Kiss My Knits!

Em got off to school just fine. She opted to wear her pink and white striped slip-on shoes, which are too small, but I let it go. If she wants to keep wearing them we can get a new pair, assuming they’re still in stores now that summer’s over. As we pulled up, she said, “I am too excited for the first day!” in a very happy way. Here’s hoping that bodes well.

As for me, I have a mountain of work to catch up on. Jayne hats, Jayne kits, stamping up Jayne packages… but I’m taking a little time just for myself, too, since frankly I deserve a vacation day or two after a summer of nonstop Momming. Yeah, you heard me. I made Mom a verb.

Behold! This is the 22-quart stainless steel Tramontina stock pot that my mother got me for Christmas so I’d have something big to dye in. I’m calling her Big Tina. The stockpot, not my mother. I’m test-driving this baby with some Cascade 220 superwash wool. It’ll be a fun experiment. This one will be stovetop, but I foresee a time when I borrow my husband’s propane burner he uses in brewing (did I mention that my husband is an award-winning homebrewer?) and dye outside over an open flame.

But now, it’s time to break for lunch. And play some tunes. Why? Because if I want to crank up Commie Drives a Nova by Ike Reilly I can do it, as there are no tender young things walking around to potentially scar for life. School rules!

“Natural” Cascade 220, dyed an overly aggressive pink and then overdyed with more lilac overtones to soften it. I needed one skein for a baby project. However, I think I may go with green instead.

It was still fun and educational. I always enjoy dyeing.

Mystery Romney, likely dyed by tangles and mud at one of our dye days last year. Spindle by Preston at JetsyKnits: www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5760766 As I’ve been spinning it, it’s gotten thinner and thinner. It started about sockweight and now it veers toward thread sometimes. We’ll see how that turns out. I’m certainly enjoying spinning it.

A while back, Charlotte Yarn had a parking lot yarn swap and I purchased a couple of undyed knitted sock blanks. Unlike Flat Feet these were knitted on an antique sock knitting machine. (Someday, when I win the lottery, I’ll have one.) Each was a very long tube about as big around as my upper arm. I kept one and gave one to a friend. On dye day a while back, I dyed mine. I was less than thrilled with the results.



A couple of nights ago I decided to go ahead and try knitting with it, just to see what it was like. Turns out there were little white spots where the yarn touched and the dye didn’t uptake thoroughly. It gave the yarn a mottled character that I liked much better!

I unraveled the entire blank and skeined it up, excited to see whether the white was consistent throughout the blank. Here it is in its kinky glory, still remembering its knitted shape.

The skein was soaked and then hung to dry with a light weight suspended from it in order to straighten the fibers.

And here it is, straightened and dry. It’s much different than I originally imagined when I dyed it. I can’t wait to see how it knits up. Unfortunately, the queue is such that this’ll have to wait until Spring, at least, but still – it’s something to look forward to!

Second verse, same as the first.

D’oh!

This is what happens when you wear the socks every single day and night. I get them off of her every couple of days for washing, but they weren’t meant to stand up to this kind of wear. I darned each heel this morning, but this will pose a new challenge – I’m out of red yarn!

Guess I’ll just have to dye some more. Yay!

ETA: Now there are holes in the toes, too. It looks like these socks are just out of warranty, so now they can fall apart. Em still wants to keep them on.

Take two on the yellow/green yarn. This is another skein of the Dale Falk. I took advantage of the half off room at a local yarn store to pick up some of these small skeins for cheap, and I think this is the last little one I’ve got. The repeats are shorter and the color is less saturated. I diluted the dye more than the previous batch and also added some emerald to the kelly green to tone it down a little.

Here’s how it compares to the original. The new one is the smaller ball on the right in both pictures. The larger is going to Rachel. She’s a member of our Wednesday night knit group and has a niece who likes these colors.

I’m pleased with how the new skein turned out. We’ll see how it knits up – probably in February. I’m a little tied up at the moment.

Ten-HUT!

At ease.

Base: Dale Falk machine washable wool, recommended needle size 3.
116 yards per skein
Acid dyed in crockpot
Jacquard brand kelly green, emerald, sun yellow, brilliant blue, rust, burnt orange
More BDU than ACU. Toss some black in and it’s almost MARPAT.
I’m pleased with this result and wish I’d dyed more of it.

Those repeats are definitely longer than I meant for them to be. I’m sure it’s partly because I was thinking “sock” when this only has about 2/3 of the stitches that an adult sock would.

I’m not pleased with this yarn for this application. This would work better as a scarf, hat, or possibly but not ideally socks. I’ll probably dye another batch in these same colors but with shorter repeats. Well, it was the first time using the Yarnomatic ™ in this configuration, so I’ll chalk it up to a learning experience.

ETA: Of course, with 600 stitches per repeat, I could also use it to make a really busy Baby Surprise Jacket and then foist it off on some unsuspecting new parent. Mwahahahaaaa…

Then again, given my lack of time, maybe I should just frog what I’ve done and sell the yarn on ravelry.

Can you tell I’m a little punchy? Tvini need coffee.

The moment every mother who knits enjoys the most. Em picked these to wear tonight. My child voluntarily chose to wear something I knitted for her.

“I’m going to wear these on Christmas Eve AND on Christmas Day!”

Yes. Totally worth the effort.

Edited to add: It’s the next day, and she’s had the socks on since last night. She’s just gone in to take her bath and folded her socks neatly and put them on her bed. “I’m going to wear my socks again after I take my bath!” I think I may have created a smelly-footed monster.