Category: Knitting

Am I Making This Easier?

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I’m currently using my “both sides at once” technique to make three scarves at a time. Because, in my brain, I’m only having to do the row once, rather than doing it six separate times.

Not only does this lead to very full needles, but things can get a little messy. Try as I might to keep the strings nice and untangled, like this:

it usually looks like this in a matter of minutes:

Which means I am having to stop and untangle them every few rows just to keep going. I’m probably not helping myself as much as I think I am by doing this. In fact, I know I’m not. But I have the delusion that this is making me be able to get everything done quicker. So I’m going to keep believing it wouldn’t just be faster to do this one at a time. Even though it most likely would.

Early Hats

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Yes, you read that right. For once I have made something before it was needed and not six weeks after. Or even the day before. Woo!

Remember how I finished those baby blankets about a month ago? Well, I had a ball of the lace yarn left over that I decided to turn into hats for the whole family.

I had to use some sock yarn to create the bottom bands, partly for structure and mostly to stretch the ball of yarn to make three whole hats. Though, they did come out pretty slouchy:


“Father’s Hat”


“Mother’s Hat”


“Baby’s Hat”

They have even been delivered to the recipients, and I got back the cutest picture of all three “wearing” them. I say it like that because recipient number three is still a few weeks away from being born. These are for next winter.

I’ve got to admit, I didn’t take very good notes at the end, mostly because I was juggling trying to take out lots of stitches and replace them. That and I just generally was trying to get these things done. I used the pinecones stitch pattern from that lace baby blanket, and I was kind of getting tired of seeing it. But I think I have enough information to write-up the pattern rather quickly. When I do sit down to write some patterns, that is. I’ve got quite a few to get to, but I’m fully immersed in some more Starry Stoles at the moment. New patterns coming soon, though. I promise.

Kool-Aid Does What? (Dyeing Yarn With Drink Powder)

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I’m fairly certain everyone has had some form of Kool-Aid in their lives. Which is why it is almost slightly disturbing to find out that it works so well as a fiber dye. Not that that means I will stop drinking the stuff, of course.

Not being able to find the correct shade of yarn to make my next Starry Stole, I decided to try dyeing my own. I was going to order some acid dyes, until I saw this tutorial on Kool-Aid dyeing on the Knit Picks website.

The blank yarn came last week, so I picked up some Market Pantry Sugar Free Strawberry Lemonade mix (which turned out to be a pretty color, but totally the wrong shade), because Target doesn’t actually carry powdered Kool-Aid anymore, apparently. I started by washing the yarn in the sink:

I used the Yarn Harlot washing method of tossing the yarn on top of the soapy water and letting it sink on its own. I just let it go until I remembered it was in the sink and realized the dog hadn’t peed on the carpet and that was just the wet wool in the sink.

I mixed a bit of the drink powder with some water, put the yarn on top, and filled the rest of the dish with water. The next step is microwaving it in spurts until the color is all soaked into the yarn, like this:

After letting it cool, I rinsed it, washed it again, and let it dry on the sink.

I was supposed to make this a very pale pink. It didn’t exactly work out. I mixed up Strawberry Lemonade and Pink Lemonade in my mind. So now I have ordered two hanks of the blank yarn, one to use to test out the colors and one to actually dye once I find the right shade.

As for this flamingo yarn, I’m thinking an overdye with some light blue to get me to a purple/blue variegated-esque yarn to turn into some sort of scarf or shawl. Undecided right now, but I have a few other projects to finish before I start something that doesn’t really have a specific purpose.