Home again, home again

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Mr. Aitch and I were out of town for several days.

Without internet service.

I’m not complaining as it’s nice to unplug.

My brother’s birthday is October 26 and mine is the 27th so our family decided to get together at his Lake Chautauqua (New York) cottage to celebrate.  He lives in New Hampshire and my sister lives in Ohio so it’s a great meeting place, both geographically and scenically.

We ate prime rib, baked potatoes and roasted asparagus.  And dessert was vanilla cheesecake with a chocolate ganache topping.

Here we are getting ready to blow out the Happy Birthday candles my sister provided.

It was a wonderful celebration…

…but it’s nice to be home again.

And in case you are wondering, the nursery rhyme is:

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog,
Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Home again, home again, market is done.

My first shawl – Spindrift

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I have tried to get up the courage to knit a shawl.  One to wrap around my shoulders when a sweater is too warm.  Or around my neck under a coat when a heavy scarf is too bulky.

The Spindrift Shawl by Helen Stewart is the perfect fit.  (Her website is here.)  Crescent shape, a little bit of lace, one skein…what’s not to love? I bought some Zauberball sock yarn earlier in the summer so I cast on for this project sometime in the middle of October.

The pattern is great and includes stitch counts at the end of each row. After starting, ripping, and restarting several times, I added a lifeline as I kept losing or dropping a stitch.  You can see those in the picture below. They will be removed once the knitting is completed and before blocking.

The first 4-10 stitches at the beginning and end of each row requires a bit of concentration but after a while it’s easy enough for TV knitting.

I thought this colorway, Bunte Gasse 2310, was mostly blues, greens and a bit of yellow but it’s got some red in there as well.  It will do but was not what I expected.

It’s taking me about 20 minutes to knit one row as the rows get longer the more stitches I have to knit.  Mr. Aitch and I have a few trips planned and if I can get him to drive, I can knit!

Another overdye

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I started with this yarn: Cleckheaton Country 8-ply 100% washable wool in a very beautiful purple color.  But not for a man or at least not the men I know and would knit for.

Enter food coloring, vinegar, squirt bottles and a microwave.

I decided to dye all three of the full skeins that I had because I didn’t think I would use the yarn as it was.  And because I wanted to.

I used basically the same process as I did here.  You can do an internet search for other methods.  After soaking the yarn in a vinegar bath for about 30 minutes, I alternated squirting the dye between shades of blue, shades of green, and a mixture of both. (Sorry no pictures of the process.)  I didn’t want a solid color so I squirted some parts with just the green, some with the blue, and some with a combo of both.

Once completely saturated the yarn was wrapped in plastic, placed in a glass casserole dish and nuked for two minutes, rested for two minutes and so on for about four sessions total.

The yarn was rinsed after it cooled until the water ran clear and colorless.

Here it is after it dried. This reminds me of the ocean…blues, greens and a bit of the purple shows through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t wait to begin another project.  This time it’s the 1898 hat by Kristin Byrnes as posted on the Christmas at Sea|The Seamen’s Church Institute website.  Scroll down on the linked page for many free patterns.  I should be able to knit two hats with the amount of yarn that I overdyed.

Most of my wool yarn is not machine washable but I might need to change that…

Six and seven

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I was wrong.  I’ve knit seven pairs of Dorothy’s Slip Stitch Spiral Knit Socks.

Pair #6

Pair #6 using a solid Knit Picks Stroll fingering weight yarn in Peapod plus the Easter Egg dyed yarn and the rest of the red/white/black self-striping yarn.  

I tried to alternate the red/white/black and the peapod yarn to the tip of the toe.  You can see on one of the socks that I ran out before the end of the toe and just used the peapod to finish it.

Love these socks.

SSSK Socks #7 use a new purple self-striping yarn, the rest of the blue self patterning yarn from here and here and here along with the rest of the Easter Egg dyed yarn.  

In fact I ran out of the blue and finished the second sock with some of the Trekking XXL yarn from these socks.

It’s not crucial for the striping to match with this particular pattern but it almost happened.  Unintentionally, of course.

I love these socks, too.