FOto Friday - October 5, 2007

Undeserved Yarn, or, My Sock-Bot Loot:

Dyed by Debbi with acid dyes on Knit Picks base. She calls this color Sweet Tart - very appropriate! Looks like it will make some fun Monkeys if I ever attempt a pair. Seeing her neat little yarn cake makes me want a yarn winder soooooo baaaaaad. She sent along some awesome purple stitch markers by Mary! This photo is really dark, I'm sorry!


Seeing Debbi's pretty yarn and after wrestling with the kool-aid Every Single Time makes me think I need to step up to real acid dyes if I want to take this yarn dyeing thing seriously.

And did you know that many (if not all) fiber "acid" dyes are citric-acid based? So is Kool-Aid! I was thinking of something far more sinister, probably since a nasty dustup between myself and some sulphuric acid once resulted in a late-night trip to urgent care. Anyway, speaking of wrestling with Kool-Aid...

The Project Previously Knows As The Great Pumpkin, Now With More Autumn Leaves Effect!:

Overdyed in TONS of lemonade Kool-Aid (pale stuff, that), then spotted with Cherry. It looks good, so I'm sending it on to the very patient Robyn once it's dry (one photo with flash, one without):



If I tried this color effect again, I would dye it with four packs of lemonade FIRST, then hand-painted it in orange, red and maybe a touch of green. The contrast of the red and green in early autumn leaves is one of my favorite parts of autumn, yet I forgot all about it.

This also qualifies as a finished project for UFOctober, woohoo!

More UFOctober Progress:

Early Nettie Before:


Early Nettie After:


Sky Socks Before:


Sky Socks After:


In other progress: I've turned the heel on the 2nd Lily Pad sock. I'm enjoying this yarn again, so this seems to be my main project right now.

If you want to participate, leave me a note in the comments by Saturday night. (I was going to have everyone leave a comment on the original post, but that seems silly to me now, so just leave one here.) If you have already signed up, check the UFOctober 2007 link list to the right and make sure your name/blog appears there.

And don't forget to grab a button! (Please save to your own account, thx.)

Knitting Blog Post With Actual Knitting Content!

Just a quick update. Mostly - The SKY SOCKS ARE DONE! Woo hoo! Gotta wash and block (so I guess not DONE done, but still...), and of course, take pictures. Maybe post a picture (insert eye roll at self's continuing ineptitude with iPhoto here).

I have also been doing some dyeing experiments to prep for Sockapalooza socks, hoo-ray. I have a big post in draft mode about the dyeing process that I plan to share in the next couple/few days.

Rethinking Aloha

The Aloha socks aren't exactly forthcoming with the Aloha spirit. After many false starts (including a prolonged tinking session where I somehow lost a stitch for every row I tinked), I have decided to put them on the back burner for now.

After looking through the Barbara Walkers, I decided I needed a simpler lace pattern for my first lace project. I also needed a project I could complete in less than a week.

Then, today at the library I picked up a copy of Socks, Socks, Socks and found lots of great patterns for lace socks, including a Gull-Wing lace already invented. Amazing. I also have some cotton-blend sportweight in a nice sky blue. So I've decided to make some Sky socks for mom.

(Ok, the sportweight is really "baby" yarn, and the sky blue could possibly be construed as baby blue, but I'm on a tight schedule. Please work with me here!)

Being me, I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to rework the pattern to fit with my gauge (size 4 needles, people! FOUR!). But I got that all written out today, and i think it might actually work. I am adding a purl stitch to the beginning of the pattern repeat and doing 5 repeats around. I even wrote out the variance for the top of the foot and the back of the heel. The top of the foot will have two repeats across, and the heel will have one down the center.

Sockapalooza buddy has been contacted! I have her color and style preferences (and WAY too much Kool-Aid), and I can't wait to get started!