Fruity Fruity!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Dyed some yarn with kool-aid tonight. Feels like it's been ages since I did it the first time. And that was just small bits at a time. I took huge leaps tonight in dyeing mass amounts of yarn. I bought some superwash undyed wool off ebay. Two skeins of sport weight and one of fingering, 8 oz each. That's a lot of yarn! And all less than 35 bucks I think...not counting shipping. I can't wait to buy more, although this time I think I'll get some that's not superwash so I can felt some bags!
I left one of the sport weight skeins undone for another time. And about 80g of the fingering for the next time as well. I'll post pictures as soon as they are all wound and dry. But I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Although I had to use orange in one where I wanted lemonade b/c I used the lemonade too quickly. And I never remembered to get more watermelon cherry...disappointing lol. Next time though! I did a lot of mixing this time and got some fun results!
I also FINALLY bound off the back of the fair isle sweater. I've been putting it off for some reason. So now I'm casting on the front and it should be smooth sailing from here on out!
Not much progress on anything else though either. Schoolwork has been keeping me very busy. Ok well I'll be back with pics, hopefully tomorrow!

Some progress...

Saturday, January 27, 2007

I'm almost done with the back of my fair isle sweater. I have to say I'm quite pleased with myself. I only wish there was more time to work on it. I'll post pics as soon as I bind off.

I spent today taking my daughter to get shots and getting our taxes done. I also managed to visit a new yarn store in between when I had some time to kill. It's called A Grand Yarn and they were the only LYS that I knew of that had the yarn a hat pattern called for. It's Manos Del Uruguay and not as soft as I'd hoped. I got a nice color though. It's a varigated dark green, red, peach, purple, rose, and a sort of caramelly orange color. Very pretty, and since it's for a hat I will deal with the roughness. To the touch it's not so bad but when I rub it on my neck it's a tad scratchy. Maybe I'll soak it in some fabric softener before I knit with it... Oh and roughly 16 bucks a skein. So I won't be buying more of it anytime soon. I really wanna start the hat too but I'm forcing myself not to since there are so many other projects going, and lots of people waiting for items promised long ago.

Ok so now I really should be getting to bed, it's almost 3:30...and I'm finally tired!

Finally

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Ok so I finally decided on a name for my site. It took forever because I'm so picky and every time I thought of something good, it was taken. Dang it all! And there aren't even sites on most of them either. Stupid stupid stupid! In any case it came down to trying to get across the obsession that a lot of us (including myself obviously!) have with yarn. So after looking into phobias, which is like an intense fear, I discovered the opposite is a philia. So it may not be exactly right but I pretty much just added yarn to that. So Yarnophilia. The love of yarn. I thought it was genius and couldn't believe no one on the planet had thought of it yet. I was starting to lose hope since all my other picks were gone. I guess if I wanted I could have used them at like .net or .biz, but I wanted a .com name. Plus the more I think about this one, the more I like it because it's different and unique and I think a lot of people can identify it. Right now there is only a message up saying the site is being developed. It took me hours to even do that...and I want to add more but I can't do anything until all the business stuff is switched. Sheesh.

So not much knitting goin on since classes started, and I'm having a tough time focusing. As well as the fact the software is kicking my butt. And biology is a nightmare. I'm so not doing as well as I want. And I know it's only week 3 but it's tough to do well in 9 weeks. You don't have a lot of time to make stuff up if you get a bad grade.

Ok well this is just an update so now I'm gonna go to bed since it's so late and I've actually gotta get stuff done tomorrow.

Should be doing something productive...

Friday, January 19, 2007

Ok so here it is 2 am and I'm still up, on the computer. And not really doing anything productive either. I could be at least tackling some of my class assignments to get them out of the way. Instead I watched Grey's Anatomy and CSI from the DVR since I missed them earlier this evening. And knit. And now I'm updating my blog!

So I finished my Clapotis scarf from Knitty.com. It turned out fabulous. I made it out of silk that I bought on eBay and dyed with kool-aid. Sounds shady but it's beautiful. The shine of the silk really adds a whole nother dimension to the color. Anyway here are a few pics of it. This first pic is a good one to show the true color of the yarn, see how shiny it is! And this picture is a really good picture of the detail of the dropped stitches in the pattern.This is a broader shot, to see better how it looks as a whole. It's really something best appreciated in person. I seriously love this scarf.
Still nothing from Knitty on either of my designs. So that should be a good sign. I was really quite proud of myself for those two. I also started a new sweater. The one on the cover of the new Knit.1 magazine with the fair isle hearts design. I'm not so good at fair isle, but this looks relatively easy and should be a good project to practice my skills. I'm using Andean Silk from Knitpicks, and I'm seriously impressed with how soft and beautiful it knits up. I love the Cranberry color I got. Very rich and a tad bit shiny. I'll post pics of stuff as I get around to it. I'm lazy when it comes to that part sometimes!

Kool-Aid Yarn

Monday, January 08, 2007

So this weekend I did something fun and different, and totally wickedly awesome. I dyed yarn with kool-aid! It's so easy and not too messy or hard to do. This is how it all turned out:
I'm very excited by how it all came out, the colors are fun and bright, and the yarn smells delish. Plus I've heard that it's pretty colorfast!

Other than that...not much else is happening! Still no word yet from Knitty, but then again, it's only been three days.

And the waiting begins...

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Ok so it came down to the last minute, as it always is with me since I procrastinate, but I did in fact submit two whole patterns to knitty! I'm so proud of myself. I figured that if I submit two, I've got a better chance. Either way at least I can relax now and enjoy my knitting instead of stressing because it needs to be done like yesterday. I'm just hoping that in my last minute scrambling I didn't forget something important. So now I wait, and apparently the longer you wait, the better chance you have. I think last time it took them a week to respond and say no.

Either way even if they don't accept them I am already planning what's next. I really have to get my design plans organized. My sketches are seriously everywhere, on loose sheets of plain computer paper. Oh and I just thought of exactly where to put them. I just realized I have an empty journal that my husband bought me months ago. It was one of my anniversary presents back in May. It has a hummingbird on it, and he remembered me looking at it in the store. In any case that will be perfect. Now to remember where I put it.

So I'm going to aim high for my next submission...either a sweater or shirt, or some type of garment. I've got a few months, I should be able to pull it off.