Yarn dyeing

On Sunday evening last week I started to feel a slight pain in my throat. Thomas had been home for a whole week with a cold, so I figured it was my turn, and it was. I had to stay at home for four whole days last week, with a stuffed nose and a sore throat. I really hate that! But at least I got some knitting done, although not as much as you would have expected. I feel like I've mostly slept the whole week!

I finished my Flecktone socks on Wednesday, and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

The yarn is Gründl Four Seasons Hot Socks Nil (which is, by the way, the same yarn that the Yarn Harlot used for her latest socks!), which I'm not very fond of but that will make very durable socks. I tried really hard to get the stripes to match, and I think I managed pretty well! I did however forget to decrease four stitches on the foot of the second sock, that I did on the first, so they fit a little bit differently. It isn't visible though, so I definitely couldn't be bothered to rip out the entire second foot. 

I've also worked a lot on the Emelie cardigan, and I've already started to make the increases for the bust.

The different dye lots of the skeins are very different, so I decided to use the dark skein for all of the ribbing and the button band, and the other two, lighter skeins, for the rest of the cardigan. I considered just alternating skeins, but the colours are so different from each other that I would have ended up with a striped cardigan, which I didn't want. I love working with this yarn though (it's Sheepy Time Knits Panda Feet), it is incredibly soft and a little bit shiny. My previous experience with bamboo yarns has been that they are a bit stiff, but this yarn has nothing of that. I'm really looking forward to using this cardigan! If I have enough yarn I'll make the sleeves full length on this one too, that's just how I prefer my sweaters and cardigans.

I started the Glacier gloves the other day too, I think I told you about that, and I've made almost the entire first cuff.

These are for the MarigoldJen KAL that the Stockinette Zombies are hosting, and when I looked a little bit closer at that thread on Ravelry I realized that the KAL is for March through April, so I'm not so stressed out about these any more. I think I'll just focus on the cardigan to start with, and see how much I can finish in March.

When I started the Parcel sweater I also realized that I didn't have any 24 inch needles in the 2.5 mm that I needed. I started with a 32 inch cable, but I was stretching it a bit and the knitting wasn't very enjoyable.

So I went to Garnkorgen and ordered some new needles (I got the 24 inch length on the six smallest sizes of the KnitPicks needles, 2.0 - 3.25 mm), and by then I was almost up to the amount needed to get free shipping. And you of course know what I did. Three skeins of yarn got to come home and live in my stash. Again! The first two are Regia Cross Over Color 4-ply sock yarn (75 % superwash wool/25 % nylon, 211 m/50 g), in the Cassis 04536 colourway:

As you might have noticed, I'm very into self-striping yarns lately. The next skein was Shoppel-Wolle Admiral Bambus 100 g yarn (70 % superwash wool/25 % nylon/5 % mohair, 421 m/100 g), that was completely undyed (and it's Toki-approved too!).

This yarn was exactly what I expected of a bamboo yarn, that is a bit scratchy and papery to the touch, but it feels very durable. I ordered this one because I've been dying to try to make a self-striping yarn of my own. And that is exactly what I did on Thursday. I was finally starting to feel a little bit better, so the little energy I had I used to dye yarn that day. First, I googled how to dye self-striping, and I ended up using this tutorial. I then used my Jacquard Acid dyes that I bought from KnitPicks ages ago, and dyed the skeins on the stove. As I was going to dye this small skein, I thought I might as well dig out my three undyed lace skeins (also from KnitPicks, three skeins of Bare Merino Lace yarn), and dyed them up in the three different colours as well.

The self-striping turned out pretty cool! The colours I had were Emerald, Chestnut and Burgundy, and on the sock yarn the Burgundy and Chestnut turned out pretty similar. I think the difference will be more visible once the skein is knit up though.

The lace yarns turned out very pretty, and the photo looks a little bit washed out.

I really love the Burgundy one on the left! I almost felted the green skein, which was the first colour I used, but I managed to re-skein it and it looks fine now. It was a bit of a hassle to make self-striping yarn, with all the skeining and measuring that goes into the prep work, but I hope it was worth it. I'll probably make these my next self-striping socks!

And speaking of socks: I think I've told you before that I always need to have a mindless project that I can bring to work for my breaks. The self-striping KAL has been perfect for that this year, as I don't want anything too patterned to clash with the coloured stripes. So when I finished the Flecktone socks this week I needed a new project to have as a work project. I looked through my stash on Ravelry, and finally I decided that the skein I was most curious of was the Sheepy Time Knits All Your Base sock yarn (100 % merino, 448 m/100 g), in the Medusa Cascade colourway that was the January shipment in the Time Traveler yarn club. I had a look through my patterns library, and finally settled on the Stansfield 14 pattern from the More Sensational Knitted Socks book by Charlene Schurch.

As you can see, the pattern isn't visible at all! But that's ok though, as I mostly wanted something to keep me a little bit entertained while I knit. The yarn is really dark, much darker than it looked in the skein, but I think I like it. I have to knit a little bit more on them to decide. I do like the yarn itself though, it's a pretty straightforward sock yarn. 

So, as I started those socks this week, and I also have the Gördes on the needles, I've decided to wait a little bit until I cast on for my next self-striping. I need to finish at least one pair first, and as the Gördes are a bit on the backburner right now, and I'm only working on the Medusa Cascade socks at work, that might be a while yet. But I have all of March and April before the next pair needs to be posted for the KAL, so I hope I'll manage that.

Yesterday I went back to work, which made this work week very short! But it was a very hectic day, with lots to do, and when I got home I had such a headache I had to go lie down for a while. I then managed to stay awake until 1 am, when Fibernymph Dye Works had her shop update, and I actually got my hands on one of her skeins! This week she only had two skeins available of each of the colours she posted, so I really didn't think I'd manage to get one. But I think someone had a skein in their shopping cart and then gave it up, because 10 minutes after the update went live there was suddenly a skein of Froot Loops in the Bedazzled base available! I immediately bought it, but as it is a pre-order it might take about a month before it gets here. I'm completely ok with that! I'm just amazed by my ninja stalking skills! You'll get pictures once it gets here.

Ok, I think that's it for this week! I'll try to get another post up around Thursday, because on Friday my best friend Christine and her middle son Leo is coming here for a visit over the weekend! We're currently trying to plan some fun activities for Saturday, and I know I'll be too busy to write on the blog, and I'll probably be too tired on Sunday. It's going to be so much fun, especially since we didn't get to see them over the Christmas holidays as they had the flu. Yay for easy bus travels!

/ Jenny