Ravelry

I got my Ravelry invitation!! Yay! I shall be found under diluvienne (original, eh? ;-) ) Woohoo!

Another project (like I need more...) ;-)

I would need new slippers and given that I am a knitter, I think that I should make them myself. The only problem is that I can't seem to find a free pattern for cool slippers. I don't want the traditional grand-ma style of slippers or sock-style type of slippers. I would be willing to pay for a pattern, if it is for that pattern only (so, it is affordable and I don't need to buy a book, just for that project). Does anyone have suggestions? Or, if you are from Montréal, do you have a printed copy of a pattern/ patterns magazine/ patterns book you could lend me?

Thank you!

New!

I know. Long time no post. It is certainly not because I have not knitted or have nothing to say! No, see, it is more due to the scary long lists of projects (socks, scarf, skirt and an emergency shawl!) and traveling to Lake Louise (during which, yes, I did knit!). Since I have 4 ongoing projects at the moment, I found the energy to focus on finishing some of them. The first one is a quick one: a pair of socks!

Yarn

Sea Wool
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Fleece Artist's Sea Wool
(70% Merino, 30% Seacell)
Colorway: mermaid (hand dyed)

Pattern

The pattern is from the Knitting up a Storm blog and adapted by me (with the help of my sweetie at times) for a women size 7 foot.

Joe's Office sock
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

The verdict

They are so comfy! The pattern makes them stretchy, for a better fit (I hate stiff socks). And I enjoy the nice diamond-shaped pattern!

Yay!

Patterns!
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Look what just arrived in the mail today! And I have a (first of three) shipment of yarn at the post office for me to pick tomorrow!

Another dyeing experiment. But with more learning this time. :-)

My weapons of choice
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

In this vein of inspiration, I wanted to experiment more earthy colours, something more Fall. I wanted to make a stripy yarn involving a gradient of burgundy and soily brown. I thought about tea and wine. Both are well known to stain clothes when we spill it, it should work! Or so, I thought.

Setup - before
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I managed a more friendly setup, involving bowls in the microwave and my preparation, lots of it. I brewed a good number of Tetley's orange pekoe tea-bags in a big container, opened the wine bottles and started to distribute the pigments in the designated bowls. And I heated. And I heated. And... well you know the rest!

Setup - after
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

No fading in color from the solutions in which the yarn was dipping in. The yarn though seemed to get darker, but no actual soaking of pigments inside the fibers, as dramatically seen with Kool-Aid (with the end result leaving something like sweet water!)

Rinsing the yarn got rid of a lot of the color, as it was not really attached to the fibers. Another difference with Kool-Aid.

Ta da! Or not...

It resulted in this:

Beigey
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

Not quite what I had in mind. After seeing this result, I read ejchang's links about natural dyeing and understood a bit better what it rather failed. Not mordant. For some reasons, Kool-Aid sticks well.

Take 2!!! or How I didn't say my last word

I decided to reuse that yarn (hey it is certainly not lost!!) to do the colours I wanted to obtain in the first place, but using Kool-Aid this time. If you have the primary colours, you can do anything, from what I learned during my art classes in high school (I didn't do 4 years of them for nothing!!). Let's do this!

Reddishes
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

As for burgundy, I made a mix of cherry with a tad of grape to darken the colour. And, for the brown, I chose a base of Orange Tang (you know that thing we wouldn't drink, but is apparently useful to unclog pipes...), lots of grape Kool-Aid and a touch of cherry.

Pigments source
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

To obtain colours that satisfied me required a tad of tweaking with the powders, but it can only be good because you make concentrated solutions that way. :-)



TA DA! Here it is! I show you "Autumn"!!

Autumn
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I like how the colours aren't uniform. I can't wait to see how this baby will stripe, as I manage to make thinner stripes than my Blue Frost yarn.

Ok, no more dyeing until I can know (and show) what I've done so far looks like. And I got far too many projects right now, I should remain concentrated! More knitting postings later!

First dyeing experiment!!

Bare
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I have always been intrigued and fascinated by the fact you can easily and inexpensively dye your own yarn and make wonderful color-ways. I had to try!

I wanted to use only "natural" pigments and then so many ideas came in that I had to buy 10 skeins of bare merino wool. I figured that this would be a great starter, some material for experimentation. Eventually, I'll know what I do and I'll dye yarn, aiming for a given result.

Natural was a big argument for me and I was very stimulated by the idea that you can do powerful coloring and very creative dyeing/knitting with ingredients found at the grocery store. I have been thinking that there is so much food that stains clothes when we don't want, I might as well use that as a dye for yarn!

Expérimentation en cours
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I followed the procedure detailed by Knit Picks. For my first experiment, I wanted to make a 3 stripes of blue: light, medium, dark. I tried to play with the solutions, seeing what it would do.

Basically, I washed the yarn gently with a bit of Zero detergent. and rinsed afterwards. Then, I prepared my three dyeing solutions:

- Light: Gatorade Frost (powder)
- Medium: Gatorade All Stars Blue Rush (bottles)
- Dark: Gatorade Frost + a hint of grape Kool-Aid

I dipped the yarn in glass containers and zapped it in microwave for 2 min. Then, I waited for a few minutes and zapped again for 2 min. Again and again. When I noticed that the yarn picked all the pigments, I would change the solution with new pigments.

From 3 to 2
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I noticed a little problem with this method when it came to start the actual dyeing. The color doesn't reach the "in-between" the pots... That means that between the colors, there would be no color. At some point, when the yarn looked rather well coloured, I decided to dump the "in-betweens" inside the 2 darker solution, in order to stain them as well. I guess that this maneuver is responsible for the fact that I ended with mostly 2 colors instead of 3. But I am very happy with the way it turned out!

Drying
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

After many many cycles of heating, resting and not solutions left, I let it cool down for 2 hours (the time to watch a movie, in fact!) and when I came back, the liquid left was like water! The yarn really drank all the pigments there was! I transformed Gatorade into water!

I rinsed the skein, washed it gently with Zero again and placed it on an old towel for drying.

There it was, "Blue Frost" was born. :-)

Blue frost
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

From this experiment, I found out very quickly that it doesn't matter what colour you make, you need to provide intense dyeing solutions to feed pigments to the yarn and ensure a strong colour or else you need a lot of liquid so you can refresh it as the pigment go into the yarn.

But who cares? We talk about juices you can find at the grocery store, not some expensive fancy dyes! And, dyeing with food is really fun and I appreciate the fact that it is 100% safe. Hell, I can drink the stuff, I can safely say that wearing it won't be harmful! I gotta say that this experiment pleased and thrilled the scientific and creative side in me. Them happy, together at last!

More food experiment to come! I have many more ideas and skeins to work with!!!! Woohoo!! Joy!

On the road to yarn/pattern experimentation...

Watching ejchang's blog and photos, I couldn't help to notice some really gorgeous yarn she was knitting with. After inquiring with her, I finally discovered Fleece Artist's yarn. "Not too late!", you might say, but I was completely unaware of their existence and I instantly fell in love with their yarn.

Sea Wool
Originally uploaded by diluvienne.

I had my first physical, sensorial, actual encounter with Fleece Artist's products when I had my first visit at Effiloché (mandatory visit for any serious knitter in Montreal, in my opinion!). I caved for a skein of Sea Wool (70% Merino, 30% Seacell) and of Merino yarn.

I started playing with the Sea Wool yarn, using the Bordello Sock pattern. However, after a few inches, I started to realize that this pattern has a basic flaw for socks that bothers me a lot: they are not stretchy (mind you, I knit on the tight end).

I ended up ripping it off (hence the lack of photo of my own), and started again with a different pattern (another post!)

For obvious reasons, I cannot divulge the pattern online. However, I am inclined to give it to anyone who asks for it! Any takers?