Recapping VKL

As I mentioned in my last post, I was away at the end of last week and for part of the weekend at Vogue Knitting Live in Columbus, Ohio, with my friend Lisa. When she first floated the idea to me, I wasn't sure I could go away again so soon after Rhinebeck, but looking at the course offerings convinced me. Plus, Lisa and I had a lot of fun last summer at TNNA, so I was definitely up for another girls weekend trip with her. I love learning new things, and this event was a perfect excuse to do just that.

Because I had finished up the baby sweater right before I left, I thought I'd use the drive to Columbus to knit up a coordinating hat. I'd seen several people knit up the From Where You Were Plucked baby hat recently, so I printed out the pattern and cast on in the car. It really should have taken me only a few hours to get through the hat (it's a newborn size, after all), but I was apparently too cocky about my ability to follow the pattern and completely misread it, resulting in my having to rip back to the start of the decreases not once but twice, meaning by the time I'd finished the hat on Friday evening I'd essentially knit it twice. Whatever -- it's done and it's cute, though I must say that I didn't expect it to look quite so phallic with the knot untied.

Though the pattern is sparse in its instructions, it's really not the fault of the designer that I messed it up so badly. I just didn't read! This sweet hat used less than a quarter skein of yarn, leaving me some leftovers for my granny square blanket. I have a feeling that it will be a go-to pattern moving forward.

While at VKL, I took three classes. First was a class on mosaic knitting with the always-charming Franklin Habit, who was delightful and highly informative despite having taken nine hours to get from Chicago to Columbus the prior day (eight of them spent sitting in O'Hare waiting for his delayed flight). Some of his samples didn't make it, but he improvised quite well and has gotten me hooked on mosaic knitting already -- I've since started a dishcloth project using some kitchen cotton and would be knitting it all the time were it not for the fact that my hands can't handle cotton for very long and I have to switch to wool after a while.

Pattern: Turkish Tiles Dishcloth

The second class was on the contiguous sleeve method with Amy Detjen, who taught us some useful knitting technique skills in addition to walking us through this novel method of sweater construction. We knit up a small version of a contiguous sweater in the course, and though it doesn't quite work as a sweater for Rainbow's American Girl Doll, it looks like we can make it work as a caplet, so I've kept it on the needles to add a bit more length.

Finally, Lisa and I both took a class with Maria of Ninja Chickens on the use of herbs for food, medicine, and dyeing. We learned about a series of common herbs and used three to dye some mini skeins of yarn that we got to take home.

These were dyed, from left to right, with elderberries, rosemary (with the addition of a metal salt to shift the color to be more green), and turmeric. I'm particularly enamored with that golden yellow from the turmeric, though apparently it's a color that fades over time.

We did wander through the market a bit, though I was not necessarily looking to buy anything (especially yarn), and I limited myself to two purchases:

The project bag is from Twisted Yarn and Fiber and has now become the container for my granny square blanket. Here's a closer look at what's sitting on top of the bag:

I'd been regretting not buying a pair of earrings from Birdie Parker at Indie Untangled at Rhinebeck, and luckily a vendor had them. There were only a few styles to choose from by the time I found them, so I went with these coppery garter stitch dangles. I've already worn them, too!

It made not have been the most restful weekend, but it was a fun one. Here's hoping it's an event that happens again next year!

Little Bits of Everything

Now that I am home and reunited with the full stash, it seems I am getting an urge to do all the crafts. First there was spinning over the weekend. Then I decided to play around with dyeing some yarn (really just playing -- I used food coloring) to use to make Rainbow a new cowl. This was a spare skein of Knit Picks Capra in a dark gray color that we tried to make purple:

I'd say these are less than stellar results, but Rainbow is satisfied, so I'll be winding this little skein up tonight and likely casting on the new cowl sometime this week.

Of course, there has been knitting. My first order of business when we got back (after adding twist to that skein of handspun) was finishing up these slipper socks. I actually completed the knitting on Sunday night but had to finish weaving in the ends last night and then blocked them overnight on the radiator.

I've already got the pattern draft written out (by hand), so I've got to type that up and get some photos this weekend so I can send it off to my tech editor to put in her queue.

I'm still working on Rainbow's Felici socks, with the leg of the second sock nearly finished.

And as if all this varied crafting hasn't been enough, I decided to pull out my crochet bag last night and plan to do some more work on this evening as well. I'd really like to get this project finished up in the next month, so it's time to buckle down and do it. By the time I finish the current scrap of yarn on this, I'll have more than 900 yards crocheted up, with a good amount of scrap yarn still available to be added. I'd like the bag to be rather deep, so I expect I will use most if not all of what I've set aside.

This project is doing double duty of using up some stash yarn (and old stash yarn, at that) and being a good alternative to knitting, as at the moment I have a sore spot on my left index finger that's making knitting a little painful because I tend to push the tip of the needle with that finger as I knit. I am still managing to work on the socks a bit by keeping a bandaid on the finger, but that makes knitting a bit awkward and slower than usual. When I crochet, that finger stays up in the air to hold the yarn, so there's no worry of aggravating the sore spot. I'd also like to develop my crochet skills a bit in the coming year, so working on this bag is helping to improve my muscle memory toward that end.

Plain and Simple

Continuing in the backlog of projects, I have a very simple pair of socks that took an unreasonable amount of time to finish.

Pattern: a variation on my standard stockinette sock (see below)

Yarn: Knit Picks Bare (fingering weight), dyed with Kool Aid nearly five years ago, in a colorway I like to call Caribbean Amphibian or, alternatively, Robin*

Needles: two 12" US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs

Started/Completed: December 24, 2010/February 21, 2011

My regular stockinette sock recipe is 64 stitches around; for these socks, I cast on 65 stitches so I could work the cuff in 3x2 rib. I worked the ribbing for 3.5 inches and then switched over to stockinette, decreasing the extra stitch on the first stockinette round.

The heel was worked over half of the stitches, and I decided to jazz things up by working an Eye of Partridge heel rather than the usual slip stitch pattern. Something I've taken to doing lately with my heels is carrying the slipped stitches through the heel turn. It adds some extra durability to the heel, an area that often wears out faster than the rest of the sock, and I rather like how it looks.

I really like how the yarn ended up striping, and amazingly it didn't pool in the gussets. It appears that my first and only attempt at dyeing yarn was a success!

* If you're wondering where the colorway name came from, this video might illuminate you!

A Tale of Two Experiments

Last night I conducted a little dyeing experiment here Chez Knit/Wit. I'd had this yarn in my stash for quite a while that didn't particularly appeal to me, to put it nicely. Frankly, I don't even remember why I bought it, although my guess is that it was cheap and I was trying to get my Knit Picks order over the free shipping threshold. Here's what it looked like originally:

This might be the perfect colorway for someone, but not me. I'm not into the oranges, and yellows I like only in small amounts. I decided to try to overdye these skeins with blue, figuring the yellow would turn green, the orange would turn brownish, and the white and gray areas would turn shades of blue. So, on the way home from work, I stopped by the supermarket and picked up a fistful of packets of Kool Aid. I think I used about 14 packets of Blue Raspberry Lemonade (which turns out kind of cloudy, I should tell you) plus two packets each of Lemon-Lime and Grape for some depth to the color. I put all but two of the lemonade packets and one of the grape into the pot; once the yarn was submerged, I sprinkled the contents of the last three packets on top.

Here are the (vastly improved, if I do say so myself) results:

Although one skein is a tad bit darker than the other -- obviously it was the one that got the majority of the second grape packet -- I'm very pleased with the transformation. Now I have shades of blue, deep purple, olive green, chocolately brown, and small spots here and there of the original colors. As an added bonus, the yarn smells deliciously fruity!

Experiment Numero Uno: Success!

Now, onto the second experiment. Last night, after posting, I was taken with the urge to cast on a sock (and it wasn't my first STR sock). You see, for several days I'd had a pattern running through my head, so I wanted to see how it would look in yarn. I decided I'd design a sock and, if it was any good, maybe submit it to Knitty or MagKnits. It knit up quickly and I was thrilled with how it looked:

Then today, just as I found myself getting caught up at work, I decided to go check out the submission specifics for Knitty and discovered that the spring '07 issue is up. Bonus -- submission details and new patterns! Great, right? Er, well ... Just go look at this particular pattern. Look at all familiar? Yeah, IT'S THE SAME PATTERN. The only differences are a cuff, an extra knit stitch, and a purl stitch. Grrrrr. I'm still going to finish the sock, but obviously now I can't submit it anywhere because it will look like I've just copied this other pattern -- right?

Experiment Numero Dos: Curses! Foiled again!