Strawberry Trifle Sock Yarn

*Finally* I can share this dyeing experiment that took place during dyeing week in late November…

This yarn was dyed for fellow SnB gal, Amanda. Her birthday is on Friday, so I brought this yarn to her on Monday night at SnB. It is also dyed with Wilton food coloring like the other yarns I dyed that week, but this one got a special treatment as well that will result in 8 or 9 *matching* stripes per sock, so kind of thick stripes.

How did I do this you ask? Well, let me tell you…

I used one skein of KnitPicks Color Your Own Sock Yarn and the 4 main red/pink colors of Wilton’s food coloring. You can use any colors you want, though I suggest when you start to use analogous colors (colors that appear next to each other on the color wheel) or different shades of the same color family because it isn’t an exact science and some bleeding of colors can occur, especially the first time you try it.

1. Take the hank of yarn and wind it into a center pull ball.
2. Take the center pull ball and with both ends together, wind it into a doubled center pull ball. Clip the loop so you now have the skein split in half.
3. With your swift at it’s widest (~2 yd circumference), wind the double yarn onto the swift between 10 and 15 rotations. I tie a little bit of scrap to one support of the swift so I can more easily count the rotations. Then, tie this round of yarn in 4-5 spots. It may seem excessive, but it is *very* helpful to the process. Just be sure the ties are loose enough that the dye will still penetrate the yarn.
4. Repeat step 3 until all the yarn is used, tying the most recent group of rotations together and making sure not to get any other rotations tied in with it by accident. This will result in roughly 20-30 yd lengths of yarn for each skein of sock yarn in each section.
5. When all the yarn is hanked and tied into these mini 20-30 yd hanks, figure eight tie very loosely all the groups together with one large tie.
6. Soak yarn for a couple of hours in a strong vinegar/water solution.
7. Prepare your dyes to the strength you desire and put in large squirt bottles (I used ketchup bottles from the dollar store). Since I was using food coloring I mixed it with a strong vinegar/water solution.
8. Prep your dying space with protective newspapers and such, then lay down a run of plastic wrap long enough to easily incase the length of your hank.
9. Lay down the first mini-hanked section, apply the desired dye, wrap in saran wrap and move slightly to the side.
10. Lay down another sheet of plastic wrap and repeat step 9. Repeat this until the entire hank of yarn has been dyed.
11. I had a few sections that weren’t as well contained in their plastic wrap so I then wrapped the whole darn thing in plastic wrap again.
12. Place in a wire mesh strainer (dedicated to dyeing) over boiling water and steam for at least 45 minutes. If you are using a hard to set color like red, you might consider steaming for up to 2 hours. Be sure to flip your wrapped up yarn over a couple of times during the steaming process to ensure that all areas get plenty of direct steam heat.
13. Let cool before rinsing. This can aid in exhausting the dye in some cases.
14. Rinse.
15. Let dry.
16. Now, you need to reskein it into two separate skeins. It’s a piddly process because in winding the doubled center pull ball and putting it on the swift, the two strand of yarn have twisted around each other. So, I recommend making two center pull balls by hand as you pull the yarn off the swift. This way you can easily untwist the two strand of yarn as needed easily. I used two poor man’s nostepinnes (empty toilet paper tube and an empty paper towel tube) in this case. You can hook one strand up to a ball winder, but I personally found it easier to just have the two handmade balls in my lap.
17. You may keep them in these center pull balls. If you used a ball winder or nostepinne there shouldn’t be any problem with storing them long term in the ball form. If you did not have the open space for the ball to expand into you may loose elasticity in your yarn and you should then use your swift to put it into skeins again for storage. You might want to flag the matching ends of each skein if it isn’t obvious which ends match.

Now, with the red, I of course had trouble with the color setting, but I had steamed for a solid two hours. So, I unwrapped it and put it into the water and set it further in simmering water. This caused some bleeding of the different reds together, so the striping is subtle, but more noticeable than I thought when I first removed it from its bath. Also, because I tried rinsing for a while before putting it in for another bath it made the sock much more pink than I was originally intending, but I actually quite like it.

I decided to name it strawberry trifle because I figure the thicker stripes in the socks will look like the layers of a trifle and I thought the color was quite reminiscent of strawberry flavored things (like DH’s liqueur etc.).

When I was making the center pull balls of this yarn the one on the paper towel tube worked out much better for me (look at it, it’s the one still in a ball up there). I think that was because I have more room to hold onto so the movements could be smoother, which then resulted in a much more uniform ball of yarn. It makes me want a nostepinne or two :-)

I’ll try talk Amanda into letting me blog the completed socks whenever she decides to knit them up so you can see the truly final result of this dyeing experiment.

FO Tuesday!

Pattern: Alberta Scarf from Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves
Designer: Myrna Stahman
Yarn: Fiesta Heaven in Adirondack, 1 skein
Needles: US 7 Addi Natura’s
# of Pattern Repeats: 3 wide plus 6 sts wide borders and 7.75 repeats lengthwise plus 8 row border
Dimension: 49.5″ X 8″ pre-blocking, 55″ X 12″ post-blocking

I don’t know why I ended up with 7.75 pattern repeats on the first lace panel, but that’s what it was when I went to match the second one. Go figure. But, I don’t think I had enough leftover yarn to have finished that quarter of a repeat on both ends anyway, so it was good luck! I have maybe 3 yards remaining from one skein.

Overall, I like the idea of seaman scarves. They do lay quite nicely. However, with a yarn that gets blocked severely, most of those scarf patterns were much too wide, IMHO. The finished dimension on these is 22 X 12 inches for each lace panel and 11 inches for the ribbed section. It will definitely cover well, but I don’t think it will double as a nice fashion accessory, as it covers all of my ample sized body. It will no doubt be plenty warm though. I could reduce the width a bit by decreasing those borders, I think I could easily cut them in half which would reduce the width by about an inch or so. The yarn also pooled quite unusually in little dashes of color making it appear somewhat stripey. It isn’t quite my taste, but I love the color combination and it will look lovely on Grandma’s complexion and she’ll be bowled over with the lace work I’m sure. I know it’ll be well loved and probably shown off to the ladies are the hairdresser’s and at church.

Snow saved the day with the blocking as she let me steal her blocking wires on Sunday afternoon. It went quite slick to block this scarf with those and our steamer. It was really odd to watch the yarn swell and relax when the hot steam hit it. It cause little undulations. I thought about taking video, but ultimately decided it was so subtle it probably wouldn’t come across at web resolution.

I’ll leave you with a closer look at the lace pattern…

I started Grandpa’s hat last night, but more on that later in the week…

While Mom is Away, the Dog Shall Play…

My mom has been neglecting me. She’s been way toooo busy making fibery things and stressing about the in-law visit and having to take something for a pot luck Christmas dinner when we’ll be staying in a hotel for two nights. I’m kind of mad at her for not paying me the attention I deserve, so I broke into her shopping cart system and marked all those tags and wrappers for your hand knits and hand spun or hand dyed yarns she slaved over a couple of weeks ago down by 50%!

I figure in a week I’ll be over it and a lot of her fibery things she is making have to be completed by then to either be mailed to the owners of my friend, Gaston, in Minnesota or so the in-laws don’t see what she is making. So, things will only be marked down through next Monday. And, hopefully I’ll be able to report that she’s too busy to blog because she’s thowing all of my favorite toys for me to fetch!

So, go check out the damage I did!

1/2 FO Friday!

While I’ve been busy distracting you with a virtual attendance at what has been decided to be the first annual holiday knitting tea, I’ve been busy knitting. Ashley was needling (ha!) me a bit on Saturday night about the number of WIPs I have laying around the house. Well, after she left on Saturday night I cast on for another one, LOL!

I was lacking good TV/Movie/Visiting knitting and I had a project that was coming upon a bit of a deadline. So, I cast on for the sock pictured above. It’s a design exclusively for No No Kitty Yarns and is knit in her Kona Superwash DK weight yarn on US 4s and US 3s in the Graffiti colorway. It was a blast to knit with and I had sock #1 done by Tuesday evening! That’s less than four days - late Saturday night to early Tuesday evening! I think that is one of the fastest socks to fly off of my needles. I now have the pattern written up and will be anxiously casting on for #2 and follow my pattern to test it. I think Danielle is planning an early New Year pattern release extravaganza. I’m thinking I’ll call the pattern Dimple socks and it will contain both clog and standard heel flap directions. Like the name? Have suggestions for something else?

Here’s a closer look at the ribs…

It has distracted me from holiday knitting though so I need to get my butt in gear. Especially because I have this coat on the way, which means I *need* new winter accessories pronto… Hats, scarves, gloves, mittens, the whole shebang! Please, please, feel free to leave comments with pattern, color, and/or yarn suggestions. I think I want to go with colors that contrast with the green as greens next to my face can be a bit fickle as to whether they wash me out or not. But, you can see a recent pic of me here to see my hair color and complexion. It’s slightly yellow because it was taken in our yellow-y bathroom under incandesent lights. But it should give you an idea of my current looks.

I Hope You Had a Good Time!

If you’ve had your fill of goodies and tea, please feel free to hang out and knit in the living room. I can light the fireplace if anyone is interested…

I do have a little party favor for those in attendance…

The much asked for Nifty iPod Nano Necklace pattern has been written up and added to the free knitting patterns section of my web site. So, those who are giving Nano’s this year for Christmas may knit necklace cozies to go with them. Or, knit one for yourself if you have a Nano. While the directions only contain info for fitting the Nano, a little experimentation and/or math should allow you to adjust the pattern to fit any of the iPods or other personal MP3 players of your choice. The Nano sized one takes less than 50 yds of sock yarn and only day of dedicated knitting of a weekend of sporadic knitting.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Tomorrow we will return to the regularly scheduled fibery news.

EDIT: This was quite late in being posted because the diesel wouldn’t start this morning because of the cold so I had to take DH to work. There were some network troubles getting me on the Internet this time around. Also, I still can’t always answer e-mails do to these troubles, so I apologize. It should be warm enough and he won’t be leaving before 7am for a dental appointment so I should be home and have full e-mail access so I’ll reply then. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.