Broken seed stitch socks

Socks are my go to knitting project when I don't want to think about anything complicated. I recently saw this cool pattern on a facebook group I'm in for knitting. Broken seed stitch is both easy and pretty. 

So I made a pair for my friend Anni for her birthday. It's a while before she'll have a chance to wear them, but they should be nice and warm for the upcoming winter. 

I'm looking forward to handing them over soon. I think it might be time for a rice paper roll dinner at ours again. 


ravelled here

Grateful three

When I was in the midst of post natal depression after the birth of the wee one, I used to try and get a list of three things I was grateful for together every day. It was a way to help remind myself that there were positive things in the world and that everything wasn't as bad as I imagined.

I'm not depressed anymore, huzzah!, but I am currently suffering from a cold that includes much snot and a sore throat. So I've decided to bring back the grateful three here.

1. The boy is back from four days away in Korea for work and I am no longer solo parenting.

2. My strawberry plants have flowers.

3. I finished a pair of socks that are made from leftover sock yarn that wasn't enough to make a whole pair of socks on their own. They are the kind of socks that just make you happy to look at. 

Back when it was sunny

So back when it was sunny, I finished making my wee one a pair of socks in some leftover sock wool. She has an enthusiasm for blue of late and fortunately this was a featured colour in this yarn. 

Can I just say that I love knitting socks for kids? Great, I love knitting socks for kids. So incredibly quick to knit up. Quite a contrast to making socks for adults with enormous feet. 

Here are the kid socks, in the sun. The sun that has been conspicuously absent from our lives of late. 



There are another blue pair that TWO chose the wool for herself floating about. But I am yet to photograph them. Perhaps an action shot, if she stands still long enough. 

My new obsession - dyeing wool (or how I made myself some Gox box socks)

I belong to an online mothers group. There are thirty something women who were all due to have babies around the same time, between the 15th and 28th of February 2011. It is through them that I found out how easy it is to dye your own yarn using food colours. It has turned into somewhat of an obsession. No longer do I look at the coloured yarn and think what I can make with it. I look at the natural coloured stuff, or the white and imagine what colour I can make it. 

I followed a tutorial that one of the Mums linked me to, you can see it here. I wanted to show you a start to finish version as I do some things different to the methods described there. 

First I skein the yarn, which is pretty much just putting it over the back of a kitchen chair and wrapping it around. Or I put it over my knees and wrap it. This is best performed when the wee one (TWO) is not around as she likes to 'help'. 

It usually ends up looking something like this :



Then I tie it in different places, making sure that I weave the ties in between the strips of yarn. I generally try and use something that is of a different colour to make sure I can find it again after I've finished.





Then it is soaking time. As per the tutorial, warm/hot water with vinegar in it. I have some crazy strong Swedish vinegar, 24% acetic acid. Normal stuff is about 6% so I add just a little to my warm/hot water and it seems to work. For more specific volumes, see the tutorial there. 30 mins at a minimum, but I often leave if for a long time because I get distracted easily.



There you can see my white yarn having a wee soak. 

Once it's nice and soaked, I add it to my dye pot. I add some of the dye to a big pot of water on the stove, with another splash of vinegar for good measure. You need enough water to cover the yarn.

Here is my colour choice, lemon yellow for some bright as all get out socks for the cold and dark Swedish winter. 




 Lower the yarn in and poke it to get it to be submerged, but no stirring or swirling, that way felting lies.



Here is one place I vary from the tutorial given on the link, I will sometimes just let the yarn sit in the pot overnight without heating. It does work, it just takes time. If you don't have forever and a day, put the stove on a low heat and remember, boiling equals felting, so warm but not boiling is the plan.

I check the yarn every so often, say 15 mins or so, until one of two things happens. 1. All the dye is gone from the water or  2. They yarn looks a little bit darker than I want it to end up.

Then if you have just be leaving it in the pot without heat, time to rinse and enjoy your newly dyed yarn. Or if you have heated it, let it cool down in the pot and then rinse.

Here is my rinsed yellow yarn



I took this yellow yarn, with its variegated colour and knitted myself a pair of short yellow socks. Unfortunately, as seems almost always the case for me, I ran out just before I finished the second sock. So I had to dye some more yarn. It ended up slightly less variegated than the first. Here are my newly knitted YELLOW socks. Ready to keep my cold feet warm this autumn and winter. And not a moment too soon, it was frosty this morning. They would also do well should I encounter a Gox that needs boxing. We have been reading a lot of Dr Seuss of late and every time I see the page about yellow Gox box socks, I think of these beauties.



And that is my story of how I dye yarn. I've done quite a bit, and I intend on sharing the other exploits here soon. But for now, I have to head off and wash said yellow socks along with a banana encrusted jumper that TWO needs in this less that warm weather. Raveled here.

Socks for a fellow dance enthusiast

 My lovely friend, G, is my dance teaching partner. We've been teaching balboa together for about a year now and I think he's hilarious. He's originally from Slovenia and moved to Sweden for love. What I admire about him is his enthusiasm and joy for dance and life. His generosity of spirit is also pretty impressive. He has certainly made an impression on the wee one. She hadn't seen him for a few weeks, but said quite clearly "dancing with G" to me a few days ago.
 It was his birthday in November and I hastily attempted to knit him a pair of socks before his birthday party. But I failed. They were nowhere near ready by the time the party came around. He has such big feet. So it was only a month or so ago that I was able to present him with the socks. I think he appreciated them though. What do you think?
 

I noticed too late that I was running out of the brown/natural coloured wool, so one toe is quite significantly more purple than the other. My theory with these kinds of situations is that it shows that they were hand made.