Chris and I have three cats: Puck, Pepper, and Tiger. We only had two Kitty Pi (Pis?). Clearly, this needed to change. The Quidditch World Cup Semifinal Round required knitting a project of at least 300 yards, and the United States is one of the Semifinal teams. Solution: A Kitty Pi in red, white, and blue. Easy Peasy.
MAPLE LEAF the Second
I finished the second MAPLE LEAF shawl during the last few days of May. Knitting this shawl as written results in 52 ends to be woven in after knitting is complete. I prefer to avoid weaving in that many ends if I can. In the Ravelry pattern notes, the designer said you could crochet slip stitch from the cast on point to where you need to start knitting next. When I knit MAPLE LEAF the First, I discovered that if I wanted to crochet slip stitch, I could not knit the pattern in the order it was written because I would have to slip stitch across live stitches. So I modified the pattern by rearranging the order of knitting so that I would not be slip stitching across live stitches. Unfortunately, I did not take notes while knitting MAPLE LEAF the First, mostly because I was knitting off my iPad rather than a printed pattern. For MAPLE LEAF the Second, I took notes as I went along. This post will include all my modifications, by reference to the original pattern. It’s taken this long for me to write up this post because I knew it would take a while to write it and I did not have enough time during the first couple weeks of June.
Little Owl’s Orange Scarf
I have a small collection of children’s picture books, even though Chris and I do not have any children. Most are books I personally loved as a child. When I come across amazing children’s books, I add them to my collection. When children visit our house, they get to check out the collection and I occasionally pick one up and read it myself just because it makes me happy. This weekend, I unexpectedly stumbled across a picture book featuring knitting, so of course it came home with me!
Learning to Dye, Part 2: Variables
In this post, I am laying out a broad overview of the factors I have learned to consider when attempting to achieve a certain color. None of these factors is considered in great detail. The next post will contain a list of resources which can help you flesh out the information here..
Learning to Dye, Part 1: Why Dye
This is the first in a series of six planned posts on the process of learning to dye. I am just learning myself, and thought it might be helpful to share the information I’ve found along the way.
Unless you are a regular reader of this blog, you are probably reading this post because you already know that you want to learn to dye and have your own reason for doing so. I still thought it would be helpful to begin at the beginning with the reasons to dye because the reason you want to learn affects the choices you make in terms of which methods of dyeing you learn first, the types of equipment and dyes that you purchase, and the detail of your recordkeeping as you learn. The list I have written here is a compilation of reasons I’ve heard for learning to dye and are, in greater or lesser degree, the reasons I am personally learning. I’m sure the list is incomplete!