How many weeks has it been since I finished that cursed Lotus Cardi? I can’t exactly remember, but I do know that it’s making my poor brain work overtime as I plod through my first editing of the pattern. So far I’ve managed to put together a few of the diagrams, schematics and images that need to be in place before I can truly work out the alternate sizing, but it’s extremely slow going. I keep waffling: do I just publish a medium-only pattern, do I take a wild stab at sizing myself, or do I need to pony up the dough and pay someone more mathematically inclined to work it out for me? My answer has been changing daily depending on my frustration level, although I’m siding towards just putting it out there in one size because lately I’ve been both lazy and irritated with this pattern. Yeah, it turned out pretty damned cool, but the complexity is hellacious!
Because of my obvious aggravation I decided to temporarily shelve the Tunisian sweater pattern I was starting and turn my focus back to just having fun. I think it’s been very good for me to just let go of the whole must-get-professional-type-pattern-out-ASAP nuisance because I’ve spent my last two weekends doing all sorts of exciting stuff- for no reason other than to just do it. How freeing!
It started because I had a birthday recently and got to go splurge on some nice yarn. I grabbed a couple of different skeins to try with the Lace Hemp Triangle pattern (link in previous post) and ended up being so enthralled by the easiness and uber fashionable results that I not only made myself two, but I had to make one for my mom and sister.
This one I made for my mom using 1 skein of Mini Mochi .
This was for my sister, made with three strands held together of Aunt Lydia's bamboo/cotton crochet thread.
This one's mine, crocheted up with 2 skeins of linen blend yarn.
Another one for me. I tried to crochet the pattern with only one skein of linen/wool/alpaca, but ran out of yarn before the end point. I still love it, though.After my obsessive weekend of scarf making I decided that I would continue my compulsive streak by trying out a new craft. Thanks to the good old birthday Art Fiend decided that our speculative oohing and ahhing over the idea of spinning our own yarn should finally be put into action, so she gave me my very first spindle! (What? No spinning wheel? Come ON!- Just kidding, Art Fiend!)
I spent a few nervous week nights reading a couple mediocre books on spinning from the library and tentatively poking around on Ravelry’s multiple spinning groups. None of it made much sense to me and it was terribly overwhelming! So many new terms and admonitions of correct methods... my head was spinning before I had even rotated my spindle!
Finally I decided that my usual method of throwing myself blindly into this new craft couldn’t be any more disastrous than my first feeble attempts at crocheting so many years ago, so I went ahead and took the plunge. Per usual my first attempts were quite ugly and humorous and quickly found their way into a wadded ball of half-felted wool sitting in the bottom of my trash can, but after some tinkering (and convenient ignoring of "the rules" from the spinning books) I found myself creating yarn! Tres exciting!
Only after I had used up half the fiber I had from a previous needle-felting kit (also from Art Fiend) did I try re-reading the spinning tutorials. It’s amazing how much more sense it makes once you’ve worked out the basics yourself. Plus, I found some seriously wonderful tutorials on You Tube that not only helped me get some of the mechanics down, but encouraged me to find my own comfort level with spinning. I may be only in the "park and draft" stage of spinning (I haven’t gotten the simultaneous drafting and spinning down yet while the spindle is spinning) but I’m really making some cool stuff!
Here’s my first attempt that did NOT end up in the garbage can. I spun some white wool and then plied it with some handspun angora/iridescent nylon scraps left over from another project. The thin yarn winds around the thicker stuff making it more boucle-like. It is pretty, though.
This is my second attempt. I had read a bit about marled yarns so I pulled out some green & purple wool and spun it together. It takes some getting used to to get the fiber to twist like a barber pole in equal stripes, but I think I did a pretty good job!
While I was spinning the colors kept reminding me of my husband’s cousin who comes to visit every once in a while. The girl is crazy for purple so I thought I could make her something from this crazy colored yarn.
Then, while my yarns were soaking (to set the twist) I decided to finally pick up this abandoned needle-felting project and finish it off.
At the same time I was scouring Ravelry for spinning techniques I was doing a fair amount of peeking at the tutorials for dyeing yarn with Kool Aid. Dyeing yarn with anything else becomes a slightly more involved project with more safety concerns, so I figured if I wanted to learn dyeing Kool Aid would be a great place to start.
First dying experiment... 4 packages of Black Cherry Kool Aid in enough water to cover the yarn, 10 minutes in the microwave and voila!
Second dying experiment... 5 packages of Grape Kool Aid. This skein was spun up with a medium grey wool and silver thread and then plied with a thin white wool yarn I had spun earlier. The effect is amazing and although it turned out darker than I had thought I really love this yarn! I think I shall name it Nyx after the Greek goddess of the night.
And there you have it. Crochet, Tunisian crochet, hand spun yarn and Kool-Aid dyeing- all in a matter of weeks.
-Lyzard
Here’s my first attempt that did NOT end up in the garbage can. I spun some white wool and then plied it with some handspun angora/iridescent nylon scraps left over from another project. The thin yarn winds around the thicker stuff making it more boucle-like. It is pretty, though.
This is my second attempt. I had read a bit about marled yarns so I pulled out some green & purple wool and spun it together. It takes some getting used to to get the fiber to twist like a barber pole in equal stripes, but I think I did a pretty good job!
While I was spinning the colors kept reminding me of my husband’s cousin who comes to visit every once in a while. The girl is crazy for purple so I thought I could make her something from this crazy colored yarn.
Then, while my yarns were soaking (to set the twist) I decided to finally pick up this abandoned needle-felting project and finish it off. 
At the same time I was scouring Ravelry for spinning techniques I was doing a fair amount of peeking at the tutorials for dyeing yarn with Kool Aid. Dyeing yarn with anything else becomes a slightly more involved project with more safety concerns, so I figured if I wanted to learn dyeing Kool Aid would be a great place to start.
First dying experiment... 4 packages of Black Cherry Kool Aid in enough water to cover the yarn, 10 minutes in the microwave and voila!
Second dying experiment... 5 packages of Grape Kool Aid. This skein was spun up with a medium grey wool and silver thread and then plied with a thin white wool yarn I had spun earlier. The effect is amazing and although it turned out darker than I had thought I really love this yarn! I think I shall name it Nyx after the Greek goddess of the night.And there you have it. Crochet, Tunisian crochet, hand spun yarn and Kool-Aid dyeing- all in a matter of weeks.
-Lyzard
