Dyed in the Yard

Two years ago at the Great Lakes Sheep & Fiber Festival, Kimmie and I found bags of wool yarn for a very cheap price: 3 pounds for 5 dollars. We bought four such bags, planning to dye the yarn that summer.

Two years later, yarn still un-dyed, we had the first annual Sockstravaganza at the yarn shop, dyeing a ton of sock yarn and having a great time. A week after the Sockstravaganza, Dani and I worked at a fiber show in Troy, Ohio, and each of us bought seven different acid dyes, hoping again to dye those bags full of yarn this summer.

Last Sunday night and all day Monday, we finally got our opportunity! My mom graciously allowed us to use her backyard and kitchen to experiment with the dyes and see what we could come up with.

Dani wound a bunch of attached smaller balls to dye them in gradual colors.

After rinsing.

Drying.

Winding back into a mega-skein. This turned out awesomely. She's going to make a big felted knitting bag with it. I can't wait to see how it knits up.

Kimmie did something similar, winding small balls and dyeing them in graduated rainbow colors. She took some great pictures of the yarn she dyed and put them on her blog.

Pretties!

These are most of the ones that I dyed. No special little balls or giant skeins for me.

This one is destined to become a felted bowl. I love how saturated the blue is on this skein. It was fascinating to see the wide range of shades you could get from the same dye.

These will become a new pair of fuzzy feet!

I'll likely use these two together for something. They go together really well, and the brown even has red spots all through it. Could be chicken pox, or I didn't stir the dye completely. Both skeins are larger skeins... any suggestions?

Lastly and my favorite from the day: watermelon yarn! It was completely unintentional; I used leftover greens and leftover red/orange and left just the slightest bit of white in between. I'd never be able to duplicate it, but I love it. I almost don't want to knit with it, but I can't wait to see how it looks when it's knitted. No ideas for this one either.

Thanks Kimmie, Dani, Mom, and Aunt Karyl Lynn for great fun! I can't wait for the next dyeing party.

Great Lakes Sheep & Fiber, 2009

Last weekend, Kimmie, Dani, and I made the annual trek to Wooster for the Great Lakes Fiber Show, 2009. We went to the show on Sunday the 24th with my mom and aunt.

I only took one picture at the show, of a mommy alpaca and her baby, only one day old. Aww.

I stole this picture from Kimmie's website. Looks like I finally found some knitting needles that are the proper scale! Okay, ha ha, my aunt had sent me a newspaper article about knitting needles the size of baseball bats, so when I found their booth at the festival, I had to try them out. The expression on my face is very amusing to me.

Let's see... I bought some yarn, didn't I?

My favorite purchase of the day was this sock yarn from Creatively Dyed Yarn.

I also got this worsted weight, also from Creatively Dyed Yarn. I'm planning on making a baby sweater with it, but I don't know what baby sweater, and I don't know for which baby.

Lastly, I got 1120 yards of sock yarn for $16.50! Yowsers! I'm going to split it up, probably into two 440 yard skeins and a 240 yard skein. I can't wait to dye it.

And my aunt bought me a pair of size 50 double pointed needles from the Bagsmith booth. Forget size twos. Now I'll be getting my socks done in no time. Okay, that's a joke. These are for some mega i-cords, or for this scarf.

The highlight of the weekend though, was dyeing yarn in my mom's backyard. See next post for more details! For a preview, you can check out Kimmie's post on the subject.

Go-To Baby Sweater

Before last night, I'd made 12:

One for Emily's baby
Two for Tricia's twins
One for a store sample
One for UK for Cassie's grandbaby
One for Notre Dame for Sue's grandson
One for Julie's baby
One for Erin's baby
One for Calvin
One Coke-y swoosh for Lanea
One with lots of stripes for Luke
One with lace for Katherine

As of 2:30am today, we bring the total count to 13:



I love the matching ribbon that I found.


And... the obligatory booties.


This one is for Monica at work, who is due at the end of June. We won't find out until then if the sweater is for Alexis or for Carson. I'm sure either way it will look adorable.

Pattern, as always, is the Classic Cashmere Sweater from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies by Erika Knight. Yarn is Reynolds Cottontail, a blend of cotton and microfiber. I used a size 6 circular needle. I bought the yarn a week ago. Score one for procrastination.

Anniversaries

an⋅ni⋅ver⋅sa⋅ry
[an-uh-vur-suh-ree] noun
1. the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event
2. the celebration or commemoration of such a date.

I don't blog too much about the goings-on in my non-knitting life, but tomorrow marks a special occasion: I've been working full time at my day job for a year. They celebrate by putting a sign on the front door, and I've often wondered how other people feel when they see their signs, especially those who have been with the company longer than I've been alive. So how did I feel when I saw the sign on my way out tonight? Proud, happy, relieved that they didn't forget... I've technically been there for a year and a half, but the first six months were through a temp agency. While this isn't the longest I've ever stayed at one job, this "celebration" does bring with it some important points:

* This job has less to do with my degree than any other job I've had. (And by "less to do" I actually mean "absolutely nothing to do...")
* In the past 18 months I have had responsibilities in 9 different departments: shipping, receiving, purchasing, accounting, customer service, reception, technical/programming, parts & inventory control, and special projects.
* I've survived three separate layoffs, 32-hour work weeks, and the current "3 weeks on, 1 week (unpaid) off" economic strategy.

Every day brings a new adventure (or at least different parts to cycle count), and there were at least a couple of times while I was laid off last week that I actually wished I was back at work. Here's to next year's "2 year" sign.

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Back in January, I passed my 7 year knitting anniversary. I love telling my learning-to-knit story, mostly because it involves many of my favorite people, including my Wyoming BFF Brenda, my friend Dion, and my continuing knitting inspirations, Maggie, Calvin, and Hallie.

Also, this month I've had my truck for three years. Woo! (It's a 2002 Ford Explorer Sport Trac. I heart it.)

Also, last month marked three years since my dad passed away. It's been a while since I've blogged a memory, so it seems about due. My dad hated nicknames. His name was Dennis, and when he was in school he would get in fist fights if anyone called him "Denny". He named his son "Sean" and his daughter "Brooke" in order to avoid the name-shortening nicknames. He despised the fact that my mom called me Brookie. Well, the name-shortening has mostly been avoided, Dad. Pretty much nobody calls me "Bro". Or "Broo". Or, uh, "Br". But the name-lengthening nicknames? Rampant, Dad, rampant. You'd be so disappointed. Recent examples include:

Brookie
Brookester
Brookeski
Brookelyn
Shorty

In fact, I'm pretty sure I get nicknamed more often than I'm called by my given name. Fortunately, though, I have a different take on nicknames than my dad did. I love them. I take them as terms of endearment from friends and family who care enough to go that extra syllable to show they care.