Spring Colours

Hubby went ice fishing last week with family for a good ol' boys fishing time!
I took advantage of this to spend time with my dye pots and catch up on a few neglected chores.

My mother came to spend a few days with me as well and that always means shopping. My mother is an avid shopper with much more stamina for malls than I've ever had.
If it wasn't for her, I think I would rarely set foot in the mall! 

 But it does us good to spend some time together.

I dyed lots of fibre and looking at the colours, the coming of spring must be having an effect on me because most of the tops are very springlike!!
Many of these will be listed in my Etsy shop over the next couple of weeks.

I also had some fun with lace weight yarns.
I stumbled upon a different way to dye my skeins and I quite like the effect.

 

And some sock weight yarn.

Some of these will go to the market with me this summer, others in my Etsy shop and to the LYS.

 

The alpaca fibre is getting longer and longer on the animals.
I keep looking at the girls we bred last summer and wonder if any of them are pregnant or if it's all that fibre making them look so round and chubby.

How I wish I had x-ray vision to see what is going on in those bellies.

But shearing time is not that far away...and that might give us a better idea once the fibre is off.

But look at Carmella's coat!
Full of hay, she loves to lie in it and obviously roll in it too!

You know who will be picking all of those little pieces of hay out? Yes, that would be MOI!

 

My mother suggested I go out there and brush her but I don't think that Carmella would be too keen on that idea.

I must get back to my Alcyone scarf and finish it soon. I also need to find myself a mindless knitting project for those times when concentration is out of the question!
I'm thinking a hat or fingerless mittens...

Craft show season

Craft show season is here!

I'm participating in two shows this year.

I'll be heading to Sturgeon Falls for a 2 day show on November 17-18.

Then the Witty artisan show here in North Bay at the Portage Hotel on Dec 2nd.

I needed a sign to help people identify my alpaca products when they walk into my booth or come up to my table. Since we have not yet decided on a logo for our farm, I used a favorite picture of Alicia taken earlier this fall and had a 20 x 24 poster made from it.

It turned out pretty good.

I'm happy with it.

After several weeks of not touching my dye pots. I spent several days concocting brighter colours and it all started with the red I spoke about here.

And things got crazy after that!

What fun I had!

This is all LACE weight merino which I had not had for some time. They are mostly semi-solids and would look wonderful knitted up with beads...what do you think?

There are some wonderful shawls out there.

It will be available in my LYS and Etsy in the next few days.

Part of my 2012 alpaca fleece harvest is back from the mill as well.

I have wonderful fiber and yarns to get ready!

No time to waste, off I go to play some more!





By golly, I think I've got it!

Creating the perfect red in my yarns has eluded me completely.

Yarns ended up being too pink or too orange, too light or too dark.

But since red is one of my favorite colours, I kept on trying and last night, the stars lined up just right! The perfect red, or pretty close to it appeared in the dye pot. It's a bright, happy poppy kind of red. I can't wait for the yarn to be dry to I can really see it. This is a lace weight merino yarn.

 

Do you know Susan B Anderson, the author of numerous knitting books?
I enjoy reading her blog. She's a positive, outgoing, motivated person. From her blog posts you can see that family is number one and that she's passionnate of her knitting. My kind of person!
Her baby hats are so cute!
Susan has a giveaway going on for two Winter Bliss cowl patterns. Get your comment in for a chance to win!

Now back to the dye pots and more poppy red, this time I'm dyeing some fingerweight yarn for MOI! I have a cardigan in mind and I've been dreaming about it since last night! Wonder if I could have it done for Christmas? A girl can dream ya know!

 

Witty Artisan craft show

Go for it!
That's what I decided to do with all of my hand dyed yarn, fiber, stitch markers etc in my studio. Decided to join a wonderful group of people and participate in their Christmas craft show.
The Witty Artisans 2011 Christmas craft show is happening at The Portage  Restaurant and Function Hall on Sunday December 4th from 10 to 4.
Come and join us if you can!

Here is a sample of what I'll be offering.

Wire words for the obssessed yarn collector on your Christmas list.

Stitch markers

Hand dyed lace yarn

65% wool / 35% silk

 

Hand dyed sock yarn

Sheep soap

I will also have some project bags and gift bags ready to give away to your favorite knitter or to  yourself!

Do come and see us, you won't be disappointed with all the talented artisans present. And wouldn't it be nice to be able to cross off a few names on your Christmas list!

Winter update: We got our fair share of snow last night! At least 8 to 10 inches in some spots. Buses were cancelled and roads were icy. Well, might as well get used to it as it's only the beginning!

I love to see children in very bright winter clothes. It's such a pop of colour next to fresh white snow!

Our grand daughter spent the day with me today. We HAD to go outside to play! (Let me tell you, I'll sleep very well tonight).  And look how that little hat made with my handspun yarn is so perfect with her snow suit. As I was knitting it, I thought that the bright green was a little too much...who would have thought that it would be the perfect match to the suit.



Nature's dyes

There's something to be said about enjoying what nature has to offer to feed your passions.

A few months ago, I had purchased Wild color by Jenny Dean. A very interesting book on natural dyes.

Eventhough the author is from England, the book is still relevant to us Canadians since many of the same plants and trees are here in North America.

This book has been by my side for a few weeks now and is already a very favorite of mine.

I must say that I'm a little late to start to harvest plants because we have had a couple of cold nights already. But nevertheless, I was able to find a few patches of goldenrods still in bloom.

I eagerly had them simmering in the dye pot in no time.

I must say, I had trouble finding alum to use as mordant and when I did I could go ahead a prepare the fibre to be dyed.

 (Goldenrod flowers. They grow in open fields, along the highways and in ditches.)

The colour is a very soft yellow with a touch of green in it. I am really excited about it.

Well, yes, I know, I do easily get excited about these things!

(Goldenrod dyed yarn)

A trip to my mother's house to help her dig out and move her rhubarb plants this week meant a great big pot of rhubarb roots for me to play with!!!

Yup, rhubarb is not only to make jams and pies.

I could not believe how big and deep those roots are. We worked really hard to harvest these!



(freshly washed rhubarb roots) 

In order to extract the most dye from the roots, I chopped them up in smaller pieces. It's also the best way to dry what I will have left for another day.

I soaked the roots for a few hours, then simmered them a few more and left everything to cool overnight.

The next morning, strained the dye stock and proceeded to dye my yarn.

Look at that glorious colour...almost orange.

(yarn is simmering in rhubarb roots dye stock. Roots still in the sieve.) 

A very rich golden orange type of colour. Love it!

(Rhubarb root dyed yarn)

Sorry, just have to put up another shot of this colour. I'm so happy with it!!!

Oh, and by the way, I have lots of dried rhubarb roots left. I have a feeling that I'm not yet done experimenting with this stuff.

Looks like it will be a glorious weekend here, hope to enjoy every minute of it! Hope you can do the same.

Last weekend,

...took the pots out and proceeded to dye!
I recently purchased new dyes and I'm trying to use up the ones that I still have. Well, at least that's the excuse I gave myself to play with colour and ignore the cleaning and cooking that needs to be done!
My goal is to get more saturated colours, deeper shades...I'm getting there. Experimenting seems to be the only way to learn how. So experimenting I will do.

After a day's work, here is my yarn, drying on the rack.
7 skeins of fingering yarn
1 skein of bulky yarn
1 skein of lace weight

 Eventhough I don't wear shades of gold and orange, I really like the shades in this skein.

Hubby bought a 4x 8 sheet of plywood to build a pump house to bring water to the alpacas and I quickly decided to use it before he cut it up. I'll tell you all about it in my next post!

Shop update

I've neglected my Etsy shop lately. Just not enough hours in a day!

I have some hand dyed yarn waiting to be listed.
Taking pictures takes time and so I've listed only one skein today.

I call it Summer Fling. The colours are very vibrant. I have two skeins available.

I've been sewing Project bags these past few weeks. These are great for small knitting projects or even to carry your lunch or library book.

I listed two of them this afternoon. 

And this one sold almost immediately! Guess I'll be listing a few more tomorrow.

I've been knitting a baby blanket with a chunky cotton yarn. I should be finished by the weekend. The blanket will be gifted to a cousin expecting her first child.

Swiss cheese

Just off the needles and blocked.
Swiss cheese scarf made with my hand dyed yarn.

The colours are bright and cheerful. The transition from one colour to the next could have been dyed better but it works anyway.

 With spring well on it's way (I hope!), the scarf will be put away till next fall.

After reading several Ravelry notes on this project, I did modify the pattern to better suit this DK yarn. I mostly followed the notes from ilovecandyfloss.

I will be adding a 100g maki roll in my Etsy shop later today if anyone else would like to knit a similar scarf.
(Please note that my camera if way off on the colours in this maki roll...I will take more pics for the shop.)

We have our daughter's wedding this weekend...I think we're ready!!

Unconventional

Doing things differently is always fun. You get to see how far you can push the limits to get the results you are looking for.

I recently purchased a hand dyed sock blank to knit a pair of socks. If you have not seen those yet, they are basically a knitted rectangle that you take apart to knit a pair of socks (or whatever else you can knit with sock yarn). They are usually knitted with with two strands of yarn so that both of your socks will be identical when you knit them. What makes them fun is that you are not quite sure what your socks will look like when they are done. Clic here to see an example sold on Etsy.

I decide to make a blank of my own by using the same technique but with the sleeve of a wool sweater I took apart to recycle the yarn.
In th next picture you see one of the sleeves on my dogs grooming table. I already started to apply fushia dye to the cuff of the sleeve.

I continued to add dyes of different colours all the way to the top. Now my problem was that the 'sleeve' was really saturated with dye because I wanted the colours to be vibrant. I knew I could not move it or the colours would mix and I would end up with a muddled mess. How to add heat to fix the dyes? I knew that the microwave was not the answer, nor was the steaming pot of hot water.
I thought I might have another option, something that I have not seen elsewhere though...so I covered the blank with plastic wrap to test it out.

Then I went in the garage to get a few work lamps and set them up over the soaked blank to see if they would produce enough heat to set the dyes.

It actually worked. It took a few hours, as I moved the lamps around to make sure every section was heated through. After a while, I started to press the blank with a paper towel to see if the water left was clear and it was!!

Here is the first dryed blank.

And here is a second one I made the same way.

Of course, these blanks are not knitted with two strands of yarn so I intend to knit a scarf, cowl or hat with them. Yarn is more like a DK or a light worsted yarn. Now to find the perfect pattern!

On fire!

This was such a fun knit project. It's nice to knit something quick when you also have long slow projects on the go.
I hand dyed the yellow mohair / wool yarn with oranges and reds, keeping some of the yellow untouched earlier this year.


Mixed it with black 100% wool yarn and knitted this hat in two evenings of movie watching!

Top of hat is very interesting with a petal shape or star shape design. Love it!

I am tempted to knit another one but to change the black designs with elements of this other hat I knitted last year.

Pattern is Fake Isle Hat by Amy King. I used 4 mm needles. Lots of yarn left over for a pair of mitts.

I've dyed and gone to heaven!

That's right...gone to heaven!

A new beginning in my fun with dyeing yarns. I've experimented lots with recycled yarn and dyeing. I have a bit of a feeling for how the colours react allthough I am still learning all the time.

I have now progressed to dyeing new yarns. I received a huge order of 'bare' yarn last week and have just started dyeing them.

It seems to be different from dyeing with reclaimed yarns...the colours take better, they are sharper, cleaner looking.

I have put the recycled yarns in my shop on sale in order to make room for the new stuff. But I will still be adding some recycled stuff from time to time since I have some left.

I've also reviewed my shipping costs and reduced those as well. I have sold lots of yarn in the last couple of weeks because of that.

But on with the new!

Here they are...TADAAAAM!!!

Beach ball:

Strawberry shortcake:

Sun and Surf:


Summer meadow:

I have also been knitting. I'll show you those things in another post.

Soap in a coat (part 2)

I just made another Soap in a Coat with yarn I dyed myself. This is lambswool and it's so soft. I am quite happy with how this yarn looks once knitted up. The colours are soft and pleasing to the eye. This dye job was done with KoolAid.

Soap is now available in my shop.

Northern Sunset

My lastest hand dyed yarn, with Wilton Icing colour in pink and yellow I had on hand, reminds me of some of our northern sunsets.

I had not yet tried Wilton as a dye (not for icing either !) I was eager to see how they would look. I have a lot of bluky yarn on hand so I thought it would be fun to use it for this.

I ended up having to play around with it a lot because I had too much yarn in a too small pot. I kept ending up with too much white sections. After a while, I then decided to sprinkle some orange Kool Aid powder where I could still see white spots.

The results are okay. I find the colours a bit too bright for my taste. Mind you, I shouldn't say that cause it reminds me of a sweater I bought last summer.

Wow, till I got it out of the closet, I did not realize how similar they are! Maybe I don't mind it so much. What looks good in the summer as summer colours, should look good in the winter as well, right?

I might use it to make another cowl. I might also add it to my etsy shop..we'll see.

I will have to do some experimenting to see how to tone down those Wilton colours a bit though.

I have also been working on another fun project combining two things I love to do...soap making and knitting. I'll be back with pictures this weekend!

Till them, do something nice for yourself, you deserve it!