Comfort yarn

Last week was rough, so I skipped my usual update. (The FO posts I wrote ahead of time and scheduled their publishing, so you had plenty to read.) I hope this week will be better (fingers crossed!)

For comfort, I dove into my stash, in hopes of finding something to use with this pattern. It's knit in fingering weight yarn, but of course I don't have a tee-shirt-worth of fingering weight yarn that could work. So I ordered the yarn the pattern called for along with the pattern, from Purl Soho. Because I deserve it!

Knitting: Frogged the Lempi sweater. Started a pair of socks, just in time for spending some time visiting a relative in the hospital. (He's home now.)

Spinning: I think I did no spinning, despite joining Tour de Fleece.
Weaving: The clasped-weft coasters are turning out to be a "learning experience" but at least I am getting lots of practice hemstitching.

One of my spare bedrooms has been designated as The Studio, but one day I realized I don't like working in there. Even though there are two windows, the room feels kind of claustrophobic. So I rearranged a few things and now the 24" Ashford loom is in the den, along side my spinning wheel. We'll see how that works out... and if I actually use it out there. I have several other looms of various sizes, but they can't all fit into the den, so I'm not sure how all this will evolve.

The clasped-weft coaster project is taking up most of the dining room table. With the leaf in it, that table is just about perfect for warping the SampleIt loom, which is how the mess starts. The older I get, the more I need organization and simplicity.

Shades of yellow

I was going to create separate posts for each of the dye materials I used for my solar dyeing experiment, but they all turned out to be yellow, more or less. Not much difference there, so why make separate posts?

For posterity's sake, here is what I did:

Zinnia blossoms (dried):

• Oops - didn't crush dried blossoms before using
• Oops - didn't weigh blossoms before using
• Half in one mason jar with tap water (neutral pH), half in another jar with well water (oops - didn't check pH of well water, assume it is neutral)
• Set jars in sun for three days
• Drained blossoms and discarded
• Using cold alum mordanted Cascade 220 - one mini skein (50 yds) in one jar, one in the other jar
• Set in sun for two days

Lobster mushrooms:

• Oops - didn't chop mushrooms before using
• Oops - didn't weigh mushrooms before using
• Half in one mason jar with tap water (neutral pH), half in another jar with well water (oops - didn't check pH of well water, assume it is neutral)
• Set jars in sun for three days - got kind of foamy
• Drained mushrooms and saved them for future use
• Using rhubarb leaf mordanted Cascade 220 - one mini skein (50 yds) in one jar, one in the other jar
• Set in sun for two days
• Mold in well water jar stained the yarn a bit

Oak galls:

• Oops - didn't crush galls before using
• Oops - didn't weigh galls before using
• All galls in a mason jar with tap water (neutral pH)
• Set jar in sun for a three days
• Drained galls and saed them for future use
• Using unmordanted Cascade 220 - one mini skein (50 yds) in jar
• Set in sun for two days

From left to right: zinnia in tap water, zinnia in well water, mushroom in tap water, mushroom in well water, oak gall

I am letting the used mushrooms dry out, to be chopped or crushed, to see if I get more dye from them using heat. Similarly, I'm letting the used galls dry, to be crushed, to see if I get more dye from them using heat; they can still be used to mordant fibers even when no dye left.

I thought solar dyeing would be easier than heating up pots of dye baths, etc., and it is, but the results were not all that impressive. Of course, I just jumped in without doing any research. I may try solar dyeing again, but with more care.

Skinny scarf from leftovers

I warped my SampleIt to take to the county fair so interested parties could try their hand at weaving. Once home, I just keep going, using up bits and bobs of naturally dyed yarn. (For the record: dyer's coreopsis, sunflower, sycamore bark, tomato vine, rhubarb leaf, dahlia, turmeric, Queen Anne's lace, onion skins.) Here is the result:

Pattern: None
Weave structure: Plain weave
Loom: Ashford SampleIt
Warp: Cascade 220
Weft: Cascade 220
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5 (more or less)
Ends: 32
Finished size: 3.5"x59" (plus fringe)
Finishing: Untwisted tassels on the ends, single crocheted sock yarn (Happy Days Fiber Arts Sock Weight in 'End of Harvest') along the selvages

If I had had a plan, I would have interspersed the darker wefts with the lighter ones, but - oh, well - too late now. The crochet along the selvages is a bit wonky as well, but it adds character.

I wondered what I could wear this scarf with when it occurred to me that it would go well with the Lempi sweater I knit from naturally dyed yarn. One can't wear too many handknits at one time.

Seven-strand bathroom rug

When I get a little twitchy about how much yarn I own, a stash-buster relieves some of that angst. This rug used up a LOT of cotton yarn - 1210g - including some that was leftover from frogging a pair of curtains I knit (before I knew how to weave) that had faded badly on one side.

It measures 24"x32" and turned out a little wonky. I didn't keep good notes along the way as I was just winging it, didn't even record the hook size. Basically, I crocheted a chain, single crocheted each row until it felt almost big enough, then crocheted around the border a couple of times. I didn't even try to weave in any ends, just tied on new bits as needed and let the tails add "texture".

Crocheting a 7-strand anything involves a lot of yarn wrangling. A "lazy Kate" made from a shoe box and knitting needles helped, as did having three yarn bowls. The basic structure consisted of:

• 2 strands Den-M-Nit Pure Indigo Cotton yarn and 1 strand Universal Yarn Linen Tweed (red) throughout
• 1 strand of cotton thread throughout (first blue, then natural) - J&P Coats Royale Classic Crochet Thread (size 10)
• 1 strand worsted weight cotton yarn throughout - first Lily Sugar'n Cream Stripes ('Country Stripes'), then Pisgah Peaches & Creme Ombres ('Spring Meadows')
• 2 strands Maysville 8/4 Cotton Carpet Rug Warp throughout (navy, red, pink, yellow, etc.)

Crocheting something that bulky is very hard on my wrists. And yet, I can envision doing it again, maybe with leftover sock yarns.

Beware!

At last night's spinning guild meeting, someone mentioned that Knitpicks has been purchased by a private equity firm that is phasing out the Knitpicks brand yarns. It looks like this firm has also purchased Jimmy Beans, Berroco, and Madtosh among others. As if that is not bad enough, recent purchases from Knitpicks have been found to be infested with moths and/or larva and/or eggs. The firm is playing dumb about the infestation. What a nightmare! Makes me reluctant to purchase any yarn right now - not that I don't have plenty already.

Several methods of eliminating infestations can be found online. Not sure which ones work best, and I hope I never have to find out.

The contrary dyer

Last week I was so excited about the idea of solar dyeing yarn that I did not bother to do any research ahead of time. I did not crush the zinnia blossoms or the oak galls, did not chop up the lobster mushrooms. Consequently, the results were... a bit disappointing. However, I saved and dried the oak galls and lobster mushrooms - they are drying in the garage on screens - and I hope I can get more dye from them using heat. At least the oak galls can be used as a mordant.

Crochet: Finished 7-strand bathroom rug - separate post to follow.
Dyeing: Finished solar dyeing experiment - separate post to follow.
Knitting: Disenchanted with second Lempi sweater, so intend to frog it. Perhaps that yarn would be better for intarsia? Or stranded knitting?
Spinning: Joined the Tour de Fleece group on Ravelry, to help get me through the Romney.
Weaving: Finished the skinny scarf; separate post to follow. Started clasped weft coasters.

I subsccribe to a newsletter from Robbie LeFleur which is mostly about weaving transparencies. The last one (read here) really excited me, as using coarse handspun as a warp is a real possibility. I hope some of her readers respond with their experiences with this idea.

Most transparencies use linen as a warp, but wool transparent tapestries use wool. Besides handspun, I'm wondering if other coarse wools would work well. Specifically, I am thinking of Kauni Effectyarn, which I used to weave this shawl. Another of Robbie's posts included a sample one of her students created on a pocket loom, so now I have some ideas for little samples to get me started on transparencies.

I forgot to mention a couple of purchases I made last week. One is bowl to use with a supported spindle. There is a dimple in the middle to keep the spindle from wandering away as one spins.

The other purchase was of some silk and some bamboo fiber, both lustrous and soft, to spin on the supported spindle.

Now all I need to do is find the spindle!

An aside: I decided to take the summer off from watching TV. I wasn't watching a lot of TV - an hour or two in the evening - but afterwards I always felt... some kind of negative emotion, even though I enjoyed what I watched. Now I feel more... content. Some of my favorites are releasing new seasons soon, though. We'll see how I handle that.