Dying Yarn with Easter Egg Kits

Easter has came and went in a flurry of chocolate and jelly beans. Luckily, my kids also really love to eat hard boiled eggs so they got some healthy protein along with their mass consumption of sugar.

We dyed Easter eggs as we normally do this year, but instead of mixing and pouring the beautiful colors of leftover dye down the sink, I decided to try and dye some wool yarn with it. 

I chose a skein of KnitPicks Stroll in white, since I really wanted the brightness of the colors to show up. This yarn was great to work with, and is still wonderfully soft after dying. KnitPicks does also carry a line of "Bare" yarns and fibers that are unbleached and a natural creamy color that would also work great. I am really thinking about ordering some of the Glimmer yarn that has a small amount of stellina for sparkle!

In order to take the dye, just remember that your yarn needs to be a protein fiber (animal fiber) and not cellulose fiber (plant fiber), or synthetic fiber. While having some cotton or acrylic in the yarn is okay, those will just not accept the color the same way, so try to stick with yarns that are mostly composed of animal fibers like wool, silk, or alpaca. 

I started preparing to dye my yarn by winding it up on my niddy noddy. I did not measure and really just tried to get three hanks of different sizes. I got a little carried away, and my last hank was pretty small. This yarn is destined to be used on my sock yarn blanket, so having a very small skein is not a problem.

I tied each hank in four places to keep it from getting tangled. I use white acrylic yarn for tying since it is cheap and it easy to spot and clip when I want it off.

I then soaked the yarn in a 9 x 13 inch pan for about an hour, squishing it slightly every now and then to help it get thoroughly wet. It looks a lot like rice noodles and I have been craving pad Thai since.

The dye was left pretty much just how it was when we used it to dye our eggs, complete with vinegar. The only change I made was to add a bit of water to each cup to allow for more swishing around room.

With the largest skein, I held it in roughly thirds, and placed each third into a different cup of dye, using the pink, blue, and green. The medium skein was split between the yellow and light green, and the smallest skein was plopped into the red.

Three color dye bath with pink, green, and blue

Two color dye bath with green and yellow.

Single color dye bath with red.

The dye bath will need to be heated up, and the microwave makes that really easy. I listed up each group of dye cups into the microwave one at a time and heated them up. You may need help holding all of the cups at once while placing them into the microwave. Each set had a different amount of time since I was working with a different amount of water, so you may need to experiment a little to get the water nice and hot like a steaming cup of tea.

Leave the cups and yarn in the microwave while it cools down completely, or at least enough to handle safely.  I did move the areas that were white a little to once cup and then the other while the dye was cooling. Once the yarn has reached room temperature you can remove it from the dye baths and rinse it thoroughly.

After removing your yarn, you may reuse the dye bath if there is any dye left.  I had Gizmo help me take a picture of my pink dye bath, which I completely exhausted. Dipping a white measuring cup or spoon into the dye will show you how much color you have left. In this case, the dye had been all soaked in and the liquid looked just like plain water.

Let you yarn hang and dry, then enjoy!

Another little tidbit of information I will pass on is to visit the clearance section of your stores after Easter. There are usually some Easter egg kits left over, and you can get them for a great price. I was super excited to snag quite a few this year for .37 each.  Lots of fun dying experiments for me!

Two State Socks

Last night, I snipped off the ends of woven in yarn on these socks, finishing them up. The yarn is not that great, I am not head over heels about the color, but these socks have a dear place in my heart anyway. They are not exactly the same, this pair of socks. There are differences in the toe decreases, because by the time I got to the second sock, I had forgotten just how I had done the first. But that is not the difference that I think about when I look down. 

The first sock was knitted in Utah, in the house where we had been living for almost ten years. The second was knitted in Texas, in the new home that we are still getting adjusted to. My husband got a good opportunity to take a job promotion down here in the Lone Star State, and we decided to take a leap. 

Moving was a crazy blur of time. From the time we were sure we were moving, to when me and the kids left Utah, there was only about a month and a half of time. Brady had to be in Texas for the new job, while I handled packing up what stuff I thought we could take and getting the house on the market. I am so grateful for both of our families who helped so much with accomplishing everything. There was painting, packing, getting rid of stuff, and re-carpeting going on, and to top it all of, I caught a case of pneumonia to go along with it. I had hoped to make goodbye visits to more people, but sometimes only so much can be done. 

So here we are now, in Texas, in a beautiful and slightly larger home. One of the most exciting aspects is that we have a 9 acre property. Brady has been building our chickens a wonderful new coop and they seem very happy. Hopefully, they will be sharing their yard with other animals soon, as this land gives us the potential to have some sheep or alpaca. :) 

Some days, I deeply miss my old home and the familiarity of living in a place that I knew so well. Other days, I ache for my kids as I watch them struggle with the hardships of new schools and new friends. Most of the time though, I am excited for our future and envisioning what new adventures will come our way.

Ravelry Project Link

Recent Knitting

I realized yesterday that I never posted anything about the shawl that was destined for the cruise. When I picked out the dress that I wore for formal night, I thought it would be nice to have a shawl to go with it. Like many knitters out there, wanting a shawl did not mean going to the store to peruse the selection of shawls. Instead, it means going to the yarn store and perusing the selection of yarns. Even if the cruise is a mere few weeks away. With the blessing of my husband, I went to the local yarn shop and spent a good deal of time looking at every beautiful yarn that seemed like it would coordinate with the purple of my dress, as seen here. I rubbed them against the inside of my wrist to see how soft they were. I carried them around. I laid all my choices side by side and stared at them. I texted my husband pictures of the laid out yarns and asked his opinion. I ended up choosing a 50% merino, 50% silk fingering weight yarn by the Great Adirondack Yarn Co. The yarn name is Sirino, and the colorway is Peacock. The price tag for the yarn did make my breath catch, but it was just so pretty. This was, by far, the most expensive yarn I have ever purchased.

I chose the pattern Palessie. This is a paid pattern, and I felt it was well written and worth the cost. I purchased the ebook with has both a shawl and cowl pattern.

 I knit with all my might and free time on this shawl, trying to finish in time. My free time was not in a great abundance leading up the cruise and trying to get all of out preparations and packing in order. I was so close, and yet not quite there. By the time I went to bed on the first evening of the cruise I was a third of the way finished with the bind off. With formal night being on the second night, I really did not think I have time to finish and block the shawl, and made the decision not to let it overtake the other fun things I wanted to do with my family.

I did end up finishing it on the place ride home, and blocking it the following weekend. As far as I am concerned, it still is a souvenir from my trip, and I love wearing it. I still have yet to master the great shawl photograph, so you will have to take my word on just how much more beautiful the colors are in person.

The second project that I am working on is a simple pair of socks for myself. The yarn is Premier Yarns Serenity Sock Yarn in the Indigo colorway. But what is that you are thinking? That sock picture below looks nothing like Indigo. Well, you see, Joanns had a wonderful clearance of sock yarns going on a while ago so I purchased a number of skeins. I had enough for two pair of socks with this colorway, but I didn't actually want two pair of socks the same color. The color you see below is the result of me plopping the yarn into a pot filled with water and a number of Kool-Aid packets. There was grape and some sort of red one, but I can not get any more specific than that....since I can't remember.

The pattern for the sock is just from using the numbers provided in Silver's Sock Class, which I highly recommend for those wanting to learn to knit socks. I did change the heel flap for a regular stockinette and added the garter edging. The toe does look really weird in this photograph due to the fact that I still need to do the Kitchener stitch to close it up. Second sock syndrome hit me pretty bad on this one, and even before the first sock was done.

Lastly, I am working on a pair of socks for the little man. Squirt has been asking me who gets the socks I was working on for the last few pairs I have made, and was disappointed that none of them were for him. I had a single skein of Panda Cotton on my yarn shelf, so I decided to try to whip him up a quick pair. I had gotten to the arch of his foot when I made the conclusion that they were too big.

Two things bothered me about the socks being too large. First, I was pretty sure I would run out of yarn before I finished. Second, the whole idea of making something for him to grow into flies out the window as far as socks are concerned. I would bet my pinky toe that one is lost within two months of me completing them.

On the Needles

I have mainly been working on two knitting projects lately, even though I have been itching to get something else started.

I started the sock yarn blanket roughly a year ago. It is not very far along, but that is alright, since I did not think I would finish it anytime soon. It is a great way to use up the little balls of sock yarn that were not enough for anything else I wanted to do, but too much to throw away. This project is a nice, mindless, knitting project. I work on it a lot while watching shows or movies with Brady and the kids.

 The pattern for the sock yarn blanket can be found at The Heathen Housewife. Her finished blanket is quite impressive.

The other thing I have been working on are Jaywalker socks, made by Grumperina for the now defunct MagKnits. The pattern can be found here on Ravelry. I had previously been working on Skew from Knitty with this yarn, but that was frogged. While fun, it was too complex for the "shove in my purse to work on while waiting for kiddos" type thing. I am happy with the simplicity and easy memorability of the Jaywalker pattern, and am excited to see how they turn out.  The yarn is Deborah Norville Serenity sock weight. I ran across it on clearance at Joann's craft store a while back, and for the price it was worth a try. I would have liked the wool content to be higher than 50%, but have no other complaints.

Plans

This past Wednesday, I awoke with a plan for the day. Pancakes for breakfast, a bit of school, playgroup, some much needed grocery shopping, and home in plenty of time to make dinner and relax. It is funny how life sometimes takes the plans that you make and jostles them around, especially life with kids. Spike got sick, and my plans changed from being productive to curling up on the couch with my 9-year-old, trying to make him feel as comfortable as possible. I think it was time well spent.

It can be rough sometimes for a list and schedule loving person like myself, to step out of my practical mind and just enjoy the moment. I am making it my goal to not stress myself out so much; to remind myself that is okay when my plans don't always work out. After all, we had planned to have three kids, and now I could not imagine life without Squirt.

I did accomplish my plan of knitting a soot sprite though. We really enjoy Studio Ghibli films, and when I ran across the knitting pattern I knew we just needed one in our house. And it only took me five days longer than planned.... :)

The kids have all found it's current hideout on top of the microwave very amusing.