Happy Halloween!

Just a quick note from Mendel and me to say Happy Halloween!  We hope y'all are enjoying the day.  Some of you have seen Mendel's panda costume on Facebook, but here he is again - all angry and cute!  Pattern to come some day when I get it written...

Before:

After:

Random Finished Stuff

Since I'm still trying to get some patterns written for projects I've already finished, I thought I'd take this opportunity to show some of the things I've finished that were designed by other people, mostly.  I'll link to the Ravelry design page or the blog they came from.

Granny Square Earrings (granny squares are the name of a basic crochet motif):




Baby Set:
A friend asked me to make a pumpkin hat for her baby that's coming any day now.  I had some leftover green yarn, so I made the booties and mittens to go along with it.  The hat is my own design and will be posted once i finish writing it ;)



Booties:


Mittens:


Laptop Case:

 

Star Baby Blanket:


And lastly, for this time, Little Owlets:

Yarn Dyeing

I'm really excited about this.  For months I've been seeing pictures on Ravelry of people who dye yarn with everything from Kool-Aid to food coloring and I've really wanted to try it.  I finally decided to do it.  A couple of notes: Ravelry is a sort of social network for yarn crafters - knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers, and dyers.  There are all kinds of people and companies available for help and information.  I think I spend more time there than anywhere.  One of the groups I joined does monthly Harry Potter based challenges and classes.  Both of these dyeing experiments were for that group.

The first experiment was with wine (the challenge was to use tea, coffee, or wine to dye yarn).  I had a couple of bottles of wine that didn't weather the Summer very well and turned to vinegar (I really need to get a wine cooler for those couple of weeks that get seriously hot).  I didn't want to waste it and it was more than I could cook with in a very long time, so I tried the dyeing.  I used organic cotton yarn and pinot noir.

Ingredients:

Boiling wine + Yarn:

End Results:

I don't really love how it turned out.  I think a wool might have been better and also a wine with a little more color saturation, like a burgandy.  Lessons learned.

The second challenge I dyed for was to dye in a Fall color.  I used turmeric on an angora/bamboo yarn.  This one turned out much better.

Ingredients:

Boiling water + Turmeric + Yarn:

FInished Product with my inspiration (leaves from the tree outside my office):

I really enjoyed the experience and I will definitely be trying some other techniques.

Promises, Promises

Maybe I'm not responsible enough for a blog.  When I started this I was all "Sure, I can make it happen once a week."  You've seen how well that's going...But I'm back with a new plan for productivity and some new ideas and a lot of lessons learned (like pattern writing is hard and it takes a long time).  It's probably going to be pretty yarny for a while, but I hope even the non-yarners will find it fun. I have recipes, finished projects, and patterns to share.  This week there's even going to be some expirmenting! (I'm insanely excited about doing and sharing my results).  So, stay tuned!