More felted vases

Last month I made my first attempts at felting around glass vases.  I didn’t think they were too bad for a first try, although the square one didn’t make me very happy.

Yesterday and today I continued my journey and am getting much better at creating a pattern for the resist that is closer to the correct size.

I dyed the tall one from last month.   The spiky top made me think of flames, so I used Kool-Aid to complete the fiery look.

Vase on fire

The color is more vivid in real life.  It is about 7.5 inches tall and 3 inches in diameter at the widest point.  The shape of this vase allows the vase to slide out of the alpaca felt covering.

Tall and gray

This one is made with gray alpaca fiber with a band of blue dyed around it. It’s about 9.5 inches tall and 3.5 inches in diameter.

Curvy

This one’s about 7 inches tall, 4.5 inches in diameter at the widest point. While wet, I sprinkled grape Kool-Aid powder around this one and then squirted vinegar on the powder.  The blue dye ran out of the purple dye for the two-tone effect.  Quite unexpected and unique.

Black and white

For this one I used both black and white fiber, no dyeing involved.  It’s about 6 inches tall, 3 inches in diameter.

Meet in the middle

This one is also made with alpaca fiber that was dyed before it was felted.  It is 8 inches tall and 5 inches in diameter at the widest point.

Since they all have glass inside, they can be used for fresh flowers.  Or they can hold a silk flower arrangement, pencils on your desk or knitting needles.  You can put a battery operated candle in them or just admire them on their own.  I’m planning to take these five vases to Gumball Collective in Minneapolis where they will be for sale.  I can’t wait to see how they are accepted there.

The group!

So what do you think?   I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Hey, Kool-aid Man!

I had a wonderful day yesterday!   I spent it cooking Kool-aid!  Leslie of Drummond Farms came over in the morning.  She is new to dyeing.   She brought white yarn, Kool-aid and lunch – not much makes me happier!  We spent the morning with big dye pots on the stove.  We did 4 batches. 

Our morning's accomplishment

The green, red and orange/yellow are all pretty solid colored.   A little variation, but mostly solid.  The purple dye pot, however started out blue, then red (tropical punch, I think) was sprinkled on the yarn, let sit a short time, then stirred in.

Crazy colors

And this is the result.  Mine is the bulky, Leslie has the Suri lace weight.  We shared dye pots on the batches. 

Then we ate lunch on the deck.  Leslie’s coleslaw was as yummy as the yarn we dyed!   Then visited the alpacas in the barn and walked around the yard a bit.

Afternoon was ‘nuke the Kool-aid’ class!   Kool-aid was mixed in little squirt bottles and applied in various patterns to wet yarn.  The yarn was wrapped in cellophane and popped in the microwave! 

And for dessert!

And this is our afternoon’s work!   (Leslie’s on the right, mine on the left)  A day filled with fun conversation and beautiful yarn besides!   If your interested in buying, Leslie’s is all lace weight.  Contact her for more info.   My hand painted is 80% alpaca / 20% silk lace weight, all other is 100% alpaca yarn.

I got nuthin’

Nothing, Nada, Zip, Zilch!  I didn’t even get one puny pair of mittens knit last week for charity.   I will do better this week!

I did get the red mittens felted.  This is a testimony to dyeing with Kool-Aid.  To felt the mittens, I put a big pot of water on my stove and heated to nearly boiling, added that to the hottest tap water I could get in my wash machine, added detergent (not gentle Aquilaun like I recommend for alpaca) and agitated the bejeebers out of those poor mittens for at least 15 minutes.  This is NOT the care I suggest be given to alpaca products – especially those dyed deep, dark colors.   But here is the set:

Red set

The felting gives the mittens a fuzziness the wrist warmers and scarf don’t have, so they do look a little different.  And they did fade some – the water was pink.  But I was amazed at how little they faded – since I did not think of that possibility when I started the set (duh!)

My finished objects!

First – my grocery / project / carry-anything bag!

My bag

It doesn’t look like much until it is filled with something.  I stuffed a couple little pillows in it. 

Stuffed bag

It stretches, but the crochet cotton is so strong, I think it could carry groceries.  I can’t wait to try it out! 

This set is almost finished.  I have to felt the mittens yet. 

Scarf, mittens, wristwarmers

But then it will be mailed off to its destination, so I thought I would show you this – incase I forget to photograph the felted mittens.  Next set – scarf, mittens, wristwarmers, and hat from yarn I’ll dye with walnut husks!

Something for others

They are my standby!  Mittens from the bags of acrylic yarn donated to my knitting group.   They still need to have seams sewn – which will be done by another gal in the group.   She offers – how can I refuse!

3 little pairs of mittens

We meet tomorrow, so these will be on their way to warm little school kids’ fingers soon. 

Legwarmers are finished – ready to be picked up later this week.  I think I will make another pair soon to have in the gift shop and maybe list onEtsy.   These were fun to knit.

Legwarmers

Striped like these or solid color?   Which do you like?

I may have overdone the Kool-Aid in the dye bath!  A combination of cherry and tropical punch and, man, is it red!   I don’t know if I can get this bright a red from commercial dyes.  Not sure I need to try!

Really red yarn

This is for a custom order of mittens and wristwarmers of the sport weight and a scarf of the bulky yarn.  Notice the white ties on the skeins – that is acrylic yarn that went thru the dyeing same as the skeins of alpaca.  I’m always amazed that acrylic just doesn’t pick up dye like natural fiber!   Makes you wonder how they dye acrylic in the factory!

Better late than never?

Here’s the end to the red scarflette saga.

I decided to put in 3 buttonholes for the 2 white and 1 red buttons.   I found this great tutorial on making buttonholes.   After a few tries, I was making pretty good buttonholes – much better than the ‘bind off, next row cast on’ type I had previously made.  So I switched from the bumpy seed stitch to smooth stockinette, knit a few rows, put in buttonholes, knit a few more and bound off.   I sewed my center red button on the other end and take a look!!!

One button one

End to end

The stockinette rows pulled in shorter than the seed stitch and the buttonhole row even more so.  Bad scarf!   So the scarflette went into time-out for a few weeks! 

When I determined that the scarflette had sufficiently repented, I ripped back to the seed stitch and started again.  I put in 4 buttonholes for the 4 red buttons.  (Thanks to Linda and Karen for agreeing on this!)  I continued to do the seed stitch and attempted to keep it as consistent as possible on each side of the buttonholes.  And here it is!

The buttons are on

Buttoned

Over the head with one buttonThe buttonholes still pull that row in a little, but it is much improved.Wide front

Pointed down in front

It is finally done!  I even had fun fashioning it is different ways on my mannequin head.   It is knit from bulky 100% alpaca yarn, dyed with Kool-aid.  $20.  I think it will go into my Etsy shop, but my blog readers get first chance.   I can say it is warm and cuddly!

Week 1 – wrap up

Week One’s goal was to have 25 pair of wrist warmers completed.  Did I make it?   Not quite.  I have 12 on the shelf.  I have another 11 pair knit and in various stages of completion.   Some only need the frilly edge and the seam done, some are on the blocking board, one is waiting for its turn to be blocked.    I will continue to work on these in the remaining weeks.   (Side note – I did dye on Wednesday and also on Saturday, so have a couple skeins of yarn to add to the inventory!)

Week Two’s Schedule:

Monday – Felt 15 bars of soap

Tuesday – Knit a pair of women’s mittens, weigh them and start winding skeins of the correct amount of yarn for dyeing.  Hand knit baby hats – at least one.  Each requires about 6 hours.

Wednesday – Dye a batch of mitten yarn and roving for a very cool (unannounced) project.  Knit a baby hat or two.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday – each day dye a batch of mitten yarn (it needs to cool overnight, so only one color a day), and knit a couple baby hats.   I’ve since had 2 groups schedule visits on Friday!

Final goal is to finish the wrist warmers, felt 15 bars of soap, knit one pair of mittens, dye yarn for mittens, and knit over half of the 11 baby hats.   I’ve already finished one baby hat, and am 3/4 done with a second.  These were done while reading the computer and riding in the vehicle! 

I went to the dyeing session at Little Gidding Suri farm on Saturday and learned about production dyeing – being able to repeat a color, calculating dye level, temperature, duration — LOTS of info.  And came home with skein and dye ready to use.    And I did dye that skein yesterday.  It is drying and I’ll show pictures when dry. 

And, of course, pictures of today’s beautiful, wet, sloppy snow must be shown.

From my doorway

Eating in the snow

Production Schedule

Darryl and I took a dart-board approach to determining how much new inventory I need to create before October 31, my next craft show.  This is what we determined:

wrist warmers – 25 pr (I had 3 pr left and 2 more partially done at the end of farm tour) total of 20

felted soap – 30 bars (I was out, and only 15 un-felted bars on hand)

baby hats – 2 to match each blanket (I had zero left, 5 blankets, and one custom order) total of 11

baby socks – 2 to match each blanket (I had 1 pair left, and one custom order) total of 10 pair

women’s mittens – 5 pair (I have zero), plus 2 custom orders

toddler’s mittens – 5 pair (I have one pair left), 4 to go

cat toys – 20 (I have 5 left), 15 to go

I guessed on time requirement, divided by 4 weeks and came up with over 44 hours per week!   And  I have a few other commitments – like the nearly 3 hours I spend in the barn each day!  Oh, and email, my Etsy shop, cooking, laundry, maybe a shower now and then! 

So I need your help!  On Monday’s I’ll post my schedule for the week and the progress of the previous week. 

Last week’s progress — I had black yarn on hand and knit 5 pr of wrist warmers.   But black is SO hard to see to do the finishing that I can only do it with bright light.  I have 3 pr finished.  The yarn arrived for MANY more pair.

So here is this week’s production schedule:

Monday – off the grid, laundry and dental check up

Tuesday – Knit wrist warmers — goal of 8 pair

Wednesday – Wrist warmers might need to take a back seat to indigo dyeing.  Weather looks to get REALLY cold by the end of the week.  Might be my last chance to use the indigo.   Goal of 8 more wrist warmers?

Thursday – off the grid, volunteer job

Friday – finishing work on wrist warmers

Saturday – dyeing class

Final goal of the week is to have ALL wrist warmers done! 

So help me out, cheer me on.  Check in next week to see my progress.  Knowing you are watching will keep me going!

Golden with goldenrod

While it was still chilly outside this morning, I went on a goldenrod hunt.  I took a short walk near our yard and found over 2 pounds of goldenrod blossoms.  

In the bag

 It did help to do the collecting before the heat of the day, but I still got a bunch of bugs and spiders in my bag of goldenrods.  So I took my pot of water on the deck, dumped all the goldenrods and bugs into  the pot,

Overflowing pot

smashed them into the pot,

All in the pot

 put on the lid, put the pot on the stove, and didn’t look in the pot until it water was boiling!  I cooked the blossoms for about an hour.  

Cooked goldenrods

 I poured off the dye.  The cooked blossoms go to the compost pile.  The dye went back to the stove and I put 2 skeins of yarn in it.  I let the yarn simmer for nearly an hour, then cool down for a few more hours.  After a rinse and wash, I hung the yarn to dry. 

Dyed with goldenrods

On the left is 4 oz of 80% alpaca / 20% silk lace weight.   The right is 4 oz of 100% alpaca sport weight.

While at Pie Day last month, I had a guy ask about an ear flap hat in blaze orange.  It got me thinking.  While the goldenrod dye pot was cooking, I put my last packets of Tangerine Kool-Aid into a pot of water and dyed enough yarn to make a hat.  Check this yarn out! 

Seriously orange!

The regular Orange Kool-Aid is no where near this orange.  The Tangerine is a Spanish flavor and it is hard to find.  I found it by accident at a dollar store awhile back and haven’t seen it since!  

And we discovered a snapping turtle nest was hatching today.  We gathered around 20 for a friend who has a pond.  And 17 more crawled out.

Baby snappers

Those 17 I delivered to the back waters of the river where their mother went back to after she laid the eggs in June!   They are so darn cute when they are first hatched.

A day to dye for!

It is on weekends, when Darryl does chores, that I am able to carve out long intervals of time for my fiber projects.    Today, I decided to dye!

A day's work

In about 5 hours I dyed the above skeins – all dyed with Kool-Aid (and a bit of food coloring).  All 100% alpaca yarn.

To become a shawl

I dyed these 3 to go together for another shawl.  I sold my blue/purple one (Thanks to my Etsy shop!)  And I thought I would try warm colors as all the other shawls have been cool colors. 

For sale or scarves?

These 3 are each about 6 oz.   That is what I need to make a scarf.  I’m down to only 2 of my bulky hand knit scarves so I thought having the yarn ready to go might help get the needles a-clicking!  But, in the mean-time, they’ll go on the sales rack at the farmer’s market.