting things off the needles, with seven projects completed!

A baby blanket for good friends
A friend and her husband are currently expecting their first baby, so I made them a gorgeous rainbow baby blanket. I loved this project and can't wait to gift it in a couple of months. The FO post will have to wait until it's been gifted, but until then, here's a sneak peak, and you can find out more by looking at the project page.


Witches Brew socks
My son had been requesting socks for a while, so I knitted him a pair at the start of the month. You can read all about them here.


Two baby cardigans
The babies really do keep on coming at the minute, so I whipped up a couple of Entrechat cardigans. This is one of my favourite patterns for baby girls, and they only take a few hours to knit. There will be a FO post in time, but for now, here they are together. I'm hoping to make a third (two-colour version) from the leftovers.


Blanket for a magazine
A lovely quick project that I'm looking forward to sharing in a month or two...

Socks for a magazine
I haven't designed any socks in a bit, and these were a lovely bit of variety. They'll be coming soon.

A children's jumper
You'll have to wait until the autumn for me to share this one with you, but I'm sure you'll all love it!

The ins and outs of yarn

Yarn in
This is quite a large section this month. And quite large numbers. I'm pretty certain May will be better...
  • 2600g (!) for a Mr Men and Little Miss themed blanket that was published in Crochet Now. I could absolutely not resist this, and my siblings kindly obliged with the yarn as a birthday present!
  • 100 g of Suffragette sock yarn. This was a birthday present for me as it's in green and purple, which are my favourite colours. Maybe I can cast them on for Wimbledon (the colours are a perfect match!)
  • 200 g of yarn for socks for my husband. He has been waiting patiently for socks for ages and I think he'll like good old Opal over something softer. His socks take two balls of yarn, so stash-diving was a bit trickier for these
  • 300 g of neutral Stylecraft Special DK* to go with the leftovers from the baby blanket I finished this month. I'll be making, guess what? Another baby blanket!
  • 800 g of assorted yarn that I won in a competition. I fished out the bits I want and will eBay the rest
  • 20 g mini skein that I got for my birthday. It's the perfect shade to go with the leftovers from the Witches Brew socks
  • 200 g of yarn for the Entrechat baby cardigans
  • 100 g of yarn for a baby cardigan. The baby will be arriving in the summer, so I thought I'd try a cotton-acrylic blend*
  • 800g of yarn for the Durumi sweater. Another birthday present; I can't wait to cast this on. I went for Drops Cotton Merino as it was on offer and comes in fab colours
  • 50 g sample of super chunky yarn* from Love Knitting for review purposes

Yarn out
Destashed
  • 337 g of leftovers returned to a publisher
  • 350 g of leftovers to Knit for Peace
Knitted
  • 284 g for the magazine blanket
  • 480 g for the baby blanket
  • 50 g for the Witches Brew socks
  • 163 g for the children's jumper
  • 67 g for the magazine socks
  • 60 g for Entrechat 1
  • 60 g for Entrechat 2
So many FOs this month. So satisfying!

Total
Yarn in: 5170 g
Yarn out or used: 1851 g
Total: 3319 g

Fortunately May is all about finishing things, and there will be a little bit of eBaying to move on a few things that aren't going to get used.

Year to date (end of quarter one)
Yarn in: 12267 g
Yarn out: 3161 g
Yarn used: 3141 g
Total: 5965 g



*Affiliate link.

Monday 7 May 2018

All the cast-ons!

It's a bank holiday in the U.K. today, and, somewhat unusually, gloriously sunny! It's also the start of my Marathon Sock KAL*, so I'm going to make an effort to cast on some new socks today. There are three major options: long-anticipated socks for my husband (he has rather large feet, so the project will be a long one), or sparkly socks for me, or stripy socks for me (both in yarns that have been wound for ages, but never quite made it to the needles). Or maybe all three...


Three projects lined up, all ready to go
Socks that might take a while...
Sparkly firework yarn
Pastel stripes with contrast heels, cuffs and toes

I had originally made the KAL a WIP-free zone, but decided to add a warm-up thread for those who wanted to get a few things finished before casting on something new.** I have more than one or two sock WIPs lying about, so in the past week I have finished one pair of socks and started the second sock on my long-abandoned Christmas Sockalong socks that I started last November. I have no idea why the festive socks got abandoned, the yarn is lovely and the micro-stripes make for an enjoyable project. By the end of the week I think I might actually have salvaged some sock needles!

Starlight express socks!
Christmas in May...

I have one other cast-on planned for today: a baby blanket for a friend. It'll be a second Peter Rabbit blanket, knitted in bright pink chunky yarn, so good and quick once I get started. Today might not be the best day to cast on a chunky weight project as it is rather warm, but the sooner I start, the sooner I'll finish. This blanket will be my big project for my Blanket Along.***

The original blanket
New colours!

If you want me today, you'll find me outside, knitting in hand, enjoying the sunshine! Happy knitting!

*For more details on that, read this post. The Ravelry thread is lovely and busy!

**Full details can be found in the Ravelry thread. To be eligible, WIPs much have been cast on before May 1st 2018; the FO thread will close early on June 1st 2018. To access the thread, you need to be a member on Ravelry; membership is free.

***Another KAL I am currently hosting in my Ravelry group. The thread isn't as busy as the Sock Marathon thread, but there are plenty of inspiring projects, and you can enter with WIPs if you want a push to get something finished. Again you must be a member of Ravelry to join in.

Tuesday 1 May 2018

The Marathon sock KAL!


In April it was the London Marathon, which is televised in the UK. Over the morning of the marathon I had various friends texting me about things that were happening during the coverage. As ever, it did briefly cross my mind that one day I could run a marathon, but I haven't run in a very long time (not more than chasing children level running anyway, and before that I was never a serious runner), so it's not something I would naturally do. So instead my mind turned to things that could be done that relate to the length of a marathon. As I was knitting a pair of socks at the time, I idly wondered how many pairs of socks would need to be knitted to knit a whole 26(.219) miles of sock yarn. The answer is quite a lot – 141 pairs of UK size 10 socks to be precise.*

I quickly realised that knitting a Marathon's-worth of socks was going to take rather a long time. But what about if I had help? Which gave me the idea for a new knitalong: the Sock Marathon KAL.

The KAL will be running from May 7th in my Ravelry group, and will continue until a full Marathon's-worth of socks have been knitted! There are a few rules, which I've listed below, but anyone is welcome to join in – the more the merrier! To join the KAL, head over to the chatter thread in my Ravelry group,** introduce yourself, and tell me what you're planning on knitting.

How long do you think the KAL will take? Do you think we'll be done by the 2019 London Marathon?

Happy knitting everyone!



********

Aim
Knit a Marathon's worth of socks: 26.219 miles of sock yarn converted into socks.

Rules
  • Any yarn weight, any pattern
  • Must be cast-on on or after May 7th 2018
  • The KAL will close once the full 26 miles of yarn have been knitted
  • You must post a photo of your pair of socks to the KAL FO thread, including the exact number of metres of yarn you used (to the nearest metre)
  • I'll keep a running total for the group
  • To be eligible for a prize, you must be a member of the Ravelry group

Prizes
  • One prize for the person who knits the most metres
  • One prize drawn from the chatter thread
  • One prize drawn from the FO thread

FO thread template
  • Date cast on:
  • Date cast off:
  • Link to your Ravelry project page
  • Number of metres of yarn used***


*26.219 miles = 42 195 m; each of my pairs of socks uses approximately 300 m of yarn (assuming sock weight yarn at 400 m per 100 g)
**You'll need to be a member of Ravelry to join in the KAL. Membership is free.
***You must use metres for this KAL – 1 yd = 0.91 m