Red and black houndstooth scarf

Houndstooth is so easy to weave but produces such an interesting result that it has become my go-to technique when I need something quick, like for a weaving demonstration. And that is how this scarf began, to demo at the Jay County Fiber Arts and Artisans Fest.

Pattern: Houndstooth scarf
Weave structure: plain weave
Loom: Ashford SampleIt
Warp: Cascade 220 Superwash worsted in red and in black
Weft: Cascade 220 Superwash worsted in red and in black
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5
Ends: 43 (I think)

Weaving with superwash yarn has some challenges, especially regarding tension. Superwash yarn is rather stretchy and springy, but if you keep tightening the warp, the houndstooth pattern will become flattened out. I make it a practice to apply just enough tension on the warp to allow the shuttle to slide through easily. When I take a break from weaving, I loosen the warp a bit so there is not constant tension on it.

Since I am starting a study group for rigid heddle weaving, I (roughly) timed how long this 5" wide, 6' long scarf took: about an hour to warp (and that included looking for this and that - I didn't hurry); 3-4 hours to weave (including some interruptions); about a half hour to finish. If you are looking for a weekend project, this is one option.

Lempi sweater

I created this post in July, 2024, but for some reason, never posted it. Gah! So here it is.

I can't believe I have not created a primary post about this sweater. The knitting has been long done, but I didn't consider it complete until it had buttons. I've taken it to spinning guild meetings sans buttons, but it could not go to the county fair without them. So now it is officially DONE.

Pattern: Lempi, by Tiina Kaarela
Yarn: Cascade 220, naturally dyed with a variety of materials and methods (see list below)
Needles: US8 (US6 for ribbing)
Modifications: quite a few!

I started this project in June, 2023, and sewed the buttons on June, 2024. Instead of rewriting what I posted on Ravelry, I will just copy and paste what is there.

The pattern is written in Finnish, translated to British English, and I'm struggling a bit with the instructions. Also, my gauge seems to be off, so I am knitting a swatch to double check.
The neck is *way* tighter than the photo, too.
***** The swatch reveals that even after blocking, my gauge is off. But I like the fabric that results from using US8 needles. So instead of going up a needle size, I'm going to knit a size larger.
So, I started over, but using US6 instead of US4 for the collar. Also, used an alternating long tail cast on and went right into the ribbing.
***** Some of the instructions are foreign to me. Instead of a "wrap-and-turn", they call for a "double stitch". And I could not figure out the buttonhole instructions, so I just did the usual YO-k2tog.
***** Too many errors, so ripped back almost to the beginning. Now I am using wrap and turn instead of the DS.
***** Again, with the errors! I was knitting along, fat, dumb, and happy, when I realized I had skipped two buttonholes. I tried dropping stitches and repairing the problem but ended up ripping back about 50 rows. And THEN I screwed up the spacing of the increases, so had to rip back about 8 rows to fix that. *sigh*
***** 8/21/23 - FINALLY reached the ribbing. This will be long enough to be a sweater dress.
***** Pockets. Ugh. For some reason, I have 22 stitches on one side, 23 on the other. I am going to do a k2tog on the "long" side, to even them up, as otherwise the stitches work out for knitting in the round. BUT after the pickup round, the "front" edge will be purl so that the fabric will bend, and at the next round, will purl two stitches at either "end" of the pocket, so it will fold along the edges without bulk.
***** Done with knitting and blocking, just need to sew on buttons and fix a hole that opened up under one arm.
***** Sewed on buttons made from deer antlers - UGH. Replaced them with buttons from JoAnn.
***** THIS SWEATER WON BEST OF SHOW AT THE ALLEN COUNTY FAIR OPEN CLASS COMPETITION!!!

And now, for posterity's sake, here are the details about the naturally dyed yarn:

Yarn	Material	Mordant	Modifier
Cascade 220	Dahlia (dried)	Cold alum	Iron
Cascade 220	Sycamore bark	None	None
Cascade 220	Sycamore bark	None	Iron
Cascade 220	Onion skins - Combined dye bath exhaust	None	None
Cascade 220	Dahlia (dried)	Cold alum	Acid
Cascade 220	Sycamore bark	Cold alum	Alkaline
Cascade 220	Dyers coreopsis	Cold alum	Alkaline
Valley Yarn Wool	Queen Anne's Lace	None	Iron
Valley Yarn Wool	Queen Anne's lace	None	None
Cascade 220	Onion skins -Secondary dye bath exhaust	Alum	None
Cascade 220	Dyers coreopsis	None	Alkaline
Valley Yarns Wool	Queen Anne's Lace	Alum	Iron
Cascade 220	Tomato vine	Alum and cream of tartar	Ammonia
Cascade 220	Dahlia (dried) exhaust	None	Iron
Cascade 220	Tomato vine	Alum and cream of tartar	Iron
Cascade 220	Dahlia (dried) exhaust	None	Acid
Cascade 220	Onion skins - Primary dye bath exhaust	Alum	None

Checkered scarf

Sometimes a mistake turns into a happy accident. That is what happened with this scarf. I meant to warp for houndstooth, debated over whether to redo or go with it, chose the latter.

Pattern: none
Weave structure: checks
Loom: Ashford SampleIt
Warp: Patons North America Classic Wool Worsted, in navy and natural
Weft: Same as warp
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5
Ends: 44
Finished size: 56"L (without fringe), 5"W
Finishing: hemstitched ends

I wasn't sure about the "candy-striping" along the selvage where I carried the colors, as during the weaving it looked loose. But after wet finishing, I decided I liked it.

I also wasn't sure about the yarn, as it is rather "bouncy". But I was careful to not over tighten the warp and it turned out well. Not as much drape as I had hoped for, though.

On xmas, I usually bring some handmade objects for the family to pick over. Sometimes they find something they like, sometimes not, but they get first choice. I think this scarf may pass the test.

Houndstooth scarf

My SO *lost* the three-color log cabin scarf I wove him last year, so the replacement is something easier: houndstooth.

Pattern: none
Weave structure: houndstooth
Loom: Ashford SampleIt
Warp: Cascade 220, naturally dyed with rhubarb leaf (light color), mordanted with rhubarb leaf and dyed with rudbeckia and modified with iron (dark color)
Weft: Same as warp
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5
Ends: 42
Finished size: 59"L (without fringe), 5"W
Finishing: hemstitched ends and knotted fringe

Really, the only weave structure that could be easier would be a one-color plain weave. For houndstooth, the warp alternates two strands of each color, the weft the same.

I wasn't sure about how the colors kind of candy-stripe up one side, thought I might need to crochet over the selvages, but no, I like it just the ways it is.

In fact, I am a little embarrased about how much I admire the scarf whenever he wears it. Good job!

Red, White, and Navy Scarf

The last time I warped the SampleIt for a demonstration scarf, then finished the scarf at home, I had no plan. This time I had a plan. Like most plans, this one did not turn out quite right. When I used the dining room table for the warp surface, I forgot that I had removed the table leaf. Consequently, the scarf turned out shorter than expected.

Pattern: None
Weave structure: Plain weave
Loom: Ashford SampleIt
Warp: Patons North America Classic Wool Worsted in 230 'Bright Red', Valley Yarns Northhampton Worsted in 02 'Natural', and some worsted wool in navy
Weft: Same as warp
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5 (more or less)
Ends: 50
Finished size: 40" (plus fringe) x 5.25"
Finishing: The selvages turned out halfway decent, so no additional finishing required

Warp:

• 4 red
• 2 navy
• 4 red
• 4 white
• 2 navy
• 4 white
• repeat above sequence
• 4 red
• 2 navy
• 4 red

Weft:

• 4 picks red 
• Hemstitch 2 across up 3 
• ** 2 picks navy
• 4 picks red 
• 4 picks white 
• 2 picks navy
• 4 picks white 
• 4 picks red 
• Repeat from ** until out of warp, ending with red/navy/red
• Hemstitch 2 across down 3
• Trim fringe to 2"

I recall the scarf my dad used, and it must have been about this length. He didn't wrap his scarf around his neck like most of us do these days, but crossed it and laid it flat against his chest. It kept the cold from slipping down his neck without adding bulk. Alternatively, one could do something similar and add a decorative pin to hold it in place. Or the scarf could be for a child. Not a waste of yarn at all.

Dyeing iron-mordanted yarn in rudbeckia dye bath

One thing I have to say about iron mordanting: DON'T. It takes much less work to do a cool alum mordant and an iron afterbath than to do the iron mordant up front. Also, one has more control of the outcome.

I didn't keep very good notes about this whole dye experiment, nor very many photos. At least the photos I did take have a date-time stamp, so there is a timeline of sorts.

First, I gathered flower heads from Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivanttii 'Goldsturm' growing in the area of my yard I refer to as The Meadow. These I left to soak in water for several days.

Next, I heated the flowerhead bath for an hour or so, to extract the dye and let it cool overnight.

Meanwhile, I mordanted four small skeins of handspun wool singles in an iron bath. Those I rinsed thoroughly, as iron can be hard on fiber.

Over the next several days, I added a skein to the dye bath, heated the dye bath for an our or so, then let it cool before removing the yarn. I processed one skein at a time, hoping to gain variations in the depth of color. It didn't work like I expected - all I got was dark gray with little variation. I finished by dyeing a skein of rhubarb leaf mordanted Cascade 220.

The handspun singles all look about the same, even the ones that were put into an "exhausted" dye bath. The skein of Cascade 220 that was not iron-mordanted but mordanted with rhubarb leaf came out dull, which I suspect is an aspect of the rhubarb leaf mordant. At least it looks different from the others.

So what did I do wrong? For one thing, I neglected to weigh the plant material, to get an idea of just how much yarn could be dyed with it. Mordanting the yarn with iron I believe corrupted the dye bath, so I ended up with dark gray yarn instead of the dark green I was aiming for. I was not careful, nor did I take my time and plan things out before hand. Hopefully, lessons learned!

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.

Double crochet cowl

While looking for an easy project for my granddaughter to crochet, I happened upon this pattern. I tested it, then paused while I finished the log cabin scarf, as both used the same yarn and I wanted to make sure I had enough for the scarf. Consequently, the cowl is not as long as specified in the pattern, but long enough for me.

Pattern: Long Double Crochet Cowl, by Stephanie Jessica Lau
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, naturally dyed with henna
Hook: H (5.0 mm)
Modifications: The pattern calls for super chunky yarn and a hook size of N/P, but I ignored all that.

This cowl is worked in turned rows. I chose to seam the two ends together using a slip stitch, which worked well but is obvious.

Knit cowls are usually worked in the round, and I found myself wondering about how one would do that with crochet. Well, while I used the free version of this pattern, the $5 version includes instructions for crocheting one in the round.

Lamb's Pride is a very warm wool, thanks to the mohair in it, but I'm not sure this cowl would provide much protections from the cold due to the open fabric. A polar vortex is on its way, so maybe I'll give it a try.

Random blanket/shawls/runners

When I started this project (in 2016!), I fully intended to weave a third panel and sew them together to make a blanket. I'm not sure what happened, but I ran out of steam (and maybe yarn). The first two panels hung in the closet, awaiting their fate. The cover of a recent Little Looms gave me the idea to reframe them as shawls. My daughter, however, thinks they would do better as table runners.

Pattern: Random-striped Blanket, from Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom, by Syne Mitchell
Weave structure: Plain weave
Loom: Ashford 24" rigid heddle
Warp: Yarn leftover from this vest
Weft: More yarn left over from the above mentioned vest, plus some similar yarn in natural or white
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5 (theoretically)
Ends: 166
Finished size: 45" x 18" each (not including fringe)


Finishing these two panels involved twisting a LOT of fringe.

I have no idea where my notes are for this project. For the vest, I developed a spreadsheet, which provided some input for these two panels. But otherwise, the details are lost to history. (If I ever come across those notes, maybe I'll update this post.)

This project was one of my first. There are a few floats, but otherwise it turned out surprising good. The yarn fulled nicely, too. I may still stitch the panels together, as they would make a lovely, if narrow, lap robe.

Past Peak mittens

When I purchased the yarn I used for these mittens, I thought the tag read "Past Peach" for the colorway. It was August, peach season, so this sort of made sense to me. More recently, "peach" seemed too long, so I thought maybe it said "Past Pear". That made less sense. With autumn upon us, however, the colorway became obviously "Past Peak" as the green leaves gave way to gold and red and orange, fading to brown. I could not find the designer anywhere online, so I'm guessing she gave up her hand dyed yarn business.

Pattern: Basic Mitten by Ann Budd
Yarn: Vermont Farmhouse Designs worsted in "Past Peak" colorway
Needles: US7
Modifications: Used a ribbed version of a long tail cast on; fiddled with the thumbs to make them less pointy

If I were to knit these again, I would go down a needle size, as the fabric really relaxed after a warm bath (sort of like I do). Apparently, I didn't notice this when swatching, although if I had, I might have adjusted the stitch count up, in which case I would be in the same place.

Polar vortex dyeing, with dyers coreopsis

While looking forward to days of frigid temps, I decided it was a good time to dye. There were several choices available from my dye stash, but I chose dyers coreopsis (coreopsis tinctoria). Per usual, it was an experiment.

Working from Jenny Dean's Wild Color, this time I tried extracting dye from the flowers by pouring boiling water over them and letting them steep, instead of simmering the blossoms. A true experimenter would try it both ways, but I had only 200g of flowers to work with. Then I mixed and matched mordants and modifiers.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how the dye bath can look one color, but the yarn turn out another. And then the yarn samples differ depending on the mordants used. Post-dyeing modifiers create even more shades of color.

I don't know what I did wrong, but some of the yarn skeins developed dark patches. This occurred during the post-dye application of an alkali modifier. But I still wound up with a nice assortment of colors and shades of colors.

From left, in pics above and below:

• no mordant/no modifier; 
• alum mordant/no modifier; 
• no mordant/alkali modifier;
• alum mordant/alkali modifier; 
• rhubarb leaf mordant/no modifier;
• rhubarb leaf mordant/alkali modifier; 
• no mordant/iron added to dye bath; 
• alum mordant/iron added to dye bath;
• rhubarb leaf mordant/iron added to dye bath.

Below: no mordant; from left, no modifier, alkali modifier, iron in dye bath.

Below: alum mordant; from left, no modifier, alkali modifier, iron in dye bath.

Below: rhubarb leaf mordant; from left, no modifier, alkali modifier, iron in dye bath.

Below: from left, no mordant, alum mordant, rhubarb leaf mordant; no modifier.

Below: from left, no mordant, alum mordant, rhubarb leaf mordant; alkali modifier.

Below: from left no mordant, alum mordant, rhubarb leaf mordant; iron in dye bath.

How do I keep track of what is what? I create a "cheat sheet". Each skein is assigned a letter, written in Sharpie on a piece of plastic that is attached to the skein all through the process. The information is transferred to each skein's info tag, which contains fiber information on one side (in this case, Cascade 220, plus length and weight) and dye information on the other.

Another question you might have is why I added iron to the dye bath. That was half experiment, half accident. The experiment part arose from the fact that some natural dyes look different on vegetable fibers like cotton than they do on protein fibers like wool or silk. So I purchased some yardage of muslin ("natural" - unbleached - on the right, below) from Dharma Trading Co. However, I wasn't sure how to handle it. So I threw a yard into the dye bath, which produced a light tan (middle sample, below). Another yard was pretreated with an iron mordant. I neglected to rinse the iron out of the material before putting it into the dye bath, which resulted in "saddening" the dye color; that produced an olive green (left sample, below). I also discovered that rinsing muslin is much different from rinsing wool yarn. So much color came out of the unmordanted sample that I treated it to a vinegar bath in an attempt to set the color, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. I should do more research before continuing with the cotton muslin aspect of my dye experiments.

Since the dye bath had been contaminated with iron, I decided to throw in a few more skeins of yarn. All in all, this dye experiment took three days, plus a day for clean up. A tiring but satisfying way to spend the polar vortex. What did you do?

Bookmark experiment

I belong to a rigid heddle group on FB. This is a great way to get fresh ideas about weaving. Suzanne de Lugo tried painting the emerging cloth on her loom with fabric ink pens, working on a neutral colored, plain weave, acrylic "canvas". She is quite the artist to begin with, and her experiment was inspiring.

So I wove up an experiment of my own, on the 3-in-1 Swatchmaker. I used wool, linen, and cotton as my yarn and created three pieces for my granddaughter to draw on, figuring if nothing else the objects could become bookmarks.

The linen worked the best, as it creates a fairly flat fabric. Cotton was a close second and probably would work better with a tighter weave. Wool was too fuzzy to work on.

I thought it might be fun to weave up some linen or cotlin towels for Nora to draw on and color. However, her interest in this activity waned rather rapidly. I keep trying to encourage her craftiness but so far no luck.

Haste makes wasted time

Today I decided to re-scour the two-pound hunks of fleece, as they just did not look very clean. I was aware of my impatience at the time, otherwise I might have picked at the fleece more before scouring and/or stuck with processing one pound at a time and/or soaked the two-pound hunks one or two more times in Power Scour. Today, while I was more patient, I also treated the fleece a bit more roughly, trying to dislodge more of the dirt. Fingers crossed that the fiber did not felt at all.

There was a one-pound batch that I pre-treated by teasing the locks apart before scouring. That bit looked pretty good, so I put some of it through the drum carder. I quickly learned not to feed too much in at a time. Also, expecting to process even one ounce at a go is a bit optimistic, as my drum carder is only 4 inches wide.

The color above is not accurate - the fiber is white. There are also pills or nepps in the fiber, presumably because I did not sort out the second cuts (shorter fibers caused by the shearer making a second pass over a part of the sheep).

Earlier this week, I also hand carded some of the fiber, just for fun. Some people think hand carding is faster than drum carding, and I can see why, but each has its place in the process. I also have a blending board, but I think that works better with fiber that is already carded.

There is more, much more, to do before I am done with this fleece. And by "done", I mean carded and ready to spin. It's a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it. So far.