Tutorial: Dyeing With Turmeric

Every time I hear my friends on Ravelry talk about dyeing, I get a little bit jealous. I have visions of myself making beautifully colored skeins and rovings, but perhaps my final year of graduate school is not really the time to take up a new hobby. Plus, dyeing requires an investment in separate equipment if you want to do it safely. So I opted for an easier method for my one-time dyeing experiment: dyeing with food.


The advantage of dyeing with foodstuffs is that, as long as you don't use potentially toxic mordants, you should be able to use equipment you have lying around your kitchen. A disadvantage, at least in the case of turmeric, is that the results are not colorfast. But for a simple, safe, and fun first attempt at dyeing, turmeric produces lovely results.

Here is what you will need:

* Yarn (I used KnitPicks Bare Laceweight)
* Turmeric
* A large bowl
* A large pot

That's it!


First, you need to make your dyebath. Fill the pot 3/4 of the way full with water. Add the turmeric; I used 2 tsp of turmeric on 4 ounces of wool, which gave a nice buttery yellow shade. Bring water to a boil and let simmer for 30 minutes to extract the color.


Take the dyebath off of the heat and let it cool down to room temperature. While the dyebath is cooling, place your clean, undyed yarn in a large bowl filled with lukewarm water. You want it to wet completely through, which will take about an hour.


Once your dyebath is cool and your yarn thoroughly wetted, put the yarn in the bath. Let it soak overnight, turning it every once and a while to ensure that the dye is distributed evenly.


Remove the yarn from the bath and rise several times until the water runs clear. Wash the yarn with a gentle soap or wool wash.


Enjoy the beauty that is yarn hand-dyed BY YOU!

February Is Spinning Away

I am enjoying to read all of the craft blogs and their cute ideas about how to, or how they did, celebrate Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I'm not that cute and I'm not that organized. The only person who got a Valentine's gift this year was my mother. My husband didn't even get a card.


We're not usually a V-Day gifting family, but Mom mentioned how cold her hands get while typing and I had just spun up some lovely Valentine's Day-ish yarn. So I whipped up a pair of Ysolda's garter stitch mitts, wrapped a ribbon around them, and sent them off to Mom. I hope that she enjoys wearing them and they keep her warm!


The above fiber is the second 4 oz skein I've spun up in less than a month--all part of training for the Ravelympics. My Ravelympics challenge is to spin up the 8 oz of white alpaca roving that's been sitting around my apartment since the 2008 Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. I'm finally confident enough in my spinning not to worry about ruining such beautiful fiber.


So far, it's going very well. This is the finest yarn I've even spun and, while I'm enjoying working with this fiber, it's certainly taking forever to spun. Luckily there are plenty of Olympic events to watch while I work through all of this roving.

Are you participating in for the Ravelympics? What are you making?

Prototype

I'm designing a shawlette pattern at the moment. I realized after knitting three Ishbels (one, two, three) and two Damsons (one, two), that maybe I needed a new shawlette pattern to knit. So I decided to design one.


I chose a stitch with both garter and lace and added a simple ruffle boarder because I wanted a very textured look. For some reason, texture in a shawl seems very rustic and comforting to me and makes me want to wrap the cloth around my neck and shoulders.


Unfortunately, wrapping the fabric only around my neck is the best way to wear my shawl at the moment because I screwed up the paired increases. I was looking to make the charts easier, but it came at the expense of the overall shape of the shawl. I'm a little embarassed to show the next photo--it's just too deep in the back and I should have seen it coming.


So for now, I fold my first attempt in half and wear it like a scarf. Back to the charts I go and hopefully I will have a nice little shawlette pattern to share with you all soon!

Bootie v. Bootie v. Bootie

At the age of 26, I'm squarely in the middle of the 'marriage phase' of life--every summer sees another few of my friends tying the knot--so it is only a matter of time before the 'baby phase' arrives. My good friend J got to herald it in when she announced her pregnancy to me a few weeks ago. All I could think was, 'let the baby knitting begin'!


As my friend does not know the gender of the child yet, I thought I would whip up a few different pair of booties to get a head start on the inevitable onslaught. I picked the three most popular baby bootie patterns on Ravelry, and am comparing and contrasting them here for your benefit.


SAARTJE'S BOOTEES
Constructed from the sole up using fingering-weight yarn on US size 2 needles. Sized for a newbown.

Special Techniques
kfb, k2tog, ssk, m1, long tail cast on.

Pros:
Free pattern.
Pattern looks great for all types of yarn, including variegated.
Worked flat, so there is no purling.

Cons:
Finishing requires lots of sewing, including sewing up the bottom and back.
Button holes not knitted, but created from a loop of yarn sewn to the fabric.
Buttons need to be sewn on.


MAGIC SLIPPERS
Constructed from the sole up using fingering-weight yarn on US size 1 needles. Sized for a newborn.

Special Techniques
kfb, k2tog, ssk, pick up and knit.

Pros:
Free pattern.
Pattern looks great for all types of yarn, including variegated.
Seemless construction, so no sewing things together at the end.
No blocking necessary.

Cons:
I found a size 1 needle to be too small to knit with comfortably.


TINY SHOES
Constructed from the top down using fingering-weight yarn on US size 2.5 needles (I used US size 2 without a problem). Three sizes available.

Special Techniques
I-cord, pick up and knit/purl, yo, k2tog, cast on at the end of a row, kitchner stitch.

Pros:
Available in multiple sizes.
Seemless construction, so no sewing things together at the end.

Cons:
Pattern costs £2.
Buttons need to be sewn on.

An Ode To Handspun

Dusty wheel,
I spin again,
Wool to yarn,
Like prose from pen,
At first ‘tis rough,
To find the phrase,
Yet flowing soon,
With wit and ease,

A plot with twists,
This trade I ply,
And soon the page,
Is inked with dye,
And now admire,
This beauteous skein,
The tale I’ve spun,
My heart contains.

(100% Falkland wool, dyed in the colorway Napa Valley by Yarn Hollow. Spun into 200 yards of sport weight yarn.)

Franklin Habit

I forgot to mention this in December, but I attended my first Madison Knitter's Guild Meeting last month. I don't have enough free time and money, being a grad student, to become a regular member, but it was still interesting to attend the meeting.


There were a lot of knitters there. I'm not sure if that is normal or they all came to see the speaker Franklin Habit. If you've never heard of Franklin, stop reading this right now and go check out his blog. Seriously, go! I'll wait...

...Back now? Entertained? Good! I've heard Franklin described as the funniest man in knitting (which he thinks is like the honor of being the tallest building in Deleuth). His talk definitely lived up to my expectations and I even learned a few things about historical knitting.


Since I was at the meeting with my friend, we could not resist snapping a photo of us with Franklin. Overall, it was an enjoyable evening and I will now be using the phrase, 'a pain in the kazoo', in my daily vocabulary.

Blocking

I'm going to do a little aside today and evangelize the process of blocking. Blocking may sound complicate, but it's really the process of:

* soaking your knitting
* gently (!) squeezing out most of the water
* laying the piece out in the desired shape and size
* letting it air dry to set

This sequence of steps will even up your stitches and ensure that your garment is the correct size. Blocking is a vital finishing step for sweaters and lace, and can make a big difference in the finish of many other types of knitwear.


Don't be put off by my crazy photo above. Blocking is usually very simple, requiring nothing but a free portion of carpet. Besides the steps given above, here are a few tips for blocking:

* Most knitted items can simply be laid flat on the floor and left to dry.
* For sweaters, the important thing is to gently (!) coax the sweater to the desired size measurements before drying.
* Lace is perhaps the most complicated item to block. I like to use pins to really stretch the lace pattern to its limits while it dries.
* Blocking works best for non-synthetic yarns, such as wool, alpaca, and cotton.

You can see the effect of blocking on lace and stockinette in these before and after photos of my Veyla Mitts:



By stretching the lace section during the drying process, the you end up with a pattern that really pops. You can also see how my stitches in the stockinette section look more even after the blocking process. All of these changes are now set in the fabric until I wash it again, at which point I would need to reblock these mitts.

So I encourage you to give blocking a try, especially if you've never done it before. I'm sure that you will be pleased with the results!