Spinning

When I was in the USA in April for a conference I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with a very old friend that I hadn’t seen in person for more than 20 years. As we were strolling around her neighbourhood I spotted a yarn store and some fibre came home with me.

It turned into a really lovely tweedy yarn.

These are pre-wash photos. I ended up with just under 200 metres, so not the best yardage. It’s a bit scratchy, so I’m not sure what I’m going to make with it just yet. I’m thinking some sort of toy perhaps.

 

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Blanket

The blanket is coming along. I’m working on this exclusively at the moment hoping to get it done before we visit Australia in July.

I’m really hoping I have enough yarn to get it finished before we arrive in Australia.

 

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Dyeing yarn

Gorgeous Girl loves all things science and recently we bought her a chemistry set. She’s been having a great time doing the experiments and creating her own. I came home from work about a week ago to discover that she had filled my two big dyeing jars with colour. Further discussion revealed that one jar was food colouring and the other was purple Kool Aid. She can play with as much food colouring as she wants because it is easy to get here, but the Kool Aid requires either a trip to the USA or the kindness of friends, so we didn’t want to waste it.

I dug into some yarn that my mother had sent me a while ago. She had found it in and op shop (thrift store) and thought we might be able to dye it. It was a pretty funny cream colour. The yarn came wound in a ball and so we dropped it straight into the jar and then put the jar in the sun. There’s lots of sunshine in Papua New Guinea and so we decided to give solar dyeing a whirl. After a few days in the sun the water had turned clear and it was time to take out the yarn.

The dye hadn’t penetrated very far into the ball. So I asked Gorgeous Girl to choose another colour to add from the Kool Aid stash. She picked strawberry lemonade. We put the yarn in a pot with a very small amount of water and vinegar and sprinkled the strawberry lemonade Kool Aid straight onto the yarn. There were still a few white patches so she went back and choose orange. This time we didn’t need to use the whole packet, just sprinkled a little bit here and there directly onto the yarn. We heat set it on the stove and this is the end result.

Really happy with how this turned out.

It reminds me of self-striping sock yarn. Gorgeous Girl has said she is choosing the pattern for this one. I’m hoping it might inspire her to knit as well.

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A blanket

I’m crocheting a blanket. It’s a nice easy pattern. I’m reading a book as I go along.

It’s three times as wide now, but I’ve got a very long way to go.

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A hat

I made a hat for someone special.

I like the way it looks at the top.

There’s a hint of lace on the bottom.

I hope they like it. I’ll hand it over next time we are both in the same country.

 

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