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two parts green, one part blue

Yes, at the beginning of this dye-your-own journey I had my sights set on red.  But when I discovered what happened to my gray yarn when I dipped it for just a short bit of time into a two-parts-lemon-lime, one-part-blue-berry kool aid mix I knew that in my heart I'll always be a green girl.  And if I'm going to commit myself to knitting up an adult sized sweater, that I should listen to my heart.  So green it is.  And here it is a skein scarf (as I remember seeing on the cover of Organic Style years ago...) and as a pile tempting the cat while waiting to be wound into balls. 

This pound of green woolery makes me think of spring, of new growth and of the warmer days ahead.  I feel like this knitting project is about much more than turning string to cloth.  To me it's about transforming something from the home of my childhood that I've been carrying around for years.  It's about taking charge and changing things up so that they work better for me.  I'm looking forward to settling in with the needles later tonight, to carrying forward on this journey.

smitten with smocks

And now, thanks to Alicia and Amy, we have a criss cross smock to wear as we criss cross the room practicing our steps.  I'm totally smitten with this sweet little pattern!  Here we have fabric from a thrifted cotton/linen men's shirt and tattered Laura Ashley dress.  The smock is reversible with contrasting circle appliqued on both front and back. 

I'm slowly teaching myself to sew.  Clothes for the little miss seem to be the perfect way to learn -- a small amount of fabric is used, the time commitment is nominal, and she's not fussy at all about how things fit.  The cordouroy pants are one of three pairs I made for her on Friday, and the smock is really the first of many -- I have two more cut out and ready for assembly!

a very long day

so long that the little miss fell asleep with a mouthful of tandoori chicken...

transitions

This weekend the temperature crept above zero and we ventured out to the lake.  Near home the ice was thick enough to lure out adventuresome folk.  A few miles up the shore, the ice sheet met open water of an unbelievable blue.  I continue to be amazed, humbled and inspired by this vast and ever-changing body of water.   

time and flavor variations

Things change with time.  Here are a few of the bits of yarn I dyed yesterday with kool-aid.  Wild cherry, lemon lime (quick), lemon lime (longer), pink lemonade quickly layered with wild cherry, and pink lemonade.  I'm still looking to create the color for the sweater, but I'm getting closer.  I'm also getting hooked -- I just ordered a pound of yarn from Wool2Dye4.  Next up, exploring dyestuffs recommended by Frontier Co-op for natural egg dyeing.

four years in the making

I worked on organizing my attic/studio today, starting with the yarn and knitting paraphernalia.  Amidst the skeins I found four projects at various stages of completion that I had completely forgotten about.  One was a sweater that I started while a friend was pregnant with her now three year old.  I vaguely remember thinking that I had misjudged the seasons and that it wasn't going to fit the little guy when he'd need a sweater to keep warm - or so I told myself so that I wouldn't have to actually finish it.  It was my first non-felted, non-scarf knitting project, so I think I was a bit intimidated by piecing the wonky sleeves to the front and back.  When I found it today, all it really needed was some buttons and a little weaving of the ends. 

So in between emptying and filling a miniature shopping basket of plastic vegetables about ninety-two times with the little miss this afternoon it went from a forgotten tangle to a sweet little sweater (with still somewhat wonky short sleeves...).  And yes, that's one of the beloved veggies in her hand.

petit scarf

Keeping the little miss bundled seems to be more and more of a challenge these days.  She's all about pulling hats from her head (and now mine), and scarves always seem to end up with tails longer than she is tall.  Liesl's pattern has become the answer to these bitter cold Minnesota days. 

While this style is completely new to me, a friend who grew up here remembered similar scarves knit up by her grandmother from her childhood.  I knit this one up from some Di.Ve' Winter from the stash.  And yes, we're pictured here bundled in the house... it's not that cold inside, although the windows in our old home get so frosty that we can't see outside on days when the sun isn't shining and its below zero.  The little miss is also sporting a sweater knit by her nana for her uncle 23 years ago, and some more of the stripey pants that her mama can't stop making.

take one

Red.  I've been into reds lately.  Pinks too.  Maybe it's the depth of winter.  Maybe it's that I'm finally growing tired of the greys and blacks that have made up my 'uniform' for eons.  Maybe it's the influence of a little pink cheeked beauty.  Any hoo, I've set out to dye my wool a reddish color.  I thought that kool-aid might work since I'm starting with a greyish-brown fiber.  I'm definitely not a kool-aid kind of girl, but I can't resist the ease of the technique. The first run is a bit too cherry berry punchy for me.  I have a hunch there's too much kool aid in the mix.  Or maybe I should consider feeding my wool something that I'd actually eat myself...

brownies - found!

I work in a converted school building that houses a handful of non-profits, including a soup kitchen and 'free' store.  The free store is mainly stocked with clothing and household goods but sometimes they receive other interesting donations...  Today a stack of at least two hundred childrens books appeared -- they had been discarded from the libraries of nearby elementary schools.  I snatched a small stack which includes some titles from my childhood, others with wonderful woodcut illustrations, and more that feature characters like an unhappy green bicycle-riding cow named Pistachio and a musical gnu named Elihu. 
Two little books about brownies are by far my favorites.  Fun images of little helpful folks from the woods.  "They were dressed all in brown.  They wore little brown suits, little brown caps and little brown shoes.  Their caps were pointed, their suits had buttons down the front, and their shoes had l______ong pointed toes and looked MUCH too big for them. These queer little folk were SMILING all the time.  First they came creepity-creep, creepity-creep; then they came skippity-hop, skippity-hop, very softly and lightly, right up to the door of the little brown house." - from Brownies - Hush! by Gladys Adshead.

More than anything I'm so pleased that this 'find' has introduced me to books that I might not have stumbled upon otherwise.  Stories that resonate with me that I didn't know I was missing until I found them.  I feel this way about the crafty blogging community, too -- when I discovered SouleMama as I searched for Munki Munki fabric over a year ago it was as if I had happened upon an entire world that I was sorely missing without even realizing it. 

enough for a sweater

Many years ago my mother sent me nine hanks of wool spun from sheep that roamed a pasture just beyond her home.  Each year their wool would be sent off to be spun.  The yarns offered by the neighbors were the colors offered by their sheep.

All this time I've been on the lookout for the right sweater.  Yesterday, I found it.  I'm going to make myself the hourglass sweater from this book.  The vibrant orange sweater pictured in the book made me realize that I couldn't possibly knit this sweater up to be the color of the sheep that so closely resembles the color of the sky above its pasture in late February.  So, I'm about to embark an adventure in dyeing.  Stay tuned...