Cold Weather Alerts

It's pretty cold in Southern Ontario. It's a good thing I finished these quickly

The entire things are stockinette, with increases for the calves, knees, thighs and hips. They actually go all the way up to my belly button!

One problem: they're acrylic. Which means that through wear (aka 2 weeks straight because it's bloody cold), they've stretched. Now I need to figure out how to get them to fit beautifully again.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

I'm kind of on a 'look what I can do with old crap!' kick at the moment.

My current weapon of choice? Bedsheets. Turns out that if you're careful, you can rip them into continuous lengths that can be used as yarn!

I decided to channel my grandmother and make myself a rug for my cabin.

At this point, I'm three bedsheets in. It's actually a nice little area rug now!

I've never crocheted before, so this is weird for me. The hook is just so massive!

Oh well. I'm having fun, getting rid of something that would have been thrown out anyways, and winding up with something nice at the end of it. Everybody wins!

The snow is flying

Holy cow, time does fly doesn't it?

It goes even faster when you have a deadline for christmas gifts... Here's one of them.

I had to knit armwarmers for a lovely girl this holiday.

I just HAD to take advantage of the photo op ;)

These were my own pattern, a basic armwarmer with thumb gusset and a quilted lattice stitch back panel. Love!

A Suprise for a Baby

I guess it isn't that much of a surprise really. My coworker knows I'm knitting it for her.

We still aren't convinced it's supposed to become a sweater.

Even after casting off.. I'm still not convinced. Yes, I did run out of yarn at the end. But I did a bit of strategic colourwork, and now it's not terribly obvious that I ran out of yarn. To a non-knitter, anyways.

But hey! Look! It's an arm!

Oh my god, it's a baby sweater!

ProTip: This is Elizabeth Zimmerman's baby surprise sweater. I have to say, it's a pretty amazing little pattern!

The Honey Cowl

It's so nice to knit for myself sometimes.

It's even cooler to get to have a hand in the entire process, like dyeing the yarn!

The yarn pictured above is undyed Ecological Wool, from Cascade. I got to take a natural dye class at the Knit Cafe a few weeks back, and we dyed our yarn using Turmeric (bright yellow), red cabbage (blue/grey), and red onion skins (greeny yellow).

I knew I had enough yarn to make something lovely, I just wasn't sure yet. I checked out Ravelry, and they appear to be completely in love with the Honey Cowl. Why not?

 

I actually really enjoyed knitting this. The pattern was straight forward, the yarn was lovely, and I just had to be a little creative with my colour changes to make it all work together. I love how natural dye colours never seem to really clash with each other!

I couldn't be happier. Just in time for the cold weather too!

Modeling in High Park

It's been a beautiful summer here in Toronto. A bit colder then normal, but I guess I just like that weather because I can wear my knits.

I recently got to wear some other knits by another artist though! Stitch Noir on Etsy has some really fantastic (and macabre!) crocheted pieces that are really just amazing.

She invited myself and a couple others to model her works recently, and it was a fantastic evening of laughter and great friends.

Check her out!

Natural Dyeing

It's been a busy, busy couple of weeks and I have a number of projects on the go at the moment.

I've been quite sidetracked by Natural Dyeing though.

I recently took a natural dyeing class at the Knit Cafe (I'll post about that soon!), but before the class started I had the bug. Bad.

I also had some really nice, single ply alpaca yarn my mother gave me.

I decided to mordant this yarn with alum and cream of tarter. Unfortunatly, I listened to the advice I found online and only did a 7% solution with the alum (I should have aimed for 15 - 20%). I simmered the yarn in the mordant solution for about half an hour, and let it cool overnight.

Then I rinsed the yarn out (mistake 2, next time I won't rinse)

Then, I poured my soaking water from a ton of black beans over it, and put it aside for a few days.

Initially, I wasn't impressed.

It looks like worms!

Eventually though, it started to turn blue! After 48 hours, I pulled out the yarn and rinsed it out. Mistake 3: I should have left it longer.

But hey, it did turn blue. So I guess it wasn't a lost cause!