Knitting in a certain yarn...

I got an email from Knit Picks recently, asking if I'd be interested in coming up with a design for a new yarn colorway. Free yarn is free yarn, so naturally, I said yes. The yarn arrived, and it was beautiful. I've converted all my photos to black and white, since the colorway has to stay secret until it's released. I immediately dived in; I had already come up with a design that I thought would work... but it didn't.

The tiny-cables stitch pattern I wanted to use was completely obscured by the color variations. So I frogged it and started over. And frogged it and started over. And frogged it and started over. Finally, I came up with a design I liked; the cables and lace showed up well enough. But when it was about halfway done, it was clear that it was going to be enormous and not fit anyone with a normal-sized head (did I mention it was a hat?)... so I frogged it and started over. Again. I made some more adjustments to the cable pattern, to make it fit into a smaller stitch count, but I forgot to take into consideration that eight-stitch cables pull in much more than four-stitch cables do. Long story short, the hat I was designing to fit me ended up fitting my six-month-old niece almost perfectly.

 She's adorable, and she knows it.

 I like how it turned out, and may make another one, with the intention of having her model for me. But for now, I've abandoned that hat design. A friend of mine suggested that the stitch pattern would look nice in a cowl, which I thought was a great idea. Since a cowl wouldn't have any decreases or increases to worry about, I wouldn't have to figure out how to fit them into the design, as I had with the hat.

Three days later, I had a finished cowl, and almost no leftovers. My friends suggested 10 inches for the width. I was running out of yarn, so I only did 8 inches, which is fine for me, because I have a really short neck.

So I went through all that stress and ripping, to come up with a super-simple cable-and-lace cowl(and a hat idea for another day). And next time I'm asked to "come up with something" for a new yarn, I'll only agree if it's a solid color.

Soft, beautiful yarns...

I got yarns in the mail!!  Woot!

Knit Picks announced last week that they were having a sale on selected sock yarns.  I had been waiting for this!  I wanted to get some yarns to make socks for me and the girls, and I really like Stroll.  So I went and looked...and found that all the colors I really wanted were in the sale list!  The red (Gypsy Tonal) is for me, the green and brown (Aloha Multi, which actually looked turquoise and brown on the website) is for Angel, the darker purple (Berry Patch Hand Painted) is for Princess, and the lighter purple (Dolly Hand Painted) is for Kitty.  I did a little swatching(with scrap yarn) last night, and came up with a plan for Princess's socks.  Now I just need to swatch with sock yarn to figure out the needle size I need to use.  But first I need to finish the second Winding Road Sock.  I'm just a few repeats from being done. ☺

♥

I've started doing yoga, in the hopes that it will make my back better.  Yesterday Princess was doing it with me.  I thought the video was over and put away all my equipment, and she said, "Oh, look, mommy, there's more!"  so I left it on for her to do.  And she looked so cute, I just had to take a picture.

Please excuse the mess in the background.  We were doing laundry two days ago, and some of the stuff didn't get put away.  And now it's time to do laundry again, so why bother?  Haha.  Ow.  I shouldn't laugh.  Or try to move.  My back went out again while I was sleeping.  It hurts.

How To Recycle a Sweater

I like to recycle sweaters.  Not just for the sake of being "green", but for the sake of being frugal.  I can find nice big cotton sweaters for $3 at my local thrift shop, and get a whole lot of yarn from taking them apart.  Recently, I've had several friends ask me about the process, so I decided to do a little tutorial about it, in case anyone else is interested.

♥

So, first of all, a few general pointers...when choosing a sweater to recycle:

the bigger, the better

stick with solid color sweaters(stripes and other colorwork are a pain to unravel)

check the seams; if they're serged seams, skip it(I'll explain in a minute)

I usually only use cotton sweaters for this, because of wool's tendency toward felting

♥

And now, on to the tutorial!  Here's the sweater I chose: an Eddie Bauer, men's size large, 100% cotton, cream-colored ribbed sweater.  I washed and dried it before beginning to take it apart.

 Okay, I know this next one isn't a great picture; my camera wouldn't cooperate on such a close-up...but this is me checking the seams.  If you aren't sure what the difference between a serged seam and a simple, stitched seam is, go look at a basic t-shirt.  T-shirts are generally made by cutting and sewing knitted fabric.  To keep the edges from fraying, they're stitched with a serger, a machine that cuts the fabric close, and stitches over and over the edge.  If you attempt to take apart a sweater with serged seams, you'll end up with lots of short bits of yarn, not long enough to use for anything.  Trust me, I learned this lesson the hard way.

 Now then, on we go: the seams on this sweater are perfect.  Most commercially-made sweaters are not seamed using mattress stitch.  Which is a good thing when you want to take them apart.  The seams on this sweater are done like a crochet chain.  So you just need to find the end of the seam that was the finishing end, undo the knot, and pull.  The sweater will magically(or it seems so) come apart at the seams!

 Here are all the pieces.  Except the little bit of ribbing from the neck opening; I decided that tiny bit of yarn wasn't worth the effort.

Now that the pieces are taken apart, it's time to begin unraveling.  I picked a sleeve for the first bit.  I didn't take a picture, but I think y'all can figure out how to undo the bindoff edge and pull the yarn.  I wound mine  around a chair back as I unraveled it, so that I could measure it as I went.  This chair is 38 inches around the back, and the yarn from the sleeve went around it 495 times, so...495x38 divided by 36 gives me my yardage: 522.5 yards of fingering-weight cotton, from one sleeve!

 After it's wound around the chair and measured, I wind it with my ball-winder.  You could wind it into a traditional ball if you prefer that, but I like center-pull balls better.

 And here's the finished ball of yarn!  Now you just do the same with the other sections of the sweater!

I like to store my recycled yarn in ziploc bags; I can write on the outside what the fiber content is and how much yarn it is, in case I forget between winding the yarn and using it.

♥

If anything is unclear, or you have any questions, please comment, and I'll try to answer them!

A little knitting...

I mentioned in my previous post that I had bought a little bit of luxury yarns on my "day off".  Here's what I bought:

 I know it doesn't look like much, but it's good yarn, and good yarn is expensive.  The tonal pink on the left is ShiBui Sock yarn, 50 grams.  I'm hoping it's enough for what I bought it for.  It's for test-knitting a dear friend's pattern.  I'm so excited and hopeful for her.  Her design is beautiful, and really deserves to get published. ♥  The teal in the middle is Lacey Lamb, extrafine lambswool laceweight, about 100 grams.  It is incredibly soft!  I'm not sure what I'm going to make with it; maybe a cowl, or a scarf.  I just couldn't resist buying it, even though I didn't have a plan in place for it yet.  The gray on the right is Classic Elite Yarns Silky Alpaca Lace.  It feels really decadent.  I started knitting with it last night:

It's another cowl, same design as the burgundy one that I recently started.  But I started with fewer stitches this time.  I think that will work better.  If it does, I'm going to carefully frog the burgundy one and start over.  Anyway, this gray is going to really pop against my brown hair, much more than the burgundy one will.  I'm still searching for a name for this design.  For now I'm calling it "Waltzing" because it was inspired by "The Waltz" scarf.  But I'm changing several little things, and I'm beginning to think it needs a totally separate name.  Right now I'm leaning toward "Frost", unless that name is taken.  I love this color; it reminds me of my mom's hair, which is light gray, almost white, and just as soft and silky as this lovely alpaca/silk yarn.

Still distracted...

They look like basic balls of yarn, right?

Actually, they're dryer balls. I had a bit of this pretty Lion Brand Yarn in my stash, and it wasn't really enough to knit anything with it, so I decided to make some dryer balls. From what I've read, they're great at reducing static cling in the dryer and softening fabrics, without those dryer sheet things. I figure I'll give it a try, and see how well it works.

Here's how I made them.... I used 100% non-superwash wool, and simply wound it into a tight ball, roughly the size of a golf ball. Then I carefully placed the ball inside a small sock, and used cotton yarn to tie the sock closed, so that it was tight all around the ball. Then I put it in the washer with a load of laundry with the water set on hot wash, cold rinse. (Note: don't wash them in a load with bleach; bleach dissolves wool.) I put them through two cycles like that, then removed them from the socks. The wool had felted somewhat, so the balls didn't come unrolled. I even threw one across the room to be sure. ☺ Then I wrapped more wool yarn around the balls, until they were about the size of baseballs, and repeated the washing-inside-socks process. I also put them through a cycle in the dryer before removing them from the socks. They shrunk a little with the felting process, so they ended up about the size of tennis balls. (The blue ones ended up a little bigger than the more colorful ones.) I have a front-loading washer, which is great for laundry but not as efficient for felting, so if I had used a top-loader, they might have shrunk more. I haven't tried them out yet, because in the process of making them, I finished my laundry! But I'm sure there'll be more laundry in a day or two and I can try them in the dryer. From what I've read, they continue to felt a little each time you use them in the dryer, which will make them more dense, and even less likely to come apart. I can hardly wait to see whether the hype is true. I'll try to remember to post an update after I've used them.

A new project.

Well, I went to the chiropractor yesterday, but I am still in pain. Phooey. But it's raining today anyway, so it's not like I could work in the yard even if my back felt fine. I'm spending the day in my knitting chair, alternating heating pad, ice pack, and back massager. And knitting! I cast on a new project last night, and have already almost finished the first skein of yarn. Granted, they're small skeins, only 123 yards in each skein, but still. A whole lot of knitting going on. I haven't taken any pictures yet of this new project, but I will after I get a few more inches done on it. Right now, it's still too scrunched on the needles to get a good picture. So for now, you'll just have to imagine: soft pink superwash dk wool, being knit in alternating blocks of lace and stockinette stitch.
I am in love with this yarn. I'd never tried it before, but had heard great things about it. It's Knit Picks Swish DK, in the color "Petal". It's perfect for this baby blanket I'm making with it. I just hope I have enough. I bought 5 skeins. I'm thinking I should have bought 6 or 7. But I'll wait and see when I get about halfway through, whether I'll need to order more. Of course, the challenge then will be trying to get more in the same dyelot. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. And then, if I do need to order more, I'll order the same amount more in the blue that I got with the pink. I'm making two blankets, with the same design, one pink and one blue. I hope I have enough already.
Ok, enough rambling. Back to knitting.

Yard work and house work and knitting, oh my!

Oops...once again, it's been a while. I need to get back into the habit of writing. I don't like this writing once or twice a month stuff. And yet, I keep doing it. Oh, well.

♥

Anyway, we did more outdoors work this past weekend. Most of the window trim on the back of our house was rotten and/or bug-eaten. It had gotten to the point that it needed to be replaced ASAP, or the rot would have started to get into the framing of the house, which would be really expensive to fix. So we hired our new friend Kerry to come and replace all of the rotten trim, and Hubby and I worked alongside him, learning as we went. Then Kerry's employee John painted the whole back of the house, and all the trim around the whole house(the front and sides of the house are brick). My house looks so good now! Well, on the outside, anyway. I need to do some serious cleaning and de-cluttering(as my mom calls it) inside. Maybe I'll do some of that today.

♥

We also did a bunch more yard work while Kerry and John worked. Hubby went behind our back fence, into the poison-ivy-overrun pasture, and cut down all the trees and vines behind the fence. I can see the sky behind my fence now! I am so happy about that. And he sprayed some "vegetation-killer" on everything that was growing back there. It's pretty strong stuff; the fumes were giving me a headache, and I was next-door talking to the neighbors when he did it. Hopefully it'll kill all the poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac; we've been assured all three are back there. Inside the yard, I did more trimming, and raking. Hubby cut out the roots of the bushes and trees I had cut down, so we'll be able to plant grass in those spots.

♥

I'm not really much of a gardener, but I'm making a valiant attempt this year. I'm doing a container garden on the deck right now, and I might move some of the plants to prepared ground if I think it's necessary later. Here's a pic of my baby tomato plants; I just transplanted them to these containers, and I'm hoping they survive the shock.

In the largest container in this picture are pumpkin plants, and the little one to the right of that has zucchini.

In this last picture are my bean plants. I love fresh green beans! I also just transplanted these ones; I had about 15 plants in one pot. I picked the best 10, and split them between two pots. The ones in the right-hand pot have perked up some since I took this picture on Saturday, thank goodness.

The next thing on the to-do list is to burn all the brush; once again we have piles. We won't be able to work on that today; it's supposed to be windy. Safety first. But another thing on my to-do list is to pull all the pickets off the back fence. We're going to redo it, as inexpensively as we can, which means leaving the posts and some of the supports that are already there, as long as they're level and square. We're also going to make it about half the height that it is now, to take advantage of the great view of the pasture, now that all those trees and vines are gone.

♥

In knitting news, I've made a bunch of squares. ☺ And I'm working on more. I also got yarn to make baby blankets for a friend of mine who is having twins. I'm going to make a pink and a blue blanket, both with the same pattern. I'm designing the pattern, and I'm going to submit it to Knit Picks, for their Independent Designer Program. I'll be using Knit Picks Swish DK yarn, which, I've been told, is a lovely, soft superwash wool. It definitely feels soft in-the-skein; I can't wait to get it knitted up.

♥

And I have a new favorite yarn: "I Love This Cotton" from Hobby Lobby. I got some for making squares, and now I'm wondering why I waited so long to try out this lovely yarn! It's incredibly soft in-the-skein, and even softer in the knitted fabric. It has great stitch definition. It's a much smoother, softer cotton than the "Peaches and Cream" that Walmart sells, or the "Sugar and Cream" that Hobby Lobby sells. And the price isn't much higher than that of those yarns. If you haven't worked with this yarn yet, go get some. You will love it, too.