Category: Dyepot

my lucky lucky day…

My studio unpacks! Secrets revealed! In six weeks, the contents of those crates merged into some kind of curtain covered leaning tower of Mystery that I was reluctant to touch for fear of a avalanche.

Did I mark the boxes for easy reentry? No way! Just piled ’em as high as they’d go according to weight (hmm, heavy/books/equipment?; light/yarn/pillows/curtains?; tall/lights/racks) and ignored them once the last curtain was thrown over ’em. By the time the major work was being done in the rest of the unit, I’d built a WorkPod with a skinny entry alley in the middle of the pile where my desk is, where I’m writing now.

But today, I am free of the wall, free of the Humpty Dumpty tilt of its topmost height and I must say, I seem to be typing faster with nobody looking over my shoulder ;p

Unpacking is FUN! No really, suddenly stuff, seemingly of its own will, flies into a different configuration, as if it is entering its space for the first time. Lots of it didn’t go back from whence it came before the box phase. Some of it went to the Goodwill, some into the great Chicago Recycling center (the alley), some given to neighbors (table, chairs, lamps). I had a mini-office in a part of the living room that had outlived its day so parts were dismantled and passed along.

What was most fun to find and repurpose were the UFOs. They were in hiding everywhere; a chest, a doored bookcase, boxes mixed in with yarn. The sample above was knit by the wonderful Wanietta way back in the early design days of the Cassidy sweater. Although its shape and structure isn’t too complicated, there is a lot going on in this style and it didn’t quite come together the first time around. This one was reluctantly sidelined; scrapped; put into a dark place for a time out.

Sometimes, in knitting the better part of valor is knowing when to move along and this was one of those times. It was time to tweak the pattern and make slight rearrangements that would make it easier to knit and better to wear. The current Cassidy pattern is 99% the same as what you see above; one of the cable patterns was changed to eliminate a thread catching problem and the sizing was adjusted a little.

But I’m thanking my lucky stars that this one missed it’s day on the runway because it is two seams and one collar away from a being a sweater (and one sample I won’t feel guilty wearing). It is the yummiest color (Cascade 220 Color #9454 Rainier Heather) which is about my most favorite purple ever! Heathered with shades of navy and plum, it is rich and very easy to look at.

Purple is everywhere this fall (especially purses and accessories here in Chicago) and this was the first color choice for Cassidy which because of ye olde dreadful deadlining took a u-turn into, what else, a version of chartruese! There is always plenty-O of that color in the studio stash ;p

  Monday Morning Mirth  

The truth be told, I’ve settled into a routine.

Early to rise, early to caffeine, early to the Board…

My friend S. is a writer, a very good writer. She is also an enabler: over the last two months we’ve been furiously playing Scrabble on Facebook (I’m bonnemarie).

She routinely kicks me to the curb; sometimes by hundreds and hundreds of points.

I admit it, I’m a newb, didn’t know the rules, didn’t know about the 2-letter words.

Well that’s all over now!

And right about the time I put on my BGPants, we started playing Wordscraper instead.

It lets you pick the values of the little placement thingies or will make a random board for you. We are playing on one board where they have almost no value at all. Score: S/233; me/194.

But look closely at the one above and if you do some exploratory math, what happens?

The new, improved score: S/15568; me/56468.

Game on!

Yup. It was the weekend and even though there were a million things to do,
only one was the surefire cure for boredom: bring out the DyePot.

A couple of ideas were spinning around my head and only one had the fiber to begin. After a mind boggling stash dive that left no box, bag or shelf unturned, the only real candidate was no candidate at all.

It was boring. It was dirty. It was old.

No my friends, we are not talking about moi, we are talking about some eBay yarn I got last year (?), delivered in, of all things, a liquor carton for Chivas Regal. [Now, these types of boxes have been the Moving Boxes of Choice for years at Chez Chic, so I figured I was in for a treat.] Inside, 14 skeins of worsted weight English Wool – with a simple Union Jack label.

Anybody ever see this Brand before?

The color I was craving was an ashy purple – a little lighter than what I’d done on a Ribby Cardi before – less brown, more subtle. This is the result of a Yellow Gold + Royal Blue + Magenta Lanaset dye mix:

The original Purple seen in this Ribby Cardi used Turquoise instead of Royal Blue. That little bit-o-yellow in the turquoise made the end result browner. Royal Blue brought it back up to a clearer tone – although because of the depth of dye used & the orginal slightly taupey color of the yarn base, it is subtle – smokey – sophisticated…

You can also see that the Ribby Purple has light and dark areas in the yarn itself. When I dyed that yarn, I only let it soak in a sinkful of water long enough to wet it.

These days, I fill the sink with hot water (for wool), add a couple of small squirts of Dawn dish soap, swish, add and SOAK for about an hour before the dyeing begins. This really cleans the yarn (I will use two passes if the yarn is really dirty like this Union Jack stuff) and opens its scales to accept the dye. I also have been using a kitchen timer to remind myself to stir the pot every 5 minutes or so…

End Result: clear color, clean yarn. :)

…read more Adventures in Dyeing HERE