Now for some (obligatory) knitting content....

Just kidding. My posts are almost all knitting related. But in order to fulfill SP10 hostess request, I am now going to write about my favorite knitting accessory...

I am pretty darn low maintenance. I don't use fancy counters or gadgets very often. About the only things I use are crochet hooks, chibi needles, scissors, cable needles, and plain plastic stitch markers. I don't like heavy and very dangly stitch markers. A swap pal (see below) just sent some nice, small, single bead stitch markers for making socks with so that is an exception. I will say about the neatest thing I have bought and am actually using in terms of a knitting accessory is the Knit Picks magnetic chart board. It folds in half and closes on itself to protect your charts while travelling, the magnets ACTUALLY stick to the board (unlike another board I have purchased), and it can be folded in a way that it props itself up. It is a much better buy at $10 than the plain magnetic boards I have seen selling for $6-$7. So I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to follow a chart or carry their knitting patterns around in a protected way.

My "April Fools The Jokes on You" swap pal Cindi in Orlando sent me a kickin' swap package. Ooh, sorry, I forgot to include the mug and candy in the picture. Anyway, it included a Mountain Colors sock pattern and Joslyn's Fiber Farm sock yarn in Mocaw colorway. I was thinking this morning that the sock yarn has orange and blue in it, the UF gator colors, so I will definitely be able to use this sock yarn. In fact, DH will love it as he is the gator. Somehow she knew I was another chocolate and coffee nut. I guess we all can just sense each other.

And the alpaca yarn from my mom has finally made its way down from Alaska. She told me to tell her what to buy more of....since my mom has already claimed the brown for herself, I am thinking that I need more brown for me! Now I just need to go sit down and figure out how much more of each color that I want.

Now I know you all are jealous of my alpaca yarn. Especially the brown and black.

And I purchased some bamboo yarn to make the Dream Swatch. I love the colors in this yarn, much more brilliant than even those in SWTC's bamboo. So, even though it looks a bit splitty, I will throw myself into using this yarn by sacrificing my sanity to the splittiness just to get cool colors! I really wanted the original yarn used in the pattern because I love and wear those colors, but I have no such luck. So I think this is a fairly good compromise!

Pattern (to be used): Dream Swatch

Yarn: Madil Eden Pring Color 039
Source: Rebelle
Needle: TBD

I went to a really cool little yarn shop right off of the UK campus in Lexington called ReBelle. They carried quite a few sock yarns, and quite a bit of alternative yarns (corn, soy, bamboo, etc..) and many colors of malabrigo. I was so jonesin' for the malabrigo, as they had colors that I cannot get locally. But I held off. I really want to save SOME money to go to Maryland Sheep and Wool. Anyway, I knew I was home when the girl behind the counter sat there, quietly working in frustration on her socks! Thank goodness they had late hours on Wednesday, the day we drove in. Because I did not have any other time on this trip to go yarn shopping. Boohoo! So, ReBelle, you were my salvation! :)

I also did not get much knitting done, but I have been driving to the hoop on my goal to finish my Clapotis. I only have one more repeat in the middle section! And then I get to start decreasing! I am so excited. I will post pictures later this week.

I took a sock yarn dying class!

Yay! Another knitter's resolution is accomplished.

4. Learn to dye.

This weekend I took a self-striping sock yarn dying class at my friend's shop, Yarns Forever. Well, really at her home dying studio in her basement. It was so nice of her to have us to her house, so we wouldn't make such a mess in the shop! We had such a wonderful time. Here are some pictures. Please forgive me as they are quite horrible. I forgot my camera at home, and had to take pictures on my cell phone camera. Thank goodness for technology! We did take pics on my friend's camera, but I can't seem to access her flickr for the last few days.

We tried several different methods of measuring out the 2 yards needed for self-striping sock yarn. I did the wooden peg board method, there was also the swift method, and pictured below is the chair/doornob method. :)

Here is a picture of my sock yarn soaking in a water, vinegar and soap solution before we will begin dying it.

Here is a picture of the dye choices we had. We had ten colors to choose from.

My friend is demonstrating how to mix dye solutions. She uses the Country Classic dyes.

Here are my color choices: tomato, slate blue, cornflower blue and evergreen.

Here is a picture of my handpainting in progress. You can see that I have already applied tomato and some slate blue. The tomato may appear to get more pink. That is because there was some confusion about what dye color I had picked out. This is an important lesson for anyone who wants to dye. What the dye color looks like before it is processed with heat may look very different from the final color after processing. Everyone was remarking that the tomato was actually pink and that we took from the wrong color jar. So I ended up getting pink to finish up the tomato section. We figured out that we were right all along once we started applying the pink dye because it looked different once it was applied to the yarn. The mistake is fine with me because the two of us who did this blended the pink back into the tomato and it looks quite pretty. I also learned how to better manage the application of the color such that you do not waste color (and see it run down the drain when you wash the skeins after processing).

Here is the "cooking" of the skein in a steam bath. We steamed it for 30 minutes while we ate lunch from Frodo's Pizza (yum yum!).

Here is my finished colorway, after processing and a quickie cooling in an ice bath.

Here is a class picture of our final work. Ignore our icky hair and fashion choices. It is best to dress shabbily while dying. You do NOT want to dye your good clothes! Everyone did such beautiful colors.

Since I had to run some errands on the way home, some of the pink/red stained the slate blue sections of the yarn. This is because the skein was still wet and I believe the pink/red had excess dye in the yarn. It is alright, cause it still looks cool to me. Below is my final ball of yarn. It is kind of messy, as I had to wind it by hand since it was a bit tangled. It is very important to consistently wind the yarn on the peg boards, to get less crisscrossing/tangling in your yarn.

I call this colorway "Dark Opal" because it reminds me of the fire in my dark opal jewelry that I bought in New Zealand. The colors turn out paler and less intense in these pictures then they are in person.

If any of my blogland friends and readers out there have suggestions on favorite dyes, favorite natural yarn sources, and any other dying advice, please share! I would love to dye some more sock yarn for my friends. I would especially love any recommendations as to undyed yarn that is a beautiful merino sock yarn, like KPPM or Socks that Rock. I just love merino like crazy.

In other great news, my mom was able to buy some Alaskan Alpaca Yarn from one of her coworkers. She has a coworker who raises aplaca back home in Alaska. My mom bought the yarn for such a steal that I can't publish the price because my mom's other coworkers might find out. But since my mom showed early interest and committed to buying early, she got a bargain. My mom bought it in four colors: brown, grey, cream and beige. Now I will have to knit her a scarf and my dad a hat with two of the colors. She has even already claimed the brown color(boohoo! my favorite), but I don't mind. I am just excited that she bought it for us and that she will be able to wear such an exotic fiber, because it only has a little wool in it. My mom has allergies to wool that is not highly processed. And there is nothing better than supporting a small local farmer! My mom says she is another good Pennsylvania girl like herself!

Still waiting for my Socks that Rock kit. And my February sock exchange kit. I hope something comes today. That would be awesome.