The Mystical, Magical Exploding Cowl!!!

More green, plenty more green. Once again it seems I can only work in greens.

One morning I woke and thought, "I need a cowl". This thought stuck with me for quite awhile before I finally broke down and set about knitting my cowl. But any old cowl would not do. I wanted a cowl with a very soft hand, serious texture, and the ability to cover most of my face. It seems that the harder it is to see face of the wearer, then the more desirable the cowl. I wanted a neck covering so hip that it would impede my ability drive. So I began by spinning 8oz of single ply bulky thick and thin merino yarn. Being that the yarn was mostly thick, this did not take very long on my spinning wheel. Then I kettle dyed the newly spun yarn in a bright mossy green sort of color. After processing the wool in the dye-bath at 170 degrees, I brought it out to cool. I had decided I wanted some color varieation in the yarn, so I took the mostly cooled, still wet yarn and streaked it with a dark grey dye, and then squeezed it around a bunch to create the variation I was looking for. Then I wrapped it in plastic wrap and processed it in the oven for 45 min.
Tada!!!!! I knitted this up on size 10 1/2 needles in the round in simple seed stitch till I ran out of yarn.

I must say, I screwed my math up on this project. I did a gauge sample so that I could count how many stitches I would have to the inch, and then cast on and started knitting. Then I ripped it back out, us knitters call this frogging, and started over on a smaller size needle, but instead of doing a new sample I worked out some crazy proportion which made the cowl much to big. Oh well. I like it anyway. Photos of me in my cowl were taken by my cubicule wall mate on our one brake a week that is at the same it. Thanks Blair!

Extra work; neon dreams

Merino on Bubble Wrap

Sometimes I get special orders from clients for things I do not normally produce. In this case my client requested a sheet of felt in my lime green merino wool. Wet felting flat pieces of wool is a fun and exhausting process. I started by using 8oz of presoaked merino to match the neon green sample i was given. I tweaked the dye bath little by little until my merino matched the tiny twist I was given to work from. After removing the wool from the dye bath I washed it out with warm water. Normally I wait for the wool to cool in the dye Rolling with my Homies

bath before washing it out with cold water. Since I was just making felt anyway, I washed the excess dye out with warm water. I cut myself a big piece of bubble wrap that I have been saving. Then I lay merino fibers across the half of the bubble wrap all in one direction. The I laid fibers all going the other direction. Then lots of hot water, geranium scented dish soap, and good old elbow grease. I fold over the bubble wrap and roll the whole lot around a yard stick over and over again. And over and over again. I keep it hot by reJust Beat It

freshing the soap water, and then beat the hell of it with a wooden pasta spoon. And I really mean beat the hell out of it. Then a delicate wash out and a round through the spin cycle. I was left with a thick felt pad of bright neon green, and I think my client was pleased. I packed it with the leftover dyed merino and tied it with a silver bow.The finished felt pad

All dressed up

As the days pass from the last time I posted, I have been looking for time in my daily life to make room for blogging. The whirl of life seems to get louder the more time passes. It is hard to keep my eyes on the prize when everything keeps spinning. I read the blogs of artists and crafters that make things for a living, and I wonder how they manage to make a living and blog and enjoy their lives. I have been thinking on it a lot and I think that I figured out the key to being able to make a living of making things. The secret is not sleeping. No sleep for the busy. I think if I stopped sleeping I could probably rule the world, except that I would be crazy from sleep deprivation. And sleep deprivation makes me dangerous. Mostly to myself. But I have been sleeping, and I have been working. I dyed a lovely 8oz roving for my Etsy site.

Before the oven...

I chose a variety of greens, Ooze, Kelly Green and Lime Juice, Teal, Midnight Blue and Satsuma Purple. I rolled the roving up in a pot and poured the colors onto the white merino. Then I just stuck the whole pot in my oven to process and set the dye. Thirty minuets @ 300 degrees and my roving was taken out to cool.

After the oven!

This is a new processing technique that I have not used before, and have mutated from a collection of other processes. I like it, I think I might try it again. I have also noticed I have been working mostly in oceany colors as of late. I really need to push myself to try other colors instead of just blues and greens. I like lots of colors, and a few years ago all that spoke to me were combinations of grays, black, red, and lime green. I like the way that sounds. I know that I promised sneak peeks of the new thing i'm working on for my Etsy site, but I broke a drill bit and have not finished the prerequisite leg work to fill you in on the big new thing. In the mean time, here is a photo of the socks that I am knitting. They are Monkey by Cookie A. made with Lorna's Laces sock yarn. The color way is Amys Vintage Office and it is the colorway made my Knitty. I guess it is fitting that I knitting a pattern from Knitty for this yarn. I'm so close...

Snow Day!!!!

Sock and a half!

Today we are having a snow day!!!! Here in the Piedmont of the Northern of the Carolinas we received less snow and ice then the areas around us but who cares. In the south even a quarter of a inch of snow can drive people to prepare for the second coming. I used the forthcoming storm to leave work early yesterday, and by early I mean to say 4:45pm instead of 9pm. A nice early ending to my Friday work day. So now its our snow day, B and I are very busy. I have been dying merino for my felting packs, and colors for B's needle felting projects. My lady has been doing a lot of needle felting recently, and now she is making color demands.

Up close and personal...

So I am spending my day over the pot on the stove. As my Monkey socks are coming to a close I need to think about a new knitting project. I had a pack of yarn samples from Henry's Attic that it had been saving for something, but i was not sure what. So a couple of months ago I took the whole pack of different samples and dyed them all together in the same scarlett acid dye bath. There were several different fiber contents in the samples, so I got lots of different variations of the dye color. I am thinking of coupling them with a gray skein of Lamb's Pride and doing some color work as some sort of sample piece. I'm still thinking on it, but I need to go check my blue.

I got the sock stuck!!