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06/30/2006
Spinning update...
There are no socks this month for the Sock-A-Month KAL. Spinning got in the way. Big time!
I've done some no-fuss, no mess dyeing where I just threw the pre-soaked and gently squeezed out roving onto the baking sheet and randomly applied spots of blue, green, gold and pink kool-aid with a spoon and stuck the whole thing in the oven at around 90°C for an hour. VERY low-maintenance! In some places, the spots went all the way through the pile of wool, in some it didn't, so this is going to be an interestingly variegated pastely yarn.
I've spun 1.5 bobbins of it, and it's mainly light green/blue. SHould look nice when it's plied.
I'm starting to feel pretty confident spinning, so I do a lot of it these days:-) 
11:28 Posted in spinning | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
Last day of SYAC
Today is officially the last day of the Sock Yarn Addicts' Club. I've been so good. Only one large accident in the first month, and then NO purchases whatsoever. What a great relief that was for my wallet. And storage space.
But guess what I'm doing today? Buying a few balls of sock yarn online that I've been drooling over. Ahem. Great gratification for not buying any for almost 3 months;-)
10:28 Posted in Knitalongs | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
06/26/2006
The mama-of-purl kitchen...
now with a hint of orange!
So I ran out of nice and colorful roving and decided to dye some more late last night. With the ususal 1-hour period of trying to keep the dye bath just below the boiling point, dip-dyeing in pots requires way too much attention, therefore I've started putting the pots/other containers in the oven. Last night, though, one of those containers was an old glass bowl. Not a great idea.
When I'd placed the roving in the different dye baths and added more water so it'd be covered, the baking grid couldn't support the weight anymore and crashed to the bottom of the baking oven. Yeah, that was quite a mess already. After a few attempts to slide the grid back in, and the whole set-up crashing down again, that old glass bowl busted right though the middle.
Even a greater mess. There was an orange river in my kitchen. Had to sacrifice a few towels.
Lessons learned: use the baking TRAY! no breakable glass containers!
Anyhow, I transfered the pot and dish to the baking tray and let the rest of the roving dye in the bottom of the tray that was completely filled with orangey liquid. What a MESS!
You wouldn't think that the dye job worked despite this chaos.
Actually, I'm quite pleased with the result- pretty much what I had in mind. And it didn't mat/felt like the last roving I dyed.
Spinning with dyed fiber is so much more fun, too. I love seeing the colors change and how the fibers intertwine. So beautiful.
Here's the single I've spun from my last kool-aid dyed roving and a 2-ply that I used scraps of colored wool I had leftover from wet felting and the natural color roving I had. It's wonderfully lightweight and I'm sure it'll knit up very pretty. Only 50 grams (2oz?) though, that'll only be enough for a hat or something.
10:15 Posted in dyeing , spinning | Permalink | Comments (9) | Email this
06/20/2006
May I introduce...
...my own WHEEL!!
The last spinning I've done was with my mother's ancient wheel she used back in the early 80s, and after I'd spun that nice natural with colored flecks yarn, the leather strap to adjust the tension busted. I did a makeshift repair, but it didn't run as smoothly anymore. it's not unusable now, it only needs a new strap. But I was never too fond of the wheel, all the parts are dark turned wood, and it's a little too small for this tall mama;-)
This bebe here is a used Ashford I won on ebay last week. I have no idea what the model is called, it's kind of like the Traditional but has a more simplistic look, which I prefer.
I was so lucky with this auction, the wheel is about 20 yrs old, but in excellent shape. The seller had taken the bigger parts apart, so it was easy to re-assemble and I was surprised how quickly I could adjust everything and start spinning! I put in a few hours of spinning last night and produced this chunky 2-ply.
The red yarn is made from roving I dyed with Kool-Aid (you can see part of it in the upper right hand corner of the wheel pic) in anticipation of the wheel's arrival last week. The dyeing went kind of weird with the roving- I used the ususal 1 package per ounce of fiber, but the dye bath was not at all exhausted. I kept the roving in it for quite a long time, but it simply didn't soak up the dye like other yarns do. And I also slightly felted the fiber in the process. I can still pluck it apart quite easily, but I'm afraid it will be scratchier than the undyed yarn.
Does anyone have tips on dyeing roving?
Oh, I realized I'm already hooked on spinning when I woke up too early this morning because I felt a strong urge to start spinning again...;-)
12:55 Posted in spinning | Permalink | Comments (10) | Email this
06/19/2006
blankie
Okay, I have a thing about blankets. Every time I go to IKEA, I have to restrain myself from buying more blankets. Not that I needed any more.
Last time I almost picked up a thin knit stripey blanket for Johanna, but I thought: hey, I can make a blanket myself!
That same night, I picked the colors and started cutting out the squares for a little quilt. Three nights later, it was finished. So the last blanket took about 13 years to get finished, this one only took about 13 hours. Talk about improvement!
The contrasts could have been placed better, and I'd planned different positions of the back colors, but I'm really fond of this blankie.
For the batting, I used an unconventional material- one of these super cheap smaller fleece plaids they sell at IKEA. It's called IRMA and I got in on sale for about 1,50€. The only weird thing is that I basically made a blanket out of an already functioning blanket. 
12:35 Posted in Sewing | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this
Bitchin' Mitten Knittin'
I'm such a joiner! The Bitchin' Mittens KAL was the best excuse to start these mittens- I've come across the pattern a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't stop thinking about the cute squirrels! Add some frustration with the Peasant Socks, voilà: a new project!
I'm using chocolate brown Opal and Regia Canadian Colors, don't remember if it was Toronto or Montreal...
Yeah, those Peasant Socks look like they're not going to be knit in the near future. The pattern needs SO much attention because it's a really un-repetitive 22-row repeat... sigh...I do love the pattern and the color combo, but this is too hard right now. The squirrels are much more fun to knit.
As the Peasant Socks were supposed to be my 'Trek Along With Me' socks, I need a substitute- luckily, I'd almost forgotten that I still had some socks using Trekking XXL on the needles;-) Kimberley reminded me of the Pretty Petals socks, because she's making the same pair (only slightly smaller) using the same colorway. What a competition- another urban mama in Germany! She's made it hard for me coming up with photo ideas for the Trek-Along since she's already done a trek to the zoo and the playground:-)
Anyhow, I've finally cast on for the second Pretty (now summer) Petals sock, just a joy to knit with the Trekking!
12:21 Posted in Knitalongs | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this
06/12/2006
Made the shrug...
...but Johanna could only wear it for the pictures! The weather was gorgeous for our friends' wedding, and the place they had the party at was an incredible turn-of-the-century villa out in the countryside. We had a great time!
I was pretty nervous before the wedding as the bride and groom had asked me to perform the Monty Python Song "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life" at the end of the combined wedding and christening ceremony.
Is it safe to assume I'm one of only a handful of people who got to sing the words 'life's a piece of shit' and 'forget about your sin, give the audience a grin' in a Lutheran church? I'm sure a Catholic priest wouldn't have allowed that;-)
07:25 Posted in Baby Stuff | Permalink | Comments (10) | Email this
06/09/2006
Spin me, baby!
I haven't blogged about this yet, I've just been too ambiguous about it- SPINNING. Just after Easter, my mother lend me her spinning wheel she's used heavily in the early 80s during her crunchy granola phase. She showed me the basic movements, but I wasn't very impressed with my skills (I'm actually a very impatient person) and was easily frustrated. Maybe I don't accept my mother in a teaching position anymore either. Well.
When Elsa, the other member of SnB Hamburg :-), told me she was quite an experienced spinner, I asked her to come over last week and help me improve my plucking technique and learn more about spinning. We had a great night eating berry tiramisu (YUM!), spinning some fiber and chatting. At some point I kind of interrupted her asking:"Hey, do you want to see my sock yarn stash?" It was so weird, like I'd asked her if she wanted to see my stamp/record collection or something... But I got out my *mumble* four boxes of sock yarn and it was great sharing my ideas of what I want to do with the different skeins. I'm such a yarn dork.
Anyway, there was still a lot of frustration going on, but it was great having someone who gave me tips on how to do different parts of the spinning process better. At the end I felt a little more capable and on Sunday, I got out the wheel again and did some wild experiments using the natual color roving with some solid dyed roving I had left over from felting. this is the outcome: 100 grams of not-so-bad looking wool. Enough for a toddler's vest. Of course, there's still parts that are overspun, but I can live with that for now. I'm still learning.
08:22 Posted in spinning | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this
06/07/2006
I've been hiding!
Hey everyone,
sorry, I had to disappear for a while to get some university stuff done. I tend to get sucked into blogland too easily and I really need to get a lot of work done.
Anyhow, there has been a lot going on over here, I don't even know where to start! Knitting? Dyeing? SPINNING?
First of all, I think I need to confess new and not-so-new projects I've been working on.
There's this sock I kind of got tricked into starting when my knitting friend Elsa wanted to learn how to do fair-isle. It's the Peasant Sock from Knitting Marvelous Mittens (I HEART CHarlene Schurch!!) that I'm using Trekking XXL 110 and a skein of solid campari-orange red Opal yarn for. I love how these two yarns compliment each other. there's varying contrast in the pattern this way, but it has kind of a trippy effect;-)
I've also wanted to figure out how to properly weave in the ends while knitting and watched the video at Philosopher's Wool (unfortunately, the video only seems to play using Internet Explorer) a few times and took NOTES (!). In my previous fair-isle projects, I always dropped the needles, actually twisted the balls of yarn (how silly!), and ended up with a tangly mess. Not mentioning the inconvenience. But now I'm delighted with this technique! After a few attempts, I quickly learned the different hand movement when intertwining the yarns and I feel extremely accomplished now, LOL!
Check out the back of the fabric now- in the part right after the ribbing I was still carrying the yarn in the back, at the bottom I wove the yarn every 2 or 3 stitches. Lovely.
If there are any experienced fair-isle knitters out there, I'd love to get tips on how to improve the regularity of the stitches when weaving. As you can see in the picture above, the stitches come out a little bumpy.
Then here's a shot of the Blueberry Waffle Sock which is my mindless knitting object du jour, ready to turn heel No.1.
And this is what I've continuously been knitting on for the last 10 days or so, I cannot believe how freakin long it's taking me to finish this. It's a the Girlfriend Shrug (Knit and Tonic pdf) for Johanna. We're going to our friends' wedding this Saturday (yeah, the day of WWKIP day) and since it's incredibly cold in Germany this summer (okay, it warmed up a little today), she needs something to go with her beautiful white sleeveless dress. I'm using the compensatory Regia Crazy Colors for it with 2.75 mm needles. Ya think that's why it's taking so long?;-) Anyway, I 
still have more than half of the 2nd sleeve and the ribbing around the opening to knit, I gotta hurry!!
Okay, this was the knitting update, I'll chop up the entries for the other categories:-)
13:10 Posted in Baby Stuff , Socks | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this