What I'm Currenlty Knitting

Last week or so, I wrote about experimenting with entrelac. I thought it might be good for a baby hat. I think it is. I think it'll work. This was my first experiment. When I finished it off, it began looking like something. It's a very cute hat. This particular color combo is a bit distressing to me, but I was using what I had left over. I didn't have enough of that green (which, for some reason, is bothersome to me here) to go all the way around, so I used a bit of that tan. That blue and green would be nice for some earth/globe idea, if you just wanted to knit a silly baby hat.

Entrelac is really not difficult at all. I thought it would be, but it's not. I picked it right up by reading about it in Son of Stitch 'n Bitch - a book that has been oddly useful since I bought it. I read it all the time. Part of what makes the hat work, I think, is the stitch pattern, which is just a K1 P1 on one round and a knit on the other; it's fairly loose. Someone looked at it on Monday and said, "It looks really loose." Being loose is different than looking loose. I think I would prefer plain stockinette. My next experiment will be stockinette and I have a couple of ideas about what to do with the color, as seeing it like this makes me thing of something that I won't say right here. It could be sort of funny. I'm going to try it. I'll keep you posted - if I haven't lost everyone at this point. (I like the star thing that's going on. )

I'm also working on an Elizabeth Zimmmerman Pi Shawl. I linked there to Brooklyn Tweed's blog. He made a beautiful and beautifully-photographed shawl/blanket with the the pattern I'm using. I would link to a shawl with the pattern that is more my speed, but those all happen to be the other pattern. Anyway, it's good, straight-forward plain old knitting with some yarn overs. I'm going great guns on it because I can feel that I'm making progress and I want desperately to get to the color change in the yarn. I'm using the yarn below. It's really beautiful and sort of oily. I like knitting with it. It feels strong, sort of masculine (for lace knitting). I asked Fred how he liked it. He said, "So you're finally turning into a real old lady."

Mine "shawl fetus" (it's all pre-formed and curled up like a baby in a womb in the middle of that circular) currently looks like a ball of crumpled up yarn, which I know all lace projects are until they're blocked. But mine feels especially ugly right now. I think it's going to be reasonably big. I hope so.

This yarn, by the way, was a mess to make into a ball. My ball winder (I'm currently typing with my ball winders) got all messed up. It took me literally three and a half hours. But I got to know the yarn intimately and I really like how it feels. It's Eveilla Artyarn 8/2. It's a purchase I made in the Fall that I am really happy about now.

You know, sometimes a guy just needs to write about his knitting. Thanks if you got his far.

Code Pink

I swiped this from a Flickr page. Alex wrote on her blog recently about this action that was put on by Code Pink. It happened on Mother's Day at the White House. People from all over the world were asked to send in 4 inch by 4 inch knitted or crocheted squares in pink and green that would be put together to make a giant quilt that would be displayed in front of the White House on Mother's Day. The whole banner says, "We will not raise our children to kill another mother's child." (Julia Ward Howe, in case you were wondering.)

Ginni from our knitting group got us to commit to twenty squares. I knit four green squares. After four, I realized that I hate kitting little squares. I kept trying to think of a way to make a lot of them without having to cast on and off. If I could have knit a scarf that was like three feet long and then steek it, I could have doubled my output - at least. But casting on, knitting a bit and then casting off those silly things? No thanks! I'm sure there were no rules for that. They would have taken steeked squares, but I didn't think of it until I was sick of the project. If I would have had a serious challenge, I would also have done a lot of them. I had no takers. When Ginni brought it up, people were like, "Yeah...I'll do one."

The only rules were green and pink. You can see how many shades there are. It's sort of hard to read from far away. And I blocked mine. Some people (I'm not naming names) didn't block or pay attention to the size request. I sewed in a few ends before Ginni sent them off. Can you imagine sewing those together? I bet someone grabbed a stapler before it was finished.

This action didn't get any press here. I didn't see anything. It's sort of a nice idea, but I kept wondering what they were going to do with the quilt after the action was over. Seems like you could take it apart and make blankets for homeless people out of it. Or baby blankets or something. It almost seems like a waste. Do something with it.

My enthusiasm for this project is questionable. Am I hiding that at all?

Entrelac Adventure

Warning: All knitting

Entrelac embodies one of the things I love about knitting. It looks comlicated or involved, but when you read it step by step how to do it, it's relatively easy. I like how involved I have to be when I'm knitting. There's counting and stuff. It's not just knitting. It's a lot of picking up stitches and decreases. I'm doing a lot with waste yarn to make it managable for me. The original pattern has everything on double points.

This is an idea that I'm working on because I had some left over balls of yarn. I'm sort of making this up. It was a sock pattern from Son of Stitch and Bitch that I modified to what I thought would be a baby hat. It still could be. I'll have to see how it looks when I do the decrease at the top. It might be a floppy baby hat. Different colors and a different stitch pattern would make it a little tighter and neater looking. I'm a little disturbed by the looseness.

Hats are the perfect project to try something out on. I'm a little bit addicted to them. Someone sent a link to The Red Thread Project. Maybe I'll send some of them there. Sounds a little fruity, but it's going to a good cause.

I have a friend who is going to only knit things next year that she designed herself. I would like to do something similar. I already modify things all to heck.

A Little Bag of Memories

While we were going through security on our way to Warsaw last weekend, I had my knitting needles confiscated. The security guard actually stood in front of my holding a tray which held my 3.5mm (36 inch long) circulars and a mechanical pencil. She felt the tip and said, "This is too sharp. You can't take it on the plane."

I picked up the pencil and pointed to the tip and said, "This is sharper than that is."

She knew I was right, but she was being told by someone with some authority that knitting needle are bad and can't be taken on the plane. I've done it tons of times before, but I've usually already cast on, so it looks more like I'm knitting than that I've got a long wire shaped weapon with sharp ends.

As we were walking away, I tearfully screamed, "Confiscating knitting needles is so last year!"

I didn't really. I was too stunned. What does a person do on an airplane besides knit? Fortunately, I had a crochet needle with me. And I had my ipod.

Then, for some reason, my ipod quit working. It wouldn't do anything. I couldn't even play solitaire. And I can't crochet in silence. So I read a book I'd bought. It's a Dutch book - a thriller. Fred was unbothered by the whole incident. And he gets on the plane, reads a bit and falls asleep.

So I was in Warsaw for three days with no knitting, a single crochet hook and a ball of yarn. I made the little bag in the photo. When we got home, I finished it with a picot edge and turned to Fred and said, "I just made one of the most granny things I've ever made." But it's totally sturdy. And it's fairly well designed. The icord goes through a row of double crochet. It's not just tied on.

In Warsaw, we met a couple of American women. The one who was most taken with us was Vicky, a hard boiled woman who is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas and who will one day return to her husband and son who live in Houston. Vicky loves tall bald men. When we walked in, her table had discussed whether or not Fred and I were gay. Vicky said she had voted no. Of course the tall bald gay Brits she was with voted yes. (It's call Gaydar.) The other woman, Marsha, walked over and the first thing she said after Vicky mentioned that I was originally from Texas was "I hate Texans." Charmed, I'm sure. Marsha was a thin little thing with bad dental work and she was dee-runk.

"And, Marsha? I love your hair. The Eighties was fun, wasn't it?"

So strange to meet Americans while away for the weekend. They've both been in Warsaw longer than I've been here. What a random place to spend seven or eight years - and neither speak the language. I like talking to American who live outside the US. It's amazing the ways people cope.

Another Very Warm Hat

In my never ending slog through "knitting techniques that I just never happened to learn," I found an excellent explanation of how to do "traveling jogless stripes" and I am doing some of those stripes on my current Very Warm Hat. I am just crazy about the Very Warm Hat. It's full of lots of stuff that I like. (And slog is not really what I meant. It's knitting. How can it be a slog?)

The main drawback is that it's mostly stockinette. The advantage is that it's mostly stockinette and I can do that blindfolded. I've watched television while making this hat. I've held eye contact during a conversation. I've even read a little bit. Love that.

I also like the decrease I did. I didn't do the decrease that the lady Ms. Zimmerman does in The Opinionated Knitter. I did a straighter decrease (SSK, K3, K2tog every other round). I think it looks neater and I'm not so fold of the swirling decrease all the time.

And while it was sort of a pain to pick up the stitched all the way around the cast-on edge, I like they way it looks. You can see it in the picture pretty clearly, but that's where the fold is.

What I really really like is that both of these are yarns I dyed. I think they go well together. Very autumny. The colors they are in the photo is a lot lighter than the actual color of the yarn, but they're just as nice together. It depends on how big it ends up being as to whether or not I keep it. And when it's finished, I'll need to do something that's not stockinette in the round.

Red Onion Skins

On Wednesday, I decided to take all of the red onion skins that I'd been saving and try dyeing a small skein of wool that I had.

We had a lot of red onion skins because we had some people to dinner and we made a Red Onion Tarte Tartin. It was just a matter of baking the sliced onions with some herbs for half an hour and then putting them on little individual baking tins with some dough over it. You serve it by flipping the whole thing over so that the dough (now crust) acts like a little bowl. Top the whole thing off with some bits of goat cheese. I liked it a lot, but the only comment was, "What kind of cheese is this?" (You don't repeat a recipe like that unless you really need to.)

So there I am with all these onion skins (about 20 grams all together - just the papery outer layers) when I had a free afternoon. I boiled up a couple of liters of water, put in a dash of vinegar and then threw in the onion skins. I simmered them for about an hour. I could see the water was a really nice red wine color. I scooped out all of the onion skins I could and then dropped in the pre-soaked wool. The wool was a pale yellow superwash. I'd dyed most of it before, but I need a little more to finish something and I don't like this yellow - although I've been told my a neutral party that it's a fine yellow.

I let the wool simmer for about an hour. I could tell it had taken up a lot of color, and was taking up more the longer it sat there. I threw in another small hank of some boring gray superwash that I'd bought years ago. After another half hour, I took them out of the water and let them cool. I rinsed them and put them outside to dry for a while.

The color is really nice - it's a little richer than it looks in this picture. I really like it that it all came from onion skins. It makes me want to collect white onion skins, red onion skins, scallion skins and garlic skins and do some experimenting with dyeing. In my fantasy experiment, of course, everything is the same - the only thing that changes is the type of skin. I'm curious about other food or kitchen products and dyeing with them. We'll see.

I promised someone some 4 x 4 green squares. I have to get on that little project. Looks like I've got an agenda for this weekend's knitting.

Note to Self

If you put a bottle (or two) of wine (or any other beverage) into the freezer to get it cold quickly, set the timer. I've heard that alcohol doesn't freeze, but the alcohol content in wine is so low that it will freeze. My mother used to keep a water bottle in the freezer (for sprains and such) that was half rubbing alcohol and half water. The liquid got crunchy, but didn't freeze. It's a good idea. Use it as your own.

Look how the cork was pushed out when it froze. Full disclosure: when I put the sparkling water and the other two bottles of wine into the freezer to get cold fast, I set the timer. I love the kitchen timer. I use it all the time. My mother used to use it all the time,too. It's an excellent tool. Fred needs a little more convincing. Maybe this will do it. In other news, the wine didn't really seem to be affected by it's night in the freezer. We had a glass last night just to make sure.

In knitting, just finished a hat. This was just a dry run. It needs some adjustments here and there, but it's basically what I was going for. I wanted a baby hat that was more masculine than the baby hats currently on offer. I have another solution for the stem. Something that's sort of loop like, but different. You'll see soon.

Two things I'm really crazy about are the cables, which are pretty easy, and this nice purl gulf. There's a sort of a look that I'm after and this is pretty much it, although I'll be tinkering with it. And I think it'll wear differently on a real baby head. Shown here, it is being worn by one of my favorite vases, but it approximates the head of a child - if the child had a spout on the top of his/her head.

I think I got my decreases mixed up here, and I'd like them to not be so obvious. I took it to knitting last night and got some suggestions. But I like the look of the arches coming to a point like that. One thing I'm crazy about this yarn (GGH Merino Soft) is how the stockinette looks. See the twisted stitches and the line? I don't know why it does that, but I really like it. I was expecting the regulation stockinette V's, but I didn't get them. I got this, which I like a lot.

And lastly, it folds up into a little leafy looking thing, which is sort of sweet. Malia said that if I get a pattern written, it can go out with the free patterns Penelope Craft is going to offer in the Fall. That would be a nice resume builder, wouldn't it? I'll start adjusting this now. Maybe I'll do a man sized version as well. We'll see. Happy knitting.

new HAPPY red BIRTH hat DAY

A week or so ago, I posted a picture of a hat I had knit with some Cascade 220 that I had dyed with some friends at a dyeing party. In short, I cooked it in cherry Kool-Aid, and then sprinkled on Grape Kool-Aid powder. It knit up really well. I like the color variations.

These are not the best pictures in terms of color. It's a nice red with less orange than is in these pictures. I like the pattern. It's called Sarah's Cabled Hat. It's not rocket science, but I didn't know how you made cables reduce like that until now. (I mean, I could have figured it out...)

And I put a little loop up there because I can't help myself. It's for a kid, or someone with a smaller head than me (...so that could be almost anybody.) I've dyed stuff a couple of times now and I always feel like I have to knit it up after I dye it. That said, we have another dyeing party coming up, so my aran sweater may continue to languish. The dyeing group is an intimate group, which is good in terms of the size of the kitchen. Too many people shuffling around there would be "crazy making," as Bad Barbara used to say.

Speaking of crazy making, today is my father's birthday. He is a very interesting fellow. A great guy. You'd love him. We don't get along. I love him and respect his conviction in what he believes, and I'm sure he loves me and feels the same about my convictions (well...maybe), but at this point in time, we have very limited communication, which is probably for the best. So happy 74th birthday, Dad! (I've heard his wife is an occasional reader.)

I'm getting quite a collection of baby/children's hats. I have to figure out what to do with them.

Butterfly Baby

NOTE: There is nothing here but knitting today.

HOWEVER, Look at the pictures. I made some very nice snaps today.

A couple of months ago, I traded some yarn to a knitting friend and she threw in a ball of GGH Merino Soft that happened to be one of my favorite shades of green. Then, another knitting friend offered to let me test knit a pattern that I liked. It's a baby hat. To me, baby hats are like a small piece of good chocolate. There good for a quick taste and over relatively quickly. I think there are a few alterations that need to be made in this pattern and then she's going to put it out there. It's a fun little hat. And the basic pattern - like most most basic patterns after you understand them - is easy to alter. I've already cast on for the next hat.

It ends with an eye cord stem, which I always like. I think the top of a hat is such a nice place to put a little thing. I've proved that a number of times on this blog.

The little butterflies are nice too. I had no idea how they were done, but having done them now, It's completely obvious. They were the slightest bit tedious, but you don't have to mess with that part very often. And after you do it, it's not that much trouble. Fiddly, I believe I usually call it.

I have to say that I am crazy about this camera. On castover days in the afternoon - at our dining room table - it takes the best pictures. If you're still reading this, you might be interested to hear that I used 3mm needles (two circulars) and it took 22 grams of the wool.

Islands and Paths

There's a big fuss being made right now about the four hundred year anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam in New Netherland by the Dutch. Interestingly (or not), I have just started listening to The Island at the Center of the World. It's about the very first days of NYC, when it was still called new Amsterdam. I heard about it right after I moved here from a woman I used to know who I no longer talk to. She was an interesting friend for a while and then something happened and we realized we were just not that into each other any more. I sometimes think of something I'd like to tell her, but then I get over it and I realize that it's probably better to just forget it.

It reminds me of Iyanla Vanzant and how one time she was on Oprah and she was talking about relationships. She described 'life paths' as us all being on different roads. Sometimes our paths cross other roads and they become one road for a while. Then they veer away again. So there's nothing to be pissy about. You're just following your road, and they're following thiers. That's how I feel about this woman. I'm sure she's doing very well. She was a part of a dinner group we had for about two years. She was fabulous in that, but not so much after it broke apart. It was a very situational friendship.

Anyway, the book is really good. It's a fascinating story. It starts out with someone with very specific language skills being shown some old documents and translating them. I haven't gotten very far. I'm looking forward to listening to it. It's good knitting material. The New Yorker in me likes the NYC history. And there's all that Dutch history, which is good to know. Apparently the tolerant atmosphere of Amsterdam was replicated in New Amsterdam, which is why NYC has such a different tone than the rest of the country. I love that I've chosen to live in both places.

That woman also read Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird. Being a city girl, she had a feeling for pigeons. She was a good reader. I used to be a good reader. I'm not so much any more. Of course I used to commute and wait for elevators, so I was always reading doing that. I don't do either of those things any more. I'm on the bike and I've always got that ipod going. Times change.

Who is this Aran Fellow?

It feels like I've been knitting on this Aran sweater for months, and I have been...sort of. I keep finding other things to knit, and that's drawing the whole process out. So I've had breaks. Fortunately, the diamonds in the pattern propel it along. (I keep wanting to get to the next one.) It's getting heavy, but I don't think I'm going to wear it this year. I mean I could, but it seems unlikely to be finished any time soon.

I've only got 17 inches knit so far. It has to get to 19 inches before I start the decreases or the sleeves, or whatever the next step is. I just have to keep knitting. It's completely intuitive at this point - not exactly boring, but very routine. There's no reason to look at the pattern. The inside of each of the diamonds is different. That's nice. In the end, it might be too small for me to wear, but I'm cool with that. The point is to finish so that I can move on to the shawl.

After our Kool-aid dyeing party, I wanted to use the yarn to see what it looked like knitted up. I've also been wondering what a whole hat of a twisted knit stitch would look like. I put in the diamonds to mix it up a bit. The insides of the diamonds are all purl - or is that what we call 'reverse stockinette'? I'm digging how the color looks. It's got a very nice speckled feel. No ugly pooling, just subtle color changes. Complete accident. It only took 50 grams, so I started another hat immediately, this one with cables.

I like the decrease a lot. I like those clean lines. I did a loop at the top, but it's a very small loop and it's four stitches across in a twisted rib rather than i-cord. I like it, but it's too small for me. However, I like touching it, so I'll keep it around for a while so I can pet it. I'll have to block it and see what that does to it. It's already been dyed twice. Would blocking it really do something to it? We'll see.
I really like the vertical lines. That's part of why I like twined knitting is the lines. Brioche also has some nice lines. After I finish the second hat, I'm back on the sweater. I like this style of knitting. It's very tight and exact. I'm getting better at it. I'm just completely daunted by that sweater.

Bed-in Anniversary

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Bed-in. They knew that their wedding would attract a lot of attention, so they used the big day to promote world peace. Interestingly, the "event" took place at the Hilton down the street from us. And it's the Hilton that Patty stayed in when she was here for the wedding...our wedding.

There is an exhibition going on there that is all about the Bed-in. I should walk over and check it out - just to say I did. This is the same Hilton that Klaas Bruinsma (a drug lord) was shot in front of in 1991. Who knew we had such a famous landmark in our neighborhood? For years, I rode by that hotel and I thought, Why do they have build such ugly buildings? I feel different about it lately.

This afternoon, Fred left for Frankfurt. I got to do one of my favorite things in the world. I sat here on a gray, rainy afternoon and knitted while I listened to a podcast. It was pretty amazing. Nowhere to go for the moment, nothing pressing. There's something about it being gray and rainy that made it that much better.

I have to leave the apartment in a bit to ride through the cold and the (very light) rain to see a friend I haven't seen in a long time. She's driving up from The Hague All I want to do is finish the aran sweater I'm working on. It's just tons of knitting. It's at a very mindless stage.

All I am saying here is: Give Peace a Chance.

What's Next

Not being Irish, and living in a country where that holiday is pretty much ignored, this is my offering for St. Patrick's Day. Or St. Patty's Day. The Patty I know is certainly a saint.

The Amaryllis bulbs we got for our wedding grew, bloomed and then turned to these. I think they're sort of beautiful. Fred thinks that the "flower part" has officially retreated to the bulb and that I can safely cut the very healthy stalk and throw these away because they contain nothing. I think they look like the kind of thing that would be tasty sauteed up with butter and a little garlic. Not to worry, though, I won't eat them. They just look like they'd be good. And I'll leave them standing for a while because I like looking at them. I could Google it and find out what to do...but wouldn't it be easier for someone to just tell me?

Last night a few of us (me and some ladies) did some dyeing. I took a skein of white Cascade 22o, added a little cherry Kool-Aid and nuked it for a few minutes. (Full disclosure: I also added a little lemonade Kool-Aid because I initially wanted to try to get a mottled effect. It didn't work.) Then I took some grape Kool-Aid powder and sprinkled it on here and there and nuked it again. I came up with this:

It was okay. Nothing fabulous. It was red. A little too orange or pink for me in spots, not completely saturated. I like the purple, which reads sort of black. It would be good for a hat or something. This is it still wet from sitting in a zip-lock bag all night. I'm less than thrilled with it because Malia got a really deep cherry red. But she boiled hers, she didn't mix colors and she might have started with a tan yarn. Anyway, I was coveting her color. I wanted a deeper, more saturated color.

This morning, I decided to take my little bag of red onion skins I'd been saving and some vinegar and see if I could over-dye the skein to get something deeper. I simmered the skins (just the dry part) and a couple of splashes of vinegar for about 45 minutes before removing the skins and putting the yarn in. I simmered the yarn for about an hour and then put it outside to cool.

The yarn soaked up a lot of the color of the water, which was sort of a rusty red-ish brown. I let it cool for a while and then I rinsed it out. It seems darker, certainly more saturated. If I could just keep it in the water, I'd be very happy with the color.

This is it hanging up to dry. I like it enough. We'll see what happens when it's really dry. I'll make a hat. I have something I want to try. Whether or not I'll wear it remains to be seen. I wouldn't have worn the color of the yarn last night. This seems almost doable. I hate to admit it, but I think the color in the photo is a little more intense than the actual yarn now hanging on the balcony. I could always dye it again if I really don't like it.

Suddenly I'm curious about dyeing yarn. I have a local supplier for reasonably priced yarn. I want to see what I can do in terms of things you can get from the grocery store. Supposedly you can get a lot of nice colors. We'll see. Might be just a bunch of tans and browns.

This afternoon I sat on the balcony with my face in the sun, just like a real Dutch person. I think I need some sun for my disposition. And a little color wouldn't hurt.

In the Background

Today in a Ravelry group, I read about a survey about men and knitting. And because I am the type of person who takes surveys, I took the survey.

There were some general demographic questions regarding age and income and then there was a question about how big my stash is. (For anyone not 'in the know,' a stash is all the unknitted yarn one owns.) The answers ranged from '0-10' balls gradually all the way up to 500+. I can't imagine having that much yarn.. I put myself in the 30-50 ranged and it think that's stretching it. It's probably right below 30. Then it asks a lot of other stuff about how you think men are viewed in the knitting world and about the amount of patterns and books geared towards male knitters. And then it asks about your perception of men who knit.

You can take the survey if you're a knitter - or crafter. It's interesting if you like surveys. A guy named Kyle Kunnecke is going to write a book on men and knitting. It's always nice to help a guy out. Go on over if you're a crafter. Feel excluded if you're not.

Warning: sudden subject change

I'm really glad that today is Friday. Somehow, the bulk of my work got pushed to the end of the week for the next several weeks, so it's completely the opposite of what I would prefer, which is to have the end of the week less busy. It's a lot of work to figure out how to manage it. (It's almost like working in an office the whole week, but it's exhausting in a different way.)

Warning: another sudden subject change

I bought the yarn in the picture a few weeks ago because it was pretty and because I'd heard good things about Manos Silk Blend. Then I proceeded to search for a pattern. After several attempts at finding a pattern, I found one on Ravelry. (Ravelry again?) This pattern is called the Lace Rib Scarf. Not the most exciting name, but it's an easily-memorized four row repeat - definitely what I was looking for.

One side has a rib pattern and the other side has a sort of a lace pattern. It doesn't really look that lacy to me, sort of cabley, but not really. It's sort of a girly scarf with a boy color. It's not for me. It's just to use up the yarn. The idea was to have this going for times when I needed something simple I could knit and not have to think about - like for Stitch 'n Bitch. I need to get back to my aran sweater because I want to finish it because I want to do a lace shawl. I'm itching to do some real lace.

That's sort of what I love about knitting the most. There are constantly new projects to start and finish.

Dyeing Party

Yesterday, some of my knitting friends got together and had a little dyeing party. I'd never dyed before. It's one of those things I hear about on podcasts, but which sounds confusing, unpredictable and messy. However, since a space, dyes and the support of other people dyeing was being provided, I went.

We started off by using some natural dyes. Then we moved on to Kool-Aid and then I used some Ashford dyes, which are chemicals.

The natural dye was originally oak galls and then we added logwood, which was supposed to turn it purple. That didn't happen. It came out this light brown/golden color (It looks much more orange here than it actually is) on my yarn and just sort of messed with the other yarns, which varied from reds and oranges to white. The verdict of the other participants on it was "yucky." I was just happy that mine was no longer pale yellow. I've had some pale yellow in my stash for way too long.
Kool-Aid is an amazing product. We'd heard a couple of different things about it, and some people had experimented with it. Malia got a shipment of Kool-Aid in and some of us played with that. Dagmar used some pink lemonade on a little handspun and then sat and knitted. (I know, right?) I took the last bit of a striped gray and beige monstrosity that Fred picked out years ago and used grape Kool-Aid on it. The yarn soaked it up really fast. It was like it was asking for it - Please help me stop being a boring yarn! Interestingly, the water becomes clear when all of the dye is soaked up in the yarn. One of those things you hear about, but it's amazing to see it happen.

The green is from some Ashford dyes that mix pretty much like paint. I used yellow and blue (you might want to write this down) to make green. It keeps changing as it dries. I like how green it is. I've heard you can't get a good green with natural stuff.

I used orange Kool-Aid on these Melina gloves that I made a while back. I wanted something bright since they'll be fore a child. I got it. Another interesting tid-bit is that Kool-Aid adds something called "LAKE" to flavors that it doesn't want to be completely clear. Hence, the water never turns completely clear. It was sort of a milky orange when I decided to call it quits and take the mittens out of the dye bath. They were put in the microwave for a couple of minutes (two minutes each time) to set the dye. Ever spilled Kool-Aid on yourself? I don't think the microwave is that necessary. And the yarn smelled like orange and grape when it was over, which made Cassandra a little ill.
The last thing I did was take a fairly boring brown cotton yarn and used some red Ashford dye on it. It came out looking the color of raw meat when it was wet. As it dries, it's looking more and more orange. It'll be fine for a baby bib or something. The new color opens up some new options and I always think baby bibs when I see cotton.

Years ago, I did The Artist's Way with a friend in NYC. The author, Julia Cameron, is really big on having artist dates and doing creative things to get your mind thinking and get your creative juices flowing. It felt a little "bad" to do this yesterday. But I think it's really important to play and experiment and create. My life is certainly not the life of average 43-year-old man from my home town. This sort of stuff is part of the reason why.

Color Work and Long Division

One September, after a long hot summer, I found myself in math class at Hurst Hills Elementary School looking at long division problems. The problems looked familiar, and I knew that I'd learned long division the year before, but I didn't have the foggiest idea how to begin solving them. After some private instruction, I got the basics and I figured it out. It is now firmly in my bag o' tricks and I use it regularly. (I know adults who can't do long division.)

I also have a really distinct memory regarding learning multiplication and my father. I had a set of flash cards with the problem on the front and the answer on the back. For some reason, my father was going through them with me. When we got to 8 x 8, I was stumped. I'd seen it before, but I couldn't remember the answer. He was called into the other room for a moment and I looked at the answer. When he returned, I said, "Is it 64?" Now every time I'm faced with multiplying eight times eight, I think of him and that moment. The lesson: cheating is, in fact, a way to learn. Not the first thing to go to, but it can help. For some reason, I was much better at multiplication than division. I can do some complex multiplication in my head. (Not under pressure.) Division is less automatic.

While making this Very Warm Hat (by Elizabeth Zimmerman) I decided to put a color work strip in the middle to spice it up a bit. The hat is 90 stitches around. Because I know my multiplication tables, I knew that I was looking for a pattern that was 5, 9, 10 or 15 (for example.)

Okay, it's not rocket science, but it's nice to have that stuff at hand. They don't tell you that when you're learning it - at 10-years-old. I'm not sure it would have helped motivate me, but they don't tell you.

There's a lot of other uses for math in knitting. I like that. I like that there are times when you have to do some cipherin', as Jethro Bodine might say.

One thing I really like about this hat is that you knit one hat and then you pick up all the stitches at the cast on edge and knit another hat in the other direction. It's a really nice looking edge. (You know I have an exciting life when I have to blog about a really nice looking edge.)

This hat is the third attempt at making myself a new winter hat. The first was too big, the second was too small. This one should fit. If it doesn't, think of the nice gift it will make. Here's the one that was too big.
I especially like the stripe on this one.

It's reversible. It's double thick - making it "very warm" as the name says.

It allowed me to use up a lot of left overs, although Fred hates the little yellow Yakima. He's not very adventurous in hat color. It's the inside of the hat, so I'm fine with the yellow.

My plan is to felt it down to a wearable size. I have a big head and it's gigantic on me. If I had a reasonably big 'fro, I could wear it comfortably. I don't have enough hair for a 'fro. It would be a struggle for me to get a comb-over going. So when we have a felting party, this is coming with.

Yeah...More Knitting

I recently finished a couple of small projects. The first is the Ice Queen that I wrote about back in February of 2008. I was stopped in my tracks by the picot edging and I did it wrong and it was completely useless. As I didn't look forward to picking out the cast off of this Kid Silk Haze, I put it away until I thought I would have the patience to do it. There was also the cast off - and it's got 108 stitches on the last edge and then 156 stitches of a provisional cast on. And I knew that would drive me nuts. So I put it in a basket for a year.

It's a nice thing to have off my needles. It's one of those things that has been hanging over my head. I had a masters degree like that one time. I hated it. It was such a relief to finish that thing.

Fred thinks this looks like a dead cat. Okay...it does from this point of view. It was an unfortunate choice of yarn. I had no idea it striped like that. I thought it would be more random and mixed. The good thing is that it makes sense on. I won't put a picture of me wearing it, but I'll try to get a snap of someone in it. (Fred can you come here for a second?)

I enjoyed doing this because it required beads. They were fairly expensive. Swarovski crystals at some ridiculous price. The process of putting them on was a little fiddly. (It requires fishing line or a tiny crochet hook.) I'm glad I didn't do the other version.

The scalloped edge is nice. Again, it looks good on. It's very soft. That mohair has a good look when it's done. I might do something else with this stuff later. I still have almost a full ball of it in a my stash. It's less mottled.

The second thing I finished but haven't written about is a pair of Knucks for my friend, Butch. I offered to make him a pair and he said he wanted black and that his hands were fairly small. These are apparently slightly too small. I'll make another pair in a bit. I didn't use felted tweed because they don't have it in black, unfortunately. (Or they don't carry it at De Afstap.) I used a Rowan wool-silk. They feel super nice. Glad I kept notes. Knucks is a really good pattern. I've made about ten pair of these. They're fairly quick, don't take a whole lot of yarn, and people like them

Fred took this picture. Sometimes I give him a little assignment and he does an amazing job. (He hates to hear me say "assignment.") It's really difficult to photograph black and make it look black and see the texture of the fabric, as you can see by the two pictures of the gloves that I took. He's very creative and good with the light. I work with fairly standard light and settings.

And this little loop is one of my favorite things. I am crazy about the i-cord. I try to work it into almost everything.

I'm fiddling around with knitting now. I'm not sure what I'm going to work on next. I'm doing a crochet hat in a green wool that's sort of left over and I'm doing a feather and fan scarf that I can take to knitting on Mondays. It's sort of mindless, so I can talk. I'm not really that interested in the scarf, but I wanted to use the Manos Silk Blend.

I'm winding my way back to the aran sweater. Slowly.