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.

I heart Ninja's

Check out one of my favorite blogs....http://ninjerktsu.blogspot.com/

Birthday card

Check out the awesome birthday card I got from my friend Genetta!
She's got a blog at http://paperscraping.blogspot.com/. She seems to be more on top of the whole blog about your craft/hobby than I am. I'll have pictures soon of some finished stuff.

Dear Yarn Blog

Dear Yarn Blog,

I haven't forgotten you although I have been paying more attention to the family blog lately, it's not you, it's me. I just get so wrapped up into what I'm doing and forget to tell you about the wonderful new yarn I'm been making.


At top is a cloud mohair yarn that I learn to love and hate at the same time. Mohair is goat fur and comes in short locks which can be a pain to spin up. It's so soft to hold but it's very slow when spinning up as I wrapped it around a cotton cord. Start up the wheel and stop the wheel just to manually spin the wheel to wrap the yarn around the bobbin. It also leaves a weird feeling on your hands like when you just put some very old lotion on your hands so your hands are soft but have that cake like feeling to them. For plying this type of yarn I'm taking some silk singles done earlier to do a 2 ply and all this is doing is basically holding the mohair down a bit on the cotton cord. Not sure what my plans are for it maybe some kind of cowl/scarf type of project since this yarn will be very bulky. In between spinning the mohair stuff up I've also been spinning some bluish-green carded wool. Since this stuff has been carded it's spinning quite easy but it also takes some practice. Doesn't take much for this wool to get thin on me quick since the fibers have been already carded, it causes the fiber to break easily on me when spinning.

I haven't forgotten my knitting, in fact I have two projects going on. First up is the Morning Surf Scarf by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer.



It's being done in some handspun wool yarn done at an Sport weight on size 4 needles, it's the fiber I dyed a while ago using kool-aid. I haven't gotten far with it but so far I'm liking it. I'm also finishing up a wool stocking hat that is getting knitted from the top down. Although it's getting bigger and I know with the ribbing stitch pattern it will stretch but it still looks small to me.

So yarn blog, I've been busy with other little projects around the house but I haven't forgotten about you. I'm just lazy so deal with it.

xxoo
Jennifer

Things I have done on my time off during the summer

My office implemented reduce hours during the summer this year. Of course it came along with reduce pay but I won't complain about having my Friday's off during the summer at all. This coming Friday is the last one I'll have off and then it's back to a 40 hour week. Sniff...I'm getting sad about this.

Here's what I did...

1. Mowed the yard and cleaned my house.
2. Slept in till 8 am. Sometimes 9 am.
3. Watched daytime TV and realized it really sucked.
4. Signed up for Netflix.
5. Spun lots of fiber into yarn.


6. Spent time with my friend Carey eating sushi.
7. Spent time helping my friend Carey clean & move out of her old house into her new home.
8. Painted my bedroom.


9. Purging out my basement, yard and house in one massive dumpster.
10. Used my weekends for my family.

What are we going to do tonight, Brain??

Recently I did a blog update about my sewing machine "Pinky", a rose color 1950-ish Kenmore that didn't seem to be wanting to work for me. Apparently according to my tech support (aka: my father) this machine is very picky on it's tension setting and it doesn't take much to mess it up, which I tend to do often. While Pinky was waiting for repair from me touching it, I got another machine from my parents.

Meet the Brain:
It's a teal blue old Singer sewing machine my parents got for $15 and runs great. I had been calling it "Bluey" since it's a blue machine but my wonderful friend Carey suggested "Brain" after the cartoon "Pinky and the Brain". I loved it and informed my parents last night that I couldn't break up the pair. I finished up the skirt I had been making last night and will have some pictures to come.

Now for the knitting part of the blog. For the 1 billion time for me, I have once again started a sock up with the goal of actually trying to finish it. Last Friday Carey and I both purchased some sock yarn and needles at MisKnits in Kansas City, Mo. We had no real reasons to actually purchase more yarn but we did anyway like the fiber junkies that we are. I chose some Totufsies sock yarn with very high hopes to create a pair of socks from the Jaywalker pattern by Grumperina. So far I have it started and in my purse to work on whenever I can.