Okay, I've been meaning to post for a week or three, lets see what I've been up to. Tournament 7 ended in April so I'll start with the rest of my projects. I finished the fingerless mitts:
The pattern is Peridot. I used Jack as my tie in since he states on numerous occasions that peridot is his favorite color. Peridot is also the birthstone for August which is what originally drew to this pattern. (My birthday is in August.) The pattern in the cuff and fingers is berry stitch. It ends up looking very pretty, its a fiddly stitch though. You increase and decrease every other stitch and then purl in between those rows so its actually very open. The yarn is Elsebeth Lavold Cool Wool, its a DK weight 50/50 cotton wool blend. The colorway is Peridot too. These turned out snug on me and I have small hands. If I do them again, and I probably will since I still have half the skein left over, I'm going to add at least a pattern repeat. The gauge is already pretty loose so I wont change needle sizes. (The pattern calls for worsted weight.) I put these, along with a dishcloth, into the WIP challenge. I also used them for the April Fingerless Glove Fanatic's KAL. I was on a green kick last month, I think because it was the very beginning of spring and the tree leaves are this color when they bud.
The pattern is: Spring Time Dishrag. I made a couple modifications. I did seed stitch borders instead of garter and I did only four rows and the top and bottom. I should have omitted about four stockinette stitches on the sides of the pattern as well since I shortened the cloth it looks squatty. This was a super fast dishcloth, the tulip pattern is just yarn overs and then SSK or K2Tog to compensate for the YO. I like it and I'll probably be making more of these too. That wound up being it for round three of T7. The final scores aren't out yet. At this point most of us are doing other things since we only get a month off. I'm already looking forward to T8.
Speaking of a month off... I've been working on a combo of projects here in May. I need to do some end weaving but I've already finished two dishcloths and two tawashi. Tawashi are Japanese style pot scrubbers. I don't have pictures yet of those, but I assure you they are super cute. I do however have pictures of the dishcloths:
This is the tree outside my craft room, the leaves are all grown out now and a normal dark green.
Once the weather warms up I usually start making dishcloths again. The bright colors remind me of summer and knitting cotton just feels right. Here is the dishcloth I submitted with the Peridot mitts:
The pattern is: Leaf Lace Washcloth. I finished this one just before the tournament ended so I had to take the pictures in the dark. I suppose I should get a better one now. This pattern has been in my queue forever so it was nice to finally do it.
I made another dishcloth for last round as well, this one should be familiar, its the project I chose from Knit Crochet Blog Week:
Speaking of a month off... I've been working on a combo of projects here in May. I need to do some end weaving but I've already finished two dishcloths and two tawashi. Tawashi are Japanese style pot scrubbers. I don't have pictures yet of those, but I assure you they are super cute. I do however have pictures of the dishcloths:
The pattern is: Mitered Ballband Dishcloth. They turn out pretty big which is great since these and the tawashi are going to be gifts. The designer has a pattern for a dish towel as well. I'll be making that too, once I get some more of the Peaches and Cream Striped yarn. I went with the same general color scheme for the tawashi as well. I want everything to look like a set as much a possible. I love ball band dishcloths, it was the second dishcloth pattern I ever did, so finding and making this mitered pattern was really fun.
I showed you the stitch markers I made. I got some more beading supplies and I've started making earrings as well. I made eight pairs in one sitting, but I've only taken good pictures of two of them. I have two reasons for making earrings. One, earrings are fun and fast and I love to wear dangly earrings, two, the earring heads can double as crochet stitch markers. The stitches are different for knitting and crochet. Its hard to explain to people who don't craft, the easiest thing for me to say is that crochet markers have to be removable. The dangle earring heads work for that so I can use those parts two fold. Alright pictures:
The flash kept going off on the second picture for whatever reason. They are pretty simple and not too long. I found that I like to mix the sizes of beads for a nice textural look. The larger glass beads are 6/O seed beads. I have no idea what size the tiny beads are. I'm up to two cases for my beads now. I have mostly green and mostly blue happening right now with clear and silver to off set the colors. I want to get a purple ensemble yet and then I think I'll be happy. I also want to pick up wire so I can experiment with shapes and essentially make my own head pins. I don't want to go super crazy though since I have more than enough yarn to keep me happy... I don't want to get side tracked. (I think it may be too late.)
Speaking of being side tracked... I dyed more yarn! Remember the Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool I picked up? I wound off six mini skeins and had a dye session Monday night.
The dark greens and orange are from Easter egg tablets. The blue, purple and pink are from Kool Aid. Yes, Kool Aid can dye wool and its color fast. I never really drank Kool Aide growing up and I'm rather glad I didn't. It's sort of scary that only two packets each can permanently color that much yarn. When using KA, make sure to pick up unsweetened packets, or else you'll wind up with horribly sticky yarn. There are multitudes of tutorials on the web. I sort of combined at least three and winged it a bit as well. For the purple (grape) and blue (mixed berry) I did two packets and 8 oz. of water. For the pink (strawberry kiwi) it was two packets and 6oz water. I steamed these skeins to set the dye but the microwave can be used too. I have quite a bit of the purple left over so my next session will be purple oriented. I think I'm going to try kettle dying for the purple, I want some variegation. What I really should do is knit some of these up, since I haven't done much of this yet, I don't know how the color placement correlates to finished product look. All I really know for sure is that this is super fun and I will be getting side tracked with this! The first picture is actually two skeins twisted together. Those colors are the left overs from the Easter egg kit I used for the first dying attempt. They are orange, dark green and supposedly gray, but it just looked like even darker green when I was dying. I think I figured out where I went wrong with my first dying attempt. I watered down the dyes too much. This time I only added the 1/2 cup of water the kit specified. The orange turned out really bright and pretty. My inspiration for these skeins was my husband's grandfather who just recently passed away. He was an avid hunter and outdoorsman so this is a tribute to his favorite pastime. I don't expect other people to get it, but its my way of appreciating his life. I did this with the two smallest skeins since I expected it to be a disaster, how on earth will orange green and gray go together, right? I was very surprised when I unwrapped them from the Ceranwrap and they were gorgeous. I wish I would have kept the extra dye so I could have done more. Now I guess I'll have to re-create these colors... oh darn. The muddy skein was the only other one I had a "plan" for. It was, however, a fail, IMO. I joined the group What a Kool Way to Dye on Ravelry. The Dye Along (DAL) for May is spots. This was supposed to be spots of color. It is mud. I think I'm going to use the left over grape to make splotches. I think my drops were too small and they ran together. I also got over zealous with the dropper and covered everything instead of leaving some white. I think a superwash would also work better for this technique too, since superwash sucks up color faster... See how much I'm learning already. (I'm not addicted, really I'm not.) The other skeins were just off the cuff so to speak. I really love the one with all four of the colors. I cant wait for my next session.
I also got some more yarn:
There are two skeins of Cascade 220 Fingering in turquoise and pale blue, one skein of Ella Rae Classic Superwash for more dying and two skeins of Malabrigo Rios in Piedras. I love Rios. Maybe someday I can dye yarn to look this good.
I picked up a skein of crochet thread so I can try some of the knitted edgings in the old book my co-worker gave me, remember that? Keep and eye out I have some ideas brewing. Until next time. Happy Crafting!
-Q
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