Ipod socks

    Its one of my sisters birthdays in a few days so will not have time to design my own Ipod sock, life would be easier if she hadn't changed her mind from the bookmark which I have finished. I've found a nice Ipod sock I plan to do. It looks simple enough and has cables to the back and purl cables both of which I've not done yet, and its done in the round too. Should be a good work out for my brain.

  My other sisters birthday is at the end of the month so will design one of my own for her.I did start a swatch last night from some magazines I picked up at the thrift store. The magazines are in a folder but there not the full editions but are full sections of a series. The pattern isn't what I'm after but will finish it and write up a post with pictures. There is another one I want to try and a cable pattern I want to try when I have the time.

  Weather is really nice today, after temps of 4c (39f) last night. Got the washing out and am planing on a bbq for my dinner so might not get as much knitting done as I'd like. Beer and bbq wins over knitting most of the time.

Scrub that, Ipod socks instead.

New birthday presents, glad I've only started one.

   Talked to one of my sisters before and she wants a Ipod sock thingy, so will need to find a pattern for that or I might design my own. I want to do a cabled one seeing as I can now do cables, yaaa me.

   Only a quick post today as I'm a wee bit busy, I see my scheduled post posted early. I'll have to figure that out another time.

Have a happy knitty day, back to regular postings tomorrow.

Bookmarks & Birthdays.

* 
    Well I didn't forget my sisters birthdays, there both next month. I only found out once I had started one of the bookmarks, the easy cable one. This is my first time doing cables and I can say this one is very easy. I didn't do a test run I just jumped in and started knitting the bookmark. 

  I'm knitting the bookmark in the cotton I used for the bib with 3mm needles(see side menu or top menu for needle conversions). Its knitting up really quickly but I think its too wide for a bookmark, more my fault really. I'm not sure of the weight of the cotton yarn and I'm using bigger needles than the pattern calls for. 

  I might keep this one for myself and knit two other types seeing as I think its too wide and I have plenty of time. Well not really plenty of time, its next month in a couple of days.

*Posted Sunday, scheduled to appear on Monday as I'm going to be busy today and might not be able to get to the computer till late.

Long Weekend Fun

   Well its started out with wind and rain. It does look like the sun is trying to break through, just needs to push those ominous black clouds out of the way. I got my Yarn maker magazine this morning, haven't had time to read it yet but had a quick flick through with my morning coffee and it looks good. I'll tell you more once I've read it.

  Had a look around on the net for cabled bookmarks and there doesn't really seem to be all that many. Only one bookmark that looks simple enough for me to attempt. My friend who encourages me told me to design my own, think its a bit much since I've never cabled before. I did find a couple of nice none cabled ones I could do. I might do the simple cabled one and another one, might include a quick poll on which one. I only have so many sisters and can't knit them all.

   My spinning is coming along slowly. I started the light grey* top but don't really like it, it feels a bit rough and the yarn looks fairly hairy. Its giving me the chance to concentrate more on how I wind the yarn onto the spindle though, getting a nice bump in the middle. I was planning on plying the sweater yarn this weekend but only have one spindle so will need to buy another one next week.

  My scarf is almost done, haven't touched it for two days though, Wanted to do an hour on it last night but had irc problems I had to address that took way longer than I had thought. Silly computers. I might finish it this weekend or at least do a little bit more on it. Going to miss this one once its done, even with the 10" mistake I had to rip out its been a real pleasure to knit.

   Last but not least, I haven't mentioned the backpack in awhile. I've pretty much finished the body of it, I knitted the sides up and attached the Icords. I need to sew the buckles to the bottom and finish the straps. The straps are turning into a nightmare. Easy to do but oh so boring. I also need to sew a button on, I had looked at buttons awhile back but totally forgot about them.

  So that's read yarn maker, do a bit of knitting on the straps and sew the bottom buckles. Maybe a bit of knitting for the scarf, or maybe even finish it off. Got to find and start two bookmarks, well at least start one. If anyone knows of a simple cabled bookmark let me know in comments or email. No dyeing this weekend but I will be doing some spinning, I want to get this grey* top out of the way so I can start on the white** one which feels really soft.

What are your long weekend plans???
* I think the light grey is Suffolk
**Bluefaced Leicester

It ain't cheap

    I remember my mom knitting aran sweaters and she was a wizz with the sewing machine doing wedding dresses and alterations. We grew up poor, were no longer poor nowadays but she no longer knits or sews. I think she hates too, not sure if it reminds her of the poor days or whether she always hated it but was forced to do it to make some cash and to save some money. Now that I'm knitting myself I'm not so sure about the saving cash part.

 Knitting is an expensive hobby. A pair of socks using good yarn Will cost me just under £5. Add in the 20 hours it takes me to knit them and it ain't cheap. Taking up spinning doesn't make it cheaper, tops and roving's can cost the same as wound balls or skeins.Dyeing doesn't make it cheaper either, undyed yarn costs the same as dyed yarn. Plus you have to pay for the dyes to dye with. The only way to really save cash is to start with a raw fleece, wash and card it into spinable amounts, dye it yourself then knit with it. A raw fleece can be had for as little as £1 and should get you at least 600g of yarn. Its a lot of work though. 

  I don't knit to save cash I knit because its a real pleasure to do so and as a doomer its also very handy to have the skills for when tshtf. The reason knitting seems expensive is what we produce can be bought ready made up extremely cheaply. Machines and slave labor with our throw away attitudes I don't think can last too much longer in this current climate. Well I can see more slave labor in our futures, you and me unless we plan for the future. Get out of debt, get out of the cities, get grub and get skills. Its a hard rain a-gonna fall.

Knitted bookmarks

No wrong side bookmark.

No wrong side knitted bookmark.

  I know I said we'd have a sock post today but I was talking to a friend last night about doing cables and bookmarks came up so here's a post on knitted bookmarks. My friend who pushed me into knitting in the round is pushing me into learning to knit cables, god bless her little cotton socks.
 
    We talked about simple cable projects when bookmarks were mentioned and I realised I had missed two of my sisters birthdays last month, oopsie. I had promised one I'd do her a bookmark so I'm now looking for two simple cabled bookmarks.

 knitted no wrong side bookmark

  This bookmark I did a short while ago everyone loved. Of all the presents I've knitted this bookmark seems to be the favorite so next time your thinking of knitting a present and umming and arrghing about which expensive yarn to buy to do that sweater sometimes the little things with a bit of left over yarn are best.

knitted bookmark

The bookmark was done from this pattern  . I did a couple of these in different yarns because I was having trouble with my knit to purls, the purls were leaving pretty big hole next to the knit stitches for some reason. A problem that crops up from time to time for me. I can do purls fine but sometimes going from a knit to a purl stitch will leave a big hole, most times it doesn't.

No wrong side knitted bookmark

   I did the pictured bookmark in the same cotton I used for the bib on 3mm needles, to see needle sizes either click on the drop down menu which will show you at a glance. You can also click on any size on the drop down menu and it will take you to the conversion page or you can just click the link at the top.
  The cotton produced a very nice weighted bookmark that's very good for keeping the pages open. I did this for my moms birthday present and she loved it. Have since knitted another one for a different sister but I used a lighter yarn and don't feel its as practical, still looks nice though. I'd suggest doing it in a heavyish yarn.
A pretty quick knit that isn't all that hard to do.

   I'll let you know what I'm doing with the next bookmarks once I find a couple of easy nice cables to do, looks like my weekends already planned.

Knitted bookmark

Click the images to enlarge, I'll get the sock post I promised up next week sometime.

No dyeing today

Well after Tuesdays disaster even the calendar says WTF.
 
  The immerision method I was trying in the microwave hasn't worked, think this is to do with the red and the ph. It seems a lot of reds can be tricky to get right, red #3 no idea what it is though. I'm going to get a few packets of kool aid and try those, there well tried and tested and there lots of advice out there too. 
  I will also get some of the acid dyes. There are starter kits on ebay that include sock yarn so you can dye and knit your own socks, I'll just get the dyes though, still have plenty of the white sock yarn.

  I was thinking of plying the yellow/mustard sock yarn with my light brownish spun yarn. Would also like to ply my red left over sweater yarn to make a hat with. Wish I knew about plying befor I did the back pack, I knitted it with two strands of yarn and  think it would of been easier to ply the two though I've never plyed/plied(?) befor so don't yet know how hard it is. This will soon be corrected.

   I've bid on some multi coloured tops for spinning on ebay. 500g in all but you can't pick which colours though they will include at least one white top. There pretty cheap and will be good for practising with.

 Going to post about my very first knitted socks tomorrow, well the couple of baby socks I did and the ones I eventually managed to do for myself.

I need adult supervision.

     I put the dyed yarn into separate plastic bags to stop any colours running between skeins and for the steam to work. Didn't think I heated them up enough last time and that's maybe why the dye didn't set. This time I made sure I heated them enough, errr I mean too much. The plastic bags have melted into the yarn, I guess that's one way to set the colours, going to need a hammer and a 6 inch nail to knit with though.

  Next time I'm using kool aid and the stove top. I do have a bowl of the mustard yarn in the microwave at the moment with some red dye that I'm trying the immersion method. Keeping an eye on it so I don't burn the house down or something. Got the thermometer out and keeping it around 180. Not sure its working but will keep at it.

Coffee break

and I've not even started yet

I've earned this coffee break, you know how I hate shopping. Didn't maim anyone today, look they'll heal so its not classed as maiming. Even that shin compound fracture will heal ok. I did apologise about that, felt bad after I'd run over her with the trolley for the 6th time. Just kidding. Honest.
 
  I'll get started in a bit, going to unwind a ball using the back of the chair. Using the swift was a pain last time. I think its best to leave that for helping turn skeins into balls. I got some *red, blue and yellow liquid dyes*, I did look at the icing pastes but don't know about those, they all contained glucose. Guess I could try one in my home brew, a nice green beer for halloween maybe.
  Got a bottle of distilled/white vinegar, do have more in the house but thought I'd get one more for my prepping. Someone mentioned using lemon juice instead because of the smell which seems a good idea to me, even wearing gloves I couldn't get rid of the vinegar smell last time. Made my biscuits taste funny. Not sure if I could use the fake lemon stuff, jiff??? I could also use the invisible lemonade kool aid stuff, I think that serves the same purpose to add acid.
  Got some little plastic pots with lids, I know the food dyes are safe but would really like to keep all the dyeing stuff separate. Will be much safer for when I get around to using the acid dyes and more nasty stuff. Don't want to accidentally kill myself, contrary to popular opinion it would be a bad idea.


ETA 
Colours are 

• blue = spirulina.
• red = anthocyanis, paprika extract, emulsifier(polysorbate 80).
• yellow =ploysorbate 80, curcumrin.

More on my dyeing

    I love the folks at ravelry, there so helpful. Seems I made one mistake and also I found out the asda own brand food colouring is rubbish too.
   I will give it another crack because the dyes are easy to get and cheap but this time I'll add some of the distilled/white vinegar to the dye. I'll also only do a couple of small amounts of yarn too.
   I'm going to get some kool aid stuff as well, seems its pretty easy to get over here in the UK, can get it on eBay and a few folks sell it as well. Need to get a couple of spare pans too and have a go at acid dyes.

My dyeing died.

     Well that didn't start out too well. Did two 50g skeins, soaked in vinegar and water for 30+ mins then got the food colours out to play. Ended up with some nice muted colours which I was happy about. I had been worried the colours would of been too bright from using the food dyes.  
    So far so good. 
  When I picked them up to put in the bowl to heat I gave them a squeeze which I now realise is a big no no. All the colours ran together to form various shades of dirty orange, not great but not too bad either. Zapped them in the microwave for 2 minuets then let cool then zapped them again for another two minutes. Not too bad so far really,let them cool down and rinsed with water to remove excess dye. 
    Oh dear, I now have two 50g skeins of a lovely mustard colour. The colour is really nice but its not what I was after. At this point I'm not sure whats gone wrong, why one colour has taken and the rest just washed away.

Later

   I soaked the mustard skeins in a vinegar solution again this time for about an hour then added the last of the red food dye I had. Red was the only colour I had left over and there really wasn't a lot left. 
  The result wasn't great looking but what the hay. I zapped the skeins in the microwave for a couple of mins, let cool then zapped them again for a bit longer. I let them cool them zapped them one last time and let cool ready for rinsing.  
   Grrrrrr all the red washed out leave me back with my lovely mustard coloured yarn.
   I really have no idea what I've done wrong, maybe its the food colour I used and only the yellow one is any good. It could also be the sock yarn too but I'd of thought if it was the yellow wouldn't of taken either. If all the dyes had washed out I'd understand better but having the yellow set and the red,blue and green dyes wash out leaves me a little puzzled.

   I really wish I had cut up one of the skeins into smaller pieces and experimented that way instead of jumping in head first, oh well you live
and learn. I'll get some more of the food dyes tomorrow and do some small pieces this time and see whats going on.

Scarfs back on track

Sort of...

    The scarf is sort of back on track, I seem to have lost my rhythm with it now though.I keep making silly counting mistakes and knitting one or two extra stitches before I catch them and unknit em. Not sure whats going on with it and I'm not sure where I made the original mistake. I think I might of even made the mistake halfway along a row and then ended up repeating that row.
   The reason I didn't spot the mistake earlier is because the scarfs over four feet long and I had it folded up to make it easier to work with. You could only see it when I unraveled it all to measure how far along I was.

    I've just unwound two 50g balls of the white sock yarn ready to soak in water and vinegar over night ready to dye tomorrow. I have an old metal thingie... errr I forget what there called now. Its got 3 arms that expand and spin around and you wrap the yarn around. Makes skeins. I need to plan it out better next time though. I did put the ball in a plastic bag with a hole for the yarn to go through but it still seemed to snag a lot and collect more hairs than the dog has on its back.

    No posts tomorrow as usual, unless Israel bombs Iran some time today. I'll be playing with dyes tomorrow, I'll let you all know what interesting colours I stain myself with for the next 3 months.
    Have a happy knitty, spinney, dyeie weekend.

Bloody scarfs and supermarkets...

    Still haven't looked at the scarf, will do so after this much needed cup of coffee and smoke. I hate food shopping. Well I hate any sort of shopping really. I'm not a crowd person and can react rather violently with my supermarket trolley. If you ever see a mad man rushing down the aisle with steam coming out of his ears, blood dripping entrails hanging from the front of the trolley and the wheels leaving a trail of gore across the floor, don't be afraid to say Hi.

   I'll get back to the scarf some time this afternoon, didn't want to have a crack at it last night because I wasn't in the mood. Sometimes its best to walk away from problems until a later time. Preferably when you've calmed down some.

  The hose pipe/garden pipe ban has been lifted in these parts, not that folks need to use a hosepipe with all this rain. Unfortunately the canal hasn't been refilled and theres no mention of when it will be refilled. Not sure what to do about my holidays, might just rent a small boat/barge at the end of the season or might save my cash.

Whoopsie

*!&%*$

     What did I just post today about this scarf being a real pleasure to knit?
I jinxed myself. 
   Stood up to measure how much I'd done and found that the last 10 inches has been done the wrong way around. I've ripped back the 10" and am now looking to see which row I missed out, or repeated but can't see it. It might be best if I rip back this section as well but I'm pretty certain the mistake is somewhere near the top, might just rip back half way. Not really in the mood right now so I really should wait until tomorrow, though I probably wont.