Another baby present

What is it with everybody having babies?  Our neighbors here in Cheyenne just became first-time grandparents, so I made the Puerperium baby set for their new granddaughter.  Laurie was kind enough to provide me some pictures of the little gal, who apparently liked her outfit and made a face when they changed her for baby pictures!   There is a pair of booties and a diaper cover that go with the outfit, but they don't fit quite yet.  This set was knit in Bernat Baby Jacquards yarn in apple blossom.

Happy notes .... and sad

I got a text from Dani, whose husband works with John, with a knitting job to commission me for.  She had seen on Pinterest a baby cocoon and hat made like a football.  So we got some yarn, and below is the result.  I will post a picture of her nephew in his cocoon whenever he arrives.

On the sad note, I have been harvesting fur from our akita, Kuma, for 2 years, so that I can spin his fur into yarn.  Last Thursday, I got the last of his fur, as we had him put to sleep,  He was 14 years, 9 months and 28 days old, but he began suffering from canine cognitive dissociative disorder (doggie dementia) and the meds for his dementia made him ill.  So now I have to learn to spin dog fur, to have that part of him still.

Kuma in his prime, posing for his mama in front of her handiwork

 

 

On the happy note, 2 weeks before Kuma passed, we adopted another akita who needed a good home.  Her name is Seiya (SAY-yah) and she is 2 years old.  Having her for 2 weeks was good for Kuma (who ate better when he had to compete for food) and for her (who learned the rules at our house from the big guy).  She has been a big comfort for us, and she already loves us and we love her.  I will miss Kuma every day, but Seiya fills some of the empty hole after almost 14 years with Kuma.  But her fur is different than Kuma's (much shorter shaft), so I'm not sure about spinning it.



Seiya insisting on some attention

Where has the time gone?

Just saw that it has been over 6 weeks since I posted, so here I am again.  I have lots of things on my needles right now. I just finished and sent off to my friend in Florida another Summerflies shawl, this one bigger than the one I did for myself.   I have been doing the knitpurlhunter KAL Independence pillow.  I also have a pair of 2-at-a-time toe-up socks on the needle to try the Fleegle heel.  Just about ready for the heel, so I'll let you know.  I also started another Ashton shawl (my 5th) in worsted weight black sequined yarn for my daughter Liz.  I have been knitting more Puerperium sets (see previous post) for more friends with babies or grandbabies on the way or just arrived. I also have a Garn studio top-down sweater/smock for myself, that I get too bored to do for very long: about 250 stitches per row in garter stitch -- man, that's mind-numbing!  But it's so much better than the about 400 stitches it was before I put the sleeves on waste yarn!

I am here today to report on my newest spinning try.  This time I separated 12 ounces of raw undyed fiber (Colonial sheep) into three 4-oz batches.  I dyed two of the batches in sapphire, and the third batch in a higher concentration of the same dye.  After this adventure, I have decided John and I need to build our garage in Colorado with the apartment above it, so that I have a dyeing studio.  John hates the smell of hot wool, and the mess it can make is stupendous!  I won't be able to do much dyeing in the house, so I'd better have someplace to do it all.  So I spun the three batches of wool and plied them together, and this is the result:

The lighter patches are from the light coming through the trees, but the color is a pretty close match.  I'm pleased with it.  I got about 400 yards of 11-12 wraps per inch yarn.  Hopefully it will yield enough yarn to make a substantial item for me.

Gerri:  Since you're the only person who follows my blog, I should let you know.  The Hot August Knits yarn crawl starts next week, and I'm planning to get registered for the grand prize, which means visiting (and buying at) all 9 shops.  The participating shops are in Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, and in Fort Collins and Estes Park Colorado.  I thought of you when I saw the newest participant in the crawl:  The Loopy Ewe!  I'm planning to make my first visit there in a couple of weeks.  I hope there's some money in my bank account when I leave!

Summerflies shawl

Knit up this quick-knit shawl in Caron Country yarn.  Unfortunately I ran out of yarn 2 yards from the end.   EEEK! but I got onto knittingparadise and sent out my emergency call, and my new bff :-) from Overland Park sent a skein of the yarn and bailed me out.  Really love this pattern because you can add more length very easily.  The pattern sections are very simple.  However, blocking this puppy was a nightmare!  195 points .... and each one was pinned to the blocking board.  Took forever!

Blue boy layette

We are close to a young couple who are expecting their first child any day now (and he can't come too soon for Dani!) so I spent the weekend making a layette set for him.  The sweater is the Puerperium (newborn) cardigan that allows the baby to be half dressed before you have to pick him up to get his second sleeve done. I love top down raglans!  They knit so quickly.  The diaper cover is from a soaker pattern, but I don't expect Dani to use it as a soaker, only to go over the diaper.  The buttons are cutest little bears.  They cost more than the yarn did, but I couldn't resist!

UFOs -- we come in peace

I've been feeling guilty lately about the number of UFOs among my projects (UnFinished Objects, for the uninitiated). I  get all excited about new things to try, and put down the old things.  So in a brief moment of sanity, that happened at 4 in the morning as I couldn't sleep, I began going through bags of UFOs, seeing what I could easily finish and pat myself on the back over.  And I came across this sweater, started 2 years ago, right before we left Missouri. It got packed in boxes for the movers to bring, and I never got into the boxes to see what was there.  So I pulled out the rest of the yarn (Caron Country), flipped through my pattern binder for the pattern, got out my Hiya Hiya size 8 circs and started picking up stitches for the trimwork.  The body and both sleeves were done; all I had to do was sew everything up and do the blackberry stitch on the front and bottom hem.  Did I say "all" I had to do?  Man, I'm glad I learned to "read" my knitting, because that blackberry stitch was getting to be a pain!  And voila!  2 days later, I don't have to be afraid of little green men on this one!  Needs to be washed and blocked, but that's another day's post.  I haven't yet made it to the toy store to buy the jigsaw-shaped puzzle mats to do blocking.

More fun with dying

With Easter being just over, I had the brilliant(?) idea that a perfect way to control dying larger lots of yarn would be to use Easter egg dye.  Get it from the same company, and each color is going to be about the same from package to package.  So I gave it a shot.  Certainly dying same-tone yarn will be about the same, as long as approximately the same amount of yarn is to be dyed.  Variegating the yarn was harder to control, but fun!  The picture below is 120 yards of Lion Brand Fishermans Wool in the beginning of a Baby Surprise Jacket, and an attempt to duplicate the dying.  The pink/purple section is not the same, but I think it's probably closer than exact dye lots of Noro!  (Noro not being my favorite color combos!)

I'm in Colorado as I do this experiment.  After dying the yarn, I put it on the clothes drying rack out on the deck about 8 o'clock .  I came back 1 hour later to check on the state of drying, and discovered it frozen stiff!  Who knew wet things would freeze at 32 degrees!   ;-)

This has been so much fun, I think I'm going to try some tonal dying next.  And I realized, if you want a bright yellow, use Easter egg tabs!  The yellow I got here is vivid, and I had a lot of trouble getting a vivid yellow with KoolAid and other food-safe dyes.  Next I think I'll take a couple of the pink tabs and try graduating the depth of color from deep at the ends of the hank to less intense at the middle of the hank.  Should be fun .. or at least my idea of fun!  Many of my friends (and my husband, probably) don't understand my fascination with playing with fiber.  Oh well, they're the ones missing out!