Tag Archives: yarn

Christmas in July

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Nothing like receiving a package to make it feel like Christmas, even in July.  The outside temperatures say HOT and the yarn says warm.

I ordered four skeins of  Knit Picks Stroll in fingering weight in the color Bare, one sock blank* also Bare, blunt point tapestry needles, a knit-picker, and Pints and Purls book.

A great book so far.  I’ve just skimmed through it and found several things I want to knit.  The projects are rated for “designated driver” to “four drinks” with the DD rating for knitting with fewer distractions and the four drinks rating for more distractions aka beer or other concoctions  Did you notice those sexy reading glasses?  Buy-one-get-one free for $2.98.  Can’t beat that price even if they aren’t exactly right.

Can you guess what my plans are for the Bare naked yarn?  I picked up these Easter Egg coloring kits for $0.25 each after Easter.  I want to dye or hand paint the yarn for socks or whatever I feel like knitting with fingering weight yarn.

I’ve seen all sorts of yummy colorways of sock yarn and I really want to dye my own.  I’ve never done this so if you have any techniques, suggestions, experience, or positive energy, please feel free to share!

The next few weeks are going to be a bit hectic (motorcycle trip and a party) so I might not get to this right away.

*sock blank description straight from the Knit Picks web site:    Our brand new sock yarn dye blanks are long double-stranded pre-knit stretches of machine washable, Merino/nylon blend sock yarn that you can hand dye using the dye method of your choice, and then knit directly from the sock blank to easily create your own colorways and self-striping sock yarns. Finished knit size is 33″ long by 9″ wide.

Knitted nests

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I suspect the birds are knitting a nest in the rain spout above my window at work.  I see them  flying in there with long pieces of straw and grass.  They must be rebuilding as we had torrential downpours over the weekend and a pile of nest making materials was on the ground below the rain spout when I came in yesterday morning.

Nest above my window

YOu can see in teh above picture that it’s raining here again today.  I wonder if their work will be washed away again.

A couple of weeks ago I scattered small bits of yarn (less than an inch long) in the wooded area behind our house for the birds to use in their nests.  I noticed most of it was gone when I walked around our yard last evening.

Dots and Stripes purse pattern available

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Several bloggers mentioned last week about wanting to try stranded or Fairisle knitting.

Dots and stripes

I have a small project that would be a great introduction to stranded knitting.

Check it out there to the right on my Pattern page.  You can get more details from Ravelry.

I was inspired by the color work of Kristin Nicholas and the Traveler’s Pocket by Nancy Bush.  In fact I used the same motif in part of my color work and the same braided strap as in the Traveler’s Pocket.

The pattern is available in pdf.

The end of my yarn

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No, I didn’t use all of my yarn.

I had three more inches to bind off on the collar of my Peony Twist cardi and I reached the end of the ball.  I’ve never had this happen to me and wasn’t sure what I should do. 

End of the yarn

So I ripped it back to the beginning of the row.  I still have the sleeves to sew in so I’m going to do that before I bind off the collar since I will need more yarn for the seaming.  I’d rather rip back the collar a couple more rows and start a new ball farther back so I don’t have to deal with more weaving in on the bound off row.

I have one sleeve pinned in place.

Off to do my least favorite task: seaming.