Today's blog brought to you by the letters W-T-F???

As requested from my 3 year old, she wanted a fishy hat like the one I made for her friend Alex but in clown fish colors. Ok, not a big deal, I have the neon orange that is brighter than a thousand suns leftover from a previous project, I have black and white yarn...I can do this again. I should have guessed this new hat project was going to be difficult starting with losing my size 8 double point needles and from the previous hat experience using circulars proved to be a pain to use. Not wanting to spend much money on a new set, I picked up the cheapest pair I could find. They are ok needles but once again in previous projects I have done the type of yarn sometimes picks out what type of needles I should use. The double points I got are plastic and with this orange yarn, it slips off the needles quite easily and it looks like I should have gone up a size to work with this stuff as well, ugh. I should have just picked up the wooden pair and just deal with the fact I lost my good size 8 wooden double point needles and pay the extra dollars to get a good set again.

So I continue to knit this stuff up dropping a stitch here and there with a 3 year old asking "Is my hat done yet" in the background. Now it's time to do the short rows....ok...knit to the end...do I slip the stitch first or do I move the yarn from the back to the front?? How did I do this last time...no that's not right, let's try this, no...not right again. Ok, I just need to look this up, where did I put my notes?? Ok, ok...slip the stitch first, bring the yarn to the front, slip back the stitch, bring the yarn to the back and turn...got it, that was easy...why couldn't I remember this?? Ok, time to go back and do the next short row...ok I'm at the end of the next row time to do what just took me 5 minutes to figure out...ok...what did I do first...slip or bring the yarn to the front?? Crap, I need to look it up again!! Ok, ok slip, yarn, slip, yarn and turn, got it. On to the end of the next row..hmm...is it yarn then slip then yarn...WTF! I've only managed to only do half of the first set of short rows required on this hat since starting this 2 weeks ago. I don't understand why I can't seem to remember the steps to doing these short rows? This is just stupid!

When the hat frustrates me I just set the needles down and go to another frustrating project I have going on: Cotton spinning. Carey was right, I'm going to hate it to the point I want to stab myself. Spin cotton or stab my eyes out...hmmm...tough choice, I'll go for stabbing myself but then I would drop all those stitches in the short row I just did, damn it! What frustrates me about the cotton is not what Carey warned me about, the breaking of the fiber is a pain but what is frustrating to me is once I find that groove to spinning it right the minute I walk away and start back up I can't get it going right. Again...WTF...I was just doing it right and then I needed to stop, come back and now I can't seem to get it spinning right again. I spend the next 15 minutes trying to get it going again just for it to break on me. AARRGGHHH....so much for a relaxing hobby. I have noticed that cotton seems to produce a bunch of what I call "Yarn Barf", leftovers from the roving that are too small to get back on the single that you are spinning up. A good spinner (example: Carey) wouldn't have any but I'm not that good and still have some yarn barf with any fiber I spin.

Just walk away from the frustrating cotton for a minute and do some predrafting of some newly dyed wool I did a couple of weekends ago.

Trash bag of goodness becomes....

Empty gift bag of drafted goodness ready to spin!!

2 1/2 pounds of wool all drafted and just ready to for me to spin. I got together with my friend Carey at her house to dye all this using her Country Classics dyes that she's had much success using. I'm surprised I made it out the door with it but then again at the rate I'm going with the cotton, I should have taken Carey's offer of spinning it up for me. I still have more fiber to dye up and if it stays some what warmish this weekend I'll try dying the bamboo fiber with the dye that requires a well ventilated area.

I've also gotten back into finishing up some sewing projects and started a needle case out of some fat quarters I got last year from the shop hop I did with my mother & sister. I'm sure there are patterns out there to use but I just figured something out and sewed it up.

Not too bad, just need to stitch the lines to form the holders and I'll do that later tonight.

What's on YOUR needles??

I hear this often from other people who are curious on what I'm knitting on. Currently right now I'm carrying a ball of yarn in my purse. That's right, a ball of yarn with some size 6 needles stuck in it just sitting in my purse. It is just patiently waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. No clue. Just sitting in my purse, staring at me when I'm driving. Like all crafty people out there they have a few UFO's in their craft room or bag. I recently came across one of my unfinished projects while organizing my fiber & yarn stash, the Pretty Bird neckwarmer by Christianna Wincek. I discovered a horrible mistake I was making in the cable pattern and did what every good knitter does. I promptly put the project down and forgot about it, until last week when I unravel the project back to the very beginning of the cable pattern and started over on it. This year I'm going to try to keep the UFO's down to a number that I can count on one hand and so far I'm starting off pretty good.

I finished up the belated Christmas gift hat this week.



One catfish blugly with needle felted eyes! I can take that UFO off my list but saddly I had to put another one in it's place. A "Finding Nemo" looking clown fish hat to make in a hurry so that a certain little child of mine will stop asking when her fish hat will be done.

Catfish Blugly

I finally finished a belated Christmas gift for Bailey's daycare friend, Alex, a Fish Hat by Thelma Egberts.

Click on any of the images to make the larger

Pictures to come of the hat after blocking and with whiskers & eyes on.

Normally hats don't take me too long to do but this one took some time to do due to learning curve I needed on how to do short rows for the first time. For this hat I used some leftover handspun yarn done by my friend Carey called "Blugly" that she used to create her Mr.Greenjeans sweater from the Fall 2007 issue of knitty.com. At some point when I was doing the short rows the shaping of the mouth looked a lot like a catfish to me and gave me the idea to put some whiskers on it later. When I put the hat on Bailey she insisted that I make her one right now, in pink of course. James who didn't think much of the pattern when I first showed him was a changed man and laughed with glee upon seeing the finished project. He suggested to Bailey that her hat needed to look like a clown fish like the one from Finding Nemo. One quick search for an image of a clown fish she was hooked (ok, that bad pun wasn't done on purpose) on the idea. The list of future projects keep growing and if it doesn't warm up soon, I may use the camel yarn I'm making for some extremely warm socks.

New scarf project for Cathy

My friend Cathy gets very cold easily and last year I knitted the Fetching fingerless gloves for her to use at her office. The other day I mention that I still had some leftover yarn from her gloves and would she like something else. She mention a scarf or socks would be nice to have to keep her warm. I pretty much have a love/hate relationship with socks and that she would need to take a number behind my husband and oldest sister who have hinted on wanting some and are still waiting for hell to freeze over to get any. I have vowed to actually finish a PAIR of socks this year. Not just do one sock, get frustrated and stop mid-way through the first sock and never pick the project up again, actually finish a pair this time. We'll see if that happens it's only January right now. The yarn I used is called Dream in Color Classic wool #480 Midnight Derby.

I have selected four patterns for Cathy to choose from:

1) Rittenhouse Scarf by Marilyn Murphy

2) Lovely Leaf Lace by Joelle Hoverson

3) Rainy Day Scarf by Beth Collins

4) Ribbed Scarf with Crochet Edging by Ann Budd (you'll need to scroll down to find this pattern)

Any suggestions on what I should make for Cathy?

Cotton

For my birthday I received 2 pounds of undyed cotton fiber from my parents. Happy happy, joy joy!! I've been wanting to learn to spin cotton for a while now but never got around to actually purchasing any. I was wanting to do a grand project to work on from beginning to end for myself and found the knitted piece to make out of the cotton, Berroco's Dittio spring sweater. I don't like having all this fiber & yarn and not have something planned for it. My fiber & yarn stash is getting too big and I'm not going to be able to out wit James much longer when he starts pointing that little fact out to me. I told Carey about my gift and she promptly said "You're going to hate spinning it".

She's probably right, all fibers with a short fiber length are a pain in the neck to spin but I have some really nice Camel fiber on my wheel now that has a long fiber length that is proving to be a pain as well. Camel fiber is very, very soft and breaks easily while spinning. First mistake I made was to try a new technique on how the fiber is drafted. Spinning from the fold is where I basically take a short length of fiber, fold it over a finger and draft the fiber out from the middle instead of an end. All the length isn't helping one bit and has taken some trial and error while spinning this and James has learned a few new words while sitting next to me on the couch.

The new spinning technique wasn't the only new idea I had to try out as well. I've never dyed cotton before and it takes a bit of a different approach than the basic wool I've done. Since cotton is a plant based fiber, you need to dye with heat and usually something that will cause the dye to set. I had gotten a little dye kit from the Yarn Barn in Lawrence, Ks. that had everything; activator powder, six basic colors and a small bottle of Synthrapol. When I read the instructions it said to do in a "Well Ventilated Area", since I missed the opportunity to dye this fiber outside because of the winter weather, I was going to need something else to use but what? A quick internet search later and I was on the Rit Dye homepage. Rit dye is easy to use, comes in large assortment of colors and doesn't need a "well ventilated area" to work with.

(Notice the large plastic bag over the white countertop....I really hate the white countertops that came with the house)


Quick soak and then...


Rinse

At this point the 2 pounds of wet cotton fiber looked like bad bread dough that was heavy and dripped water everywhere when lifting into the pot for dying. I used 3 different colors (navy blue, royal blue and tan) to get the overall affect of different shades of dark blues, blue-grays with spots of a dark gold/brown mixed in. I used the condiment containers first filled with the royal blue and tan in them and started squirting the colors on the fiber. Then I poured the navy blue over the fiber and mixed it in by hands. I should mention that even though the Rit dye is easy to use, it still suggested on dark colors to add salt to help the fiber take the color and to use a longer cook time.

I kept fiber at a simmer for about 15 minutes before rinsing and rinsing...it took several rinse cycles for this cotton fiber to stop bleeding. I need to invest in a metal steamer basket like my friend Carey uses for her dye projects. It would have kept the fiber off the bottom of the stock pot and not burn at the bottom of the pot but no biggie, I only use this pot for dying projects anyway.

I think my husband would prefer for me to find a better place to dry my fiber out but our bathroom shower curtain rod is currently the best place for it. After drying I thought the fiber looked a lot like blue dreadlocks, I grabbed a handful and walked out into the living room with them on my head. Bailey giggled with glee while James rolled his eyes, at least someone was amused with my antics. I named the fiber Blue Dreads instead of the suggestion of Rastafari Cookie Monster from James.

Here is the 2 pounds of cotton fiber named "Blue Dreads" waiting for me to start spinning it. At first I thought I was going to have a ton of hand carding to do but when winding it up into fiber balls the fiber was coming apart quite easily and no carding should be needed. I will still need to heat set this before I do a final washing but I've decided to do that after the garment is knitted up and use my dryer for that.