Sunday, August 10, 2008

Reborn

In mid-July, the Bucks County Guild of Knitters and Crocheters (BCGKC) got together at Tamanend Park in Southampton to experiment with koolaid dyeing using the new Knit Picks sock blanks. We had a terrific time and some really interesting sock blanks were drying in the sun at the end of the afternoon. My friend and fellow BCGKC'er, Sunset Knitter has some great shots of the action on her blog so go take a quick look.

I was intending to go for a little more of a controlled pattern and color palette but I think the koolaid fumes took over. The results .... a bit colorful.


You never know how the blank will knit up (I kept thinking "clown barf") so I decided I'd get them cast on and see. I've not yet expanded my knitting horizons to include the two at a time toe-up method, so instead of being able to knit right from the blank, I had to wind my blank into two separate balls by hand.


I started the Lacy Mock Cable socks by Scarlettknits
I love the pattern!! It's a very simple repeat to memorize and the resulting mock cable is very pretty, but in this yarn ..... yuck!!!


I tried to like them, I really did. But I finally gave up and frogged them when I realized I was embarrassed every time I pulled them out to knit on the train. So last weekend in a fit of impulsiveness I threw both skeins in a solution of koolaid dye left over from my last dyeing adventure.


The resulting color is much prettier than they appear in these pictures. I really love it, much more me. I'm not a rainbow kind of girl. But.... there's always a but if I'm involved.... long story short, the dye didn't take up evenly in both skeins so I had to redunk one of the skeins and now they are ever so slightly different colors. So instead of knitting a pair of socks, I decided to look around for another project using fingering weight yarn. I was thinking maybe a neckwarmer and it just so happens the Fashionably Late KAL group I belong to has finished their clapotis and are moving on to smoke rings so I started knitting the Wavy Feathers Wimple by Caryll McConnell this weekend.




It's a fun pattern, very pretty and enjoyable to work on. I'm not sure how wearable it'll be when it's done, but then you know, I have no hesitation when it comes to frogging. Just ask Jenny Girl. In fact, there are a couple of other projects that are on my hit list.

7 comments:

  1. I really like how that is knitting up! I still can't believe this is the same yarn. I say keep going with the smoke ring thing. I think it's pretty and a good idea.

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  2. The yarn looks much better after you overdyed it. Absolutely stunning.

    You could knit a pair of socks from it if you want to. Just alternate betwee the two balls (1 row of ball A and 1 row of ball B) and you won't notice any colordifference.

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  3. I think it turned out really well!

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  4. Love the sock blanks! I haven' tried them yet.

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  5. clown barf--------- now that is seriously funny!!!!!

    Love the end result though, that is tres pretty yarn and the socks look great!

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  6. I love the finished colors. It looks fantastic knitted as a clappy.
    I have never done any dyeing. It looks fun!

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  7. I love the new color, the other was pretty too : )

    Did you have trouble with the edges wanting to stick when you winded it up? Mom and I have dyed 4 now and if you knit from them they stick and if we wound them up...they stuck on the corner edge lol.

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