To the right of this entry, if you are viewing this directly on the blog, you will see a widget, prompting you to donate to some worthy causes.

First up…

the Crochet Club, which was started by a teacher in South Carolina. She is trying to raise some money for supplies so that her 3rd-5th grade students are able to learn an (awesome!) skill, that will also preoccupy them during their morning wait for school to begin.

That was the only crochet-related cause at DonorsChoose.org, so I decided to bring in some knitting-related ones as well. I am, however, keeping with the teacher’s teaching their students a craft theme.

The other 3 groups are as follows:

Let’s Learn to Knit — an elective class of 6th graders in a high-needs community who need to raise funds for supplies. There has been enthusiasm for such a class, but there is no guarantee that the students’ families will be able to provide supplies.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside — High School students wanting to learn how to knit, then providing the finished objects to their local Ronald McDonald house. Needs funds for supplies.

Warm Head, Warm Heart — Third, Fourth, and Fifth graders are wanting to learn how to knit in order to provide their finished goods to the local homeless shelters.

That’s it! If you’re willing to donate even $2.00 to either, or each, of these groups, please do so. They’ll be able to meet their goals if we all just give what we can.

As incentive, if we can meet the goals for each of the groups, I will create a colorway and hold a giveaway. If we meet the goal for one group, I will create a colorway and dye a single skein of DK-weight yarn and offer it up on this blog for a giveaway. If we meet the goal for two groups, I will create a colorway and dye TWO skeins of DK-weight yarn. If we meet the goal for THREE groups, I will–you get the point.

For every group’s goal we meet, I will dye an equal amount of skeins, and we will have an equal amount of winners. 1 goal, 1 skein, 1 winner. 4 goals, 4 skeins, 4 winners.

Go ahead, donate, and make me proud!

(If you missed part 1, here it is.)

So, this is the part where I switched to the girlfriend’s camera, because the yarn was dry and I was ready to show it off better…

Part 5a - Hanging to dry; almost, but not quite (images are clickable)

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of the skein, as it was, twisted together. It was really pretty! I’m a fan of re-skeining, however, so I couldn’t wait to get through that tedious process to see the final result.

Final Result - Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (title ganked from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, without shame, because I love that show)…

 

And that’s it! Maybe once I get more yarn, and some proper acid dyes, I’ll photograph the pre-dye and dyeing process as well. :)

Now you can buy this yarn!

I wanted to dye this last bit of yarn I had. It’s a 100gm skein of yarn, 450+ yds, of fingering/sock weight yarn. A part of me wanted to wait until I had some Jacquard Acid Dyes, but another part of me was eager to Get It Done.

In the vein of the Get It Done attitude, I mixed up the dye-liquor. I wasn’t really considering the end result so much, which shows in the final skein. I mixed one bottle of neon-pink to one-cup vinegar and 2 cups hot-water (I use the tea kettle for this). I then mixed one bottle of neon-purple to the same proportions as the pink. We have these quart-sized soup containers from Chinese-takeout that work great. It’s probably not the best that it’s plastic, but I knew it wasn’t a long-term solution. Anyway, I can use a sharpie to write the mixture and color on the top of the container in case I do want to use it over in the future.

Moving on–I left the liquor to sit, then drove to the store, picked up some sponge brushes, and made my way back home. There, I soaked the yarn in a soapy, hot-water bath for about an hour. (Usually it’s only a 30-minute soak, but I may have forgot about the yarn in my Olympics haze. Shh.) Once I remembered the yarn again, I gently squeezed the water from the yarn, leaving it damp, but not soaking.

Additional set-up consisted of my laying out two aluminum pans–you know the type, the family-sized lasagna pans–side by side. I draped the yarn so that it was even on both sides, then proceeded to sponge the pink dye-liquor to the yarn in the right pan. I worked up to about the 2-3″ worth of yarn that was draped over the middle where the pans met. I then switched sponge brushes and sponged the purple dye-liquor into the yarn in the left pan. The middle section I decided to sponge lightly across in both colors to blend where the sections met.

I’m Miss High-Tech, I tell you what.

There was some unevenness, even after flipping the yarn over to hit the backside. Because I had some dye-liquor left, I decided to pour the rest of the dye onto the yarn in each of the separate pans. I then smooshed and propped the pans up so that the remaining dye-liquor was hitting all of the yarn.

I left that to sit for a while. A “while” was about 10 minutes, because I sometimes have no patience, and the Ladies Gymnastics was about to come on.

Gently squeezing out the yarn once more, I set it aside and dumped out the nearly-clear dye-liquor left over. Now it was time to wrap it up–literally.

After making room on the countertop, I laid out the plastic wrap on the counter and draped the yarn over the plastic, down the center. I wrapped the yarn, lengthwise, then rolled it up like a little wormy burrito. From this point on, it was no longer up to me how this yarn would turn out!

I stuck that wormy burrito in the microwave and set it for 1 minute on High. I let it rest for 2 minutes, then set it for another minute. I let it rest, then popped it back on for 30 seconds.

The moment I pulled it out of the microwave, I knew I wanted to take photographs. Did I grab the girlfriend’s higher-end digital camera that she takes all of these wonderful shots with? Of course not. I took the initial photos with the lower-end camera that I use to shoot my video tutorials.

Still, it’s worth showing…

Part 1 - Wormy Burrito

Part 2 - Wormy Burrito unwrapping

Part 3 - Yarn is free and in a bowl

Part 4 - Yarn is soaking in hot water and Woolite

And this is where I hung the yarn to dry and decided to switch cameras, but you’ll have to wait for part 2!

This is just a note to mention that I listed the two hand-dyed skeins of yarn I posted about earlier up for sale on Etsy.com. I would keep them, except I know I won’t be doing anything with them for a long while. If you liked them, now’s your chance to buy them!

You can find the two related entries here: “Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest“.

The Etsy listings are located here: briannamewborn.etsy.com

I ended up calling the previous yarn “The Harvest”. This one is “Welcome to the Hellmouth”:

 

(click images to view larger)

Dyed half the skein red (maybe more red-orange) by hand, then stock-pot dyed the whole skein in a medium(ish)-blue. This turned the red (red-orange) a really dark purple, almost black in some spots. There are some areas where the blue didn’t take as well, so the red turned more berry-brown. What ended up happening is that it became this very lightly variegation, and I wonder how it’ll look crocheted or knitted up.

Fingering-weight superwash (wool/nylon) sock yarn.

Okay, I know what you must be thinking: why is she dyeing yarn when she could be crocheting?

To which I reply: I have been crocheting! In fact, I have been working on the following:

• body of a purse in fingering weight yarn that will be felted
• swatch for Spring submission to crochet magazine
• full garment that swatch is based off of for sister-in-law to model and keep

That’s busy, right? On top of work, I feel pretty good about my progress. If I could only stop sleeping, I’d have more time!

My birthday is coming up on the 14th of this month, which is both exciting and scary. It’s exciting for two reasons: (1) my mother has promised to make carrot-raisin salad, which is died-and-gone-to-heaven delicious; and (2) it’s a day solely about me (even though i will probably do what everyone else wants to do)! The scary part is that I’m turning 28. I’m almost out of my 20’s and into my 30’s. Some people say I’m just a kid, and I know I act it sometimes because I’m, umm, very young at heart ( *wink* ). I just think it’s the whole getting older thing, and I don’t want too many more years to pass by without anything really exciting happening. I want to live, rather than exist, you know? And a lot of these years have been spent just existing.

Maybe that’s why I finally decided to start submitting designs, or planning children with the girlfriend (we’re starting insemination this year–August or September). But there needs to be more. I want to travel. I want to ride more rollercoasters…

I want more time. I have so much that I don’t get to do in a day, how the hell am I supposed to do it all in a year?

As freaked as I am about time slipping, I have to say that I feel pretty good about 28. I have a feeling it’s going to bring some awesome things. Excitement, pleasure, fun…it should be worth the initial scare.

Eight skeins of Knit Picks Shine Sport in “Harbor”:

Three skeins of Knit Picks Shine Sport in “Cream”:

Those eleven skeins are for my first FULL garment design. You read that right! I’m moving from sketches and swatches to a full, realized garment! *squee* I’m so excited! (EXCLAMATION POINT x INFINITY)

Now, as a reward for myself (because I need more of a reward than eleven skeins of pretty yarn?), I also bought myself 4 skeins of Knit Picks Bare Superwash (merino/nylon sock yarn) to dye.

Seriously, this is, like, the best night of my life. *twirls around in circles*

I can’t wait for it to arrive. I haven’t used the Shine Sport before, but I’ve been pleased with most of the Knit Picks I have come across. As for the Bare yarn, I’m really eager to get my hands on that yarn to dye. It’s been a while since my first dye-job, and I can’t wait to start mixing colors again. I may use the yarn myself, or sell some of it. I know that each skein is 462 yards of sock-weight yarn, which would be fantastic for so many projects.

How would you feel about that? Would you guys buy some yarn if I dyed some for you? It would never become a full-time thing for me, but it would definitely be something I’d do for special occasions.

Here it is:

Isn’t it..don’t you think…? OH GOD, I have no words. It makes me hungry. I think that’s hunger. It could be…something else entirely.

Back to my story, dear ones.

I mentioned my lust, and that when I have the funds, I was going to buy some of her yarn and podcast about it’s deliciousness. She replied, telling me how she would like to dye me a skein of yarn if I would only tell her the colors I like, the type of dye process, and my address. How freakin’ RAD is that?!!!! There aren’t enough exclamation points in the whole world!!!!!!!!!!

A week or so passes and a box arrives for me, containing this:

That package contained the following:

But it looked more like this:

Mostly because I totally fail at unwinding twisted hanks and winding them into balls. Seriously. Hours of frustration when all I want is to dive in and GO. So, the lovely Julie said she wouldn’t mind winding into the above ball.

MERINO/SILK BLEND, people. It’s a shaded yarn in a light turquoise and I loooooooove it.

As soon as I got it, I started swatching!

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with this beauty. I think it’s about 17WPI, which would place it somewhere around fingering, maybe? Julie? Do you want to step in here?

Anyway, I had two ideas for this, and if there’s yarn enough, I’ll hopefully be able to do both. But here’s the first, a sneak peak if you will:

Half-Double crochet and Front-Post stitches, which are creating that beautiful, natural scallop edging. I’m using a rather large hook for the yarn, so it’s creating a nice lacy effect between the post stitches.

What do you think?

It’s like a friggin’ Choose-Your-Own-Adventure of yarn.

You are a brilliant young designer. You realize that the yarn in your stash, or even that in the stores you’ve visited, are not suitable for this design. Your Google-Fu and Mapquest skills direct you to a land where strands of fibers await your touch, your care, your genius.

Upon arriving, you open the door and find yourself facing three paths. You…

(A) veer left toward cones of varying wools in brilliant shades and delicious texture.

(B) continue straight ahead toward tables full of inspiring, pre-wound cones, and consigned crochet and knit pieces.

(C) veer right toward the aisles of alternative fibers, roving.

(D) make a full lap around, fall into a chair before you pass out from the awesomeness, and cry like a child on Christmas who has just received the pony they’ve asked Santa for the last three years.

There’s some grumbling, some moaning, some late-night drooling over yarn listed on eBay, Etsy, Ravelry, and shop websites. And, by this time, one month later, you’re way past withdrawal, and even more past any mollifying that your partner, who played instigator and suggester to this backwards and ridiculous diet, may offer. Hell, you’re lucky to be alive! Alive…and without yarn…

Then there’s a brief moment where you remember that you told yourself that you would only buy organic yarn this year, and we’re barely into February. Guilt builds up and burns your throat, or maybe that’s stomach acid, but still…it tastes nasty.

You remember the giant bags of yarn you purchased last month, though you weren’t the only one as the Yarn-Diet Nazi helped with a couple bags of her own. Of course, those aren’t supposed to count. Still, you sigh wistfully at how glorious those two days of yarn-purchasing felt, and then the guilt, or acid, or whatever, hits your esophagus and you gag a little.

You start to hear a song in the hallway, and you think that maybe you’ve finely come undone. You’re ready for yarn suicide because here comes the crazies, but no…what’s that? Little gnomes of rationalization sing-song their way past as your head wonders why they’re all not out getting great travel rates. The little cranky-faced, rationale-loving gnomes line up in front you and you forget about the burn in your throat, and the souring that guilt has caused in your stomach, and they tell you that, really, you got all of that yarn on sale. Great prices! they shout, and then cheer for you because you’re an excellent bargain shopper.

Little Gnomes:
Hurrah! Super Bargain Shopper!

You:
Stop, really, you don’t understand. I shouldn’t have–

Little Gnomes:
You’re a Queen! We’re so proud! You saved loads of money! Do you realize the money you would have spent had you purchased all that yarn at–gasp–full retail price?

You:
Well, yes…I know. Easily $50 to $70 more.

And then you get caught up in the excitement of all that money you saved, and the yarn you accumulated.

You:
I got so much, and at great prices, sometimes half or more off! It was the best couple days of my yarn-loving life. I wish you could have seen me leave with the huge, heaping bags, WITH ALL THOSE COLORS!

Little Gnomes:
Oh, we saw, Empress, we saw. We see everything! What an amazing time for you!!!

You:
I know! And, oooh, guess what?

Little Gnomes:
What, Empress? What is it you yearn to tell us?

You:
I got more last night.

Little Gnomes:
More? What of?

You:
MOOOREEEE! It was great. We were only there for a few craft supplies and–

Little Gnomes:
Yeah, and…

You:
There they were. A heaping basket full of Patons Classic Wool skeins.

Little Gnomes:
Oooh, you could felt! You like felting.

You:
I know! And with the new washer, it will be–

Little Gnomes:
Get on with it.

You:
Right, sorry. There they were, and there I was, and it was like…it was like…

Little Gnomes:
Magic?

You:
No, you watch too many Tom Hanks movies. It was like…fate!

Little Gnomes:
And what made this encounter so fated, Queen of Ours?

You:
It was marked down from $5 to $2 a skein!!!

Little Gnomes:
FAIOJFAOIHGIE@#$FH#A!!! WOOHOO.

You:
Best. Night. Ever. I got 6!

Little Gnomes:
Six.

You:
Yeah, six.

Little Gnomes:
The yarn was more than half-off per skein and you only got 6?

You:
Yeah, well…they had five colors on clearance, and one color didn’t go well with the others, there were two shades in red, but the lighter one was all wrong, so I got the darker, some orange, and some burnt-yellow-ish. Two of each.

Little Gnomes:
Why not wipe out the whole stock? Why not put that diet to bed and BUY THE WHOLE CLEARANCE BASKET?

You:
You don’t have to be so mean about it. I had thought of it, but I didn’t really need all of them, and I didn’t want to get too much of one color and not–

Little Gnomes:
And we thought about giving you a crown…

You:
A crown? Really? Like a real Queen?

Little Gnomes:
Well, you’re not getting one nowww. Jeez.

You:
Where you going? What about the crown?

Little Gnomes:
. . .

You:
I’ll go buy more yarn?

Little Gnomes:
*throws confetti*

It went something like that.

(more…)

(more…)

Ebay Seller: pfinch
Ebay Seller’s Store Name: Catnip Yarns
Inca Cotton, organic.

Organic yarn — Inca Cotton, originally uploaded by the crochet side.

This is really a note to myself.

(more…)

Somebody save me!

[and then later…]

Okay, I started to worry when I saw that other people were mentioning that they were on Ravelry earlier, when I still couldn’t connect. I’m thinking it was entirely on my end. In fact, I will admit it being entirely on my end. Some days I don’t feel as computer literate as I am. Woe.

Good news, though! During the entire time I thought I was going crazy, the mail came. In the mail was a skein of yarn I won from Vickie Howell and her Vickie Howell yarn collection. The skin is from her “Love” line, which is a bamboo and silk blend. I’m in love with “Love.” I can’t stop fondling it. This is a really kinky relationship I’m having right now.

Currently, I’m typing with one hand while petting the small skein that fuels my yarn lust.

Do not judge me!

I’m going to my room, and I’m taking my yarn with me.

Let me tell you I am incredibly excited. I was the first response for some yarn I saw on Good Yarn Karma. The yarn? Oh, just a little something green. A little something merino. A little something totally gorgeous. A little something times four. I’m completely psyched.

Katia Ingenua, offered by Sarah of Cloth. Paper. String.–thank you, Sarah. I can’t wait to receive this beautiful yarn.

I will be one of the first to receive some of the early skeins she spins, and I can’t wait to play. My fingers will sometimes twitch when I think too hard about new fibers to fiddle with, and now I will have Meghan to spin me awesome yarn!

I do believe, however, that she will be selling some of this yarn. It’s been a while since she’s had a wheel, so after the first skein or two (the getting-back-on-the-horse skeins), she should be ready to sell what she’s created.

TOO EXCITED.

Solution: Good Yarn Karma.

You can offer up your yarn toward karma (you just offer it up without any strings), or you can offer it for a trade (say, your cascade 220 for something of lorna’s laces). You can even just e-mail them about yarn that isn’t taken yet.

Visit the site and see if you can find anything to your liking, or contact the moderators about offering up some of your own stash!

Crystal Palace Panda Cotton, Fiber: 55% Bamboo, 24% Cotton, 21% Elastic Nylon; Yardage: 170yds. It’s a sock yarn, which is great for when I want to attempt socks in the future (I may even use Lauren’s new pattern–check out her blog above). What I’m thinking, though, is that if I ever get my hands on a skein to swatch with, what I hope to find out is that it would be great for garments. I really want to work on creating some sketches I have down for blouses. Almost all of them, though, require an empire waist ribbing, which means I want a yarn that could continuously snap back.

Yum.

Okay, folks, I’ve put some of my yarn stash up for sale on Etsy. The following is up for sale: (more…)