Beatrice Shawl

 

Sometime I have a result in dyeing that I am not quite that happy with.

Take this yarn; It is a beautiful soft 125g of merino, gorgeously spun originally white.

 

Than I dyed it randomly with yellow red and blue dye powder and although I wasn't totally disappointed it turned out very different from what I had hoped for.

 

What to use it for??????????

 

So it lay in waiting for more then a year, perhaps even two until this pattern caught my eye....

 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beatrice-shawl

 

 

So I knitted it.

 

And blocked it.



 

 

And now I like it a lot.

The pattern was very suitable for this yarn and turned it into a very happy shawl that is light and very soft.

 

 



A bit of diversion

Sometimes I need some diversion from the daily grind and routines.

It's busy on the farm right now, with calving season on the go. The weather is not the best, although here in the southern hemisphere we've just entered our spring season. The daffodils are up, trees are budding,but its cold, wet and windy most of the time, with the emphasis on wet.

When I need some cheering up, there's nothing like playing with colour and fibre.

I had a lot of white washed and carded fibre. Spun enough for a jersey over time but still had fibre left.

Then came a nice sunny weekend and I gave solar dying a go.

Basically this means, you add prepared fibre (soaked in water/ vinegar) to a large jar, add acid dye(s) and water/vinegar and leave the closed jar in the sun to heat up to set the dye.

Thats what I did. putting it together didn't take more then 15 min. And then the waiting began.

But the sun wasn't strong enough just yet to finish the job as the dye was still visible in the water surrounding the fibre. I finished it off by putting the jars in a pot with water to bring to the simmer for a while.

I can see that this method would be great to use over the summer. If you need bigger amounts of fibre, you can use buckets, plastic bags or 100 litre drums or what ever you have lying around.

It does require more patience then other methods probably, depending on the sun's strength.

Here are the results of my trial ; 4 lots of about 100g in very different tones;

 "Vibrant Orange" (I used red/orange/yellow acid dye)

"Purple Pleasure" (I used hot pink, violet and turqoise)

"Soft Daffodils in green" (I used sky blue and yellow dye)

And "Faded Dutch Flag" (I used red and blue dye, but not enough)

Quite a nicely layered and happy cake, I would say.

Dartmoore fleece processed.

In January this year I joined a group in Auckland and with friends we spend a day dyeing wool according to the Dartmoore project.

You can read about that here;

Dartmoore project

It took all day and we ended up with 1white fleece of our sheep Anisha, transformed into 48 different dyelots of colours. As you can see below.

A third of that I took home and spun and plied....during the Ravelry Tour the fleece event.

This event saw spinners from all over the world 'compete' in a virtual way, by spinning each day during the Tour the France. Having a rest day during the bikers rest days and spinning something challenging during the challenge days too. Just for the fun of it. We shared our results and chatted  on the ravelry group. There were prizes and giveaways...I must say it was very motivating to get a lot of spinning done! 

I ended up with 4 skeins of beatiful yarn in very lovely colours, plied with a barberpole effect.

Then I picked a simple shawl pattern and knitted a shawl.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/squishylove-shawl

I did that during the Ravelympics.

You, guess....On ravelry again; different virtual events could be entered by members for all kind of projects to be done.

Again just for fun and amusement and lots of motivation just by sharing with others the progress made.

I entered the 'Shawl sailing' event. But I did not make it to the finish line in time. Althoug I knitted the bulk of it while watching the Olympics as often as possible. Which coincided with evening times here.

This is the result. I am very happy with how this turned out.

I am a slow knitter and each row counted 300 stitches............Also calving time started on the farm so that did not leave too much time for knitting.

But I did it and finished the shawl by simply knitting till I ran out of wool.

I realy wanted to keep all the colours of the Dartmoor dyed fleece together in one garment.

I am glad I did.

Transformation.

Can you see the two balls of soft Alpaca I was given in a swap event on Ravelry?

Hardly recogniseable any more after some playing with colour now.

I love it how you can transform with colours.

Isn't it gorgeous, something for a baby girl no doubt.

Try it some time!

Water Melon

How is this for colour!?

I called it "Water Melon".

These 4 skeins were spun from unknown white wool. The first 4 spun on my Grace Wheel.

They were dyed for the DAL (Dye along) march project of the Dutch Dyers group on Ravelry (of course)

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/dutch-dyers/2050933/1-25

I had hoped for a more rainbow look but had run out of blue dye so had to use turqoise, hence the green domination.

But nothing is lost.....It will make a nice kids vest or cardigen I think.

Sock blanks revisited

I just wanted to share with you what happened to the sock blanks I crocheted and dyed a while back.

You can see them here;

http://spinandknit.blogspot.com/2012/02/socks-different-way.html

I unraveled them and they washed up great, most of the crinkling gone.

The colours turned out lovely and this is my favorite.

But this is Kiki's favorite and she wants socks.

So, to make use of the double tread identically dyed in the sock blank. I wound up the wool in 1 centre pull ball.

Now I am knitting 2 socks at the time (thanks to K for the lesson!) and am getting near identical stripey socks.

How cool is that!

Can't wait till they are done!

Strawberry fields forever.

The only homespun yarn I dyed at the dyeing workshop was these very soft 440 yards of Merino.

I spun it at least a year ago and had no idea what to do with it, as I don't like white wool.

Then I did not want the risk of wasting such a gorgeous soft yarn, so I was hesitant of dyeing it.

Now that I have dyed it, I like it better. I think of strawberry fields and blue skies when I look at it. But I still am clueless as to what to use it for.

I dyed the in vinegar and water pre-soaked wool, by sprinkling red, blue and yellow dye powder on to the wool while draping it into the empty dye pot. I proceded by adding water/vinegar to the pot the pot and slowely simmering it for some time, not disturbing or stirring the wool at all.

I think the PH of the dye pot may have been too low as the dyes struck very fast without much running in some places, giving this splashy effect.

It will be quite fun to knit and could surely make a neat kids jersey or so.

And this is what it became....a Beatrice Shawl from Ravelry

I'm pleased!

Socks; a different way.

I know that the photos here don't show socks. You are right.

What they do show are sock blankets.

They were 'sock blanks' to start with. Crocheted from a plain grey (wool polyester mix) as you can see in the balls shown on the photos.

Each blanket is chrocheted with large crochet hook, to aid speed, in double thread and weighs 100gr.

Each blank was then dyed by painting on the dye in patterns and the colours set using the microwave method.

Each blanket is enough for 1 pair of socks.

As.... yes, this blanket is going to be unraveled and wound into two identical balls to produce two identically coloured socks on knitting.

As my teen son said; "Mum you are mad!!"

Fun Fun!

A girl's dream

As there was an over abundance of orange dye solution at the dyeing workshop we were each asked to use at least orange once in a dyeing effort that day.

A little skein of white wool was transformed into what I think is a pretty girl's dream colours. Excellent to use for some baby item to knit.

I painted the dye solutions (orange, hot pink and violet procion dyes) onto the presoaked (water vinegar) skein. It was wrapped in Glad wrap and then microwaved to set the colours.