Mesh stitch, dyeing workshop & Magic Ball pet blanket

Just a quick post to give you a preview of the stuff happening this weekend. First off is the Mesh Stitch for Accessory Club tomorrow. Very simple, very easy, endless uses. Very nice for a freebie.
Then we are offering our dyeing workshop starting on Sunday. This is a scarf that Bonnie knit up with one of her wools from our first dyeing day, held together with some New Magic. Beautiful, vibrant colors.

This is some cotton that Bonnie has worked on this week. It seems she is in a turquoise/teal mood. Although, evidently, I'm color blind, so what do I know?

And last, but not least, this is a Fuzzy Friends Blanket made using the "Magic Ball" method with scraps of Kureyon, Peacock, Esprit and a few other unidentifiable fibers. The pattern will be available on Sunday but I've moved the Fuzzy Friends Club meeting to May 27 due to moving up the dyeing workshop.

We hope to see everyone soon!

Dyeing to Dye

Well, I'm hooked. I can't quit dyeing. Last week I decided I wanted to dye 1200 yards of lace weight alpaca in a series of shaded colors. How to get some really long lengths. Hmmmm....... Leave it to a motorhead to come up with something to wrap this around. So.........

80 laps around the truck, and some help from Mandy, cat # 3, and I have 1200 yds of lace weight alpaca ready to dye. Below are the steps of dyeing in a shaded process, what it looks like after it is dry and still in the long lengths, and after it is re-skeined. I'm still deciding what pattern I want to work it in.

And this is the bamboo/merino we dyed the weekend before and the Mermaid gloves I'm making out of it. Check out http://www.catduck.com for more pictures and a hilarious blog about knitting.

Don't forget, we are offering our first dyeing workshop this Sunday, May 20th, rather than May 27 as I forgot about the holiday. What can I say? I'm too busy knitting, designing and dyeing to worry about mundane things like, uhh, what month this is? Or, like, other people going out of town? You mean everyone else's life doesn't revolve around their creative pursuits?

What can I say?!?

Shibori and Dyeing, Oh my!

And my, Oh My, did we have fun today!

This is a picture of the finished shibori project before beginning manipulation.

Here is Natalie working on placing the marbles.

Here is a close up of the marbles

that have been tied in place.

And here it is all ready to felt.

Stay tuned!

And here are some before and after pictures of our dye projects. This one is using Wilton cake dyes and Bolero II (a small mohair loop) and BFL sport weight. One interesting thing we learned. The food dyes do not always give you true color. I was aiming for black and rust. Hmm...good thing I like green and purple.

Bonnie used Dharma Fiber Reactive dyes. Colors are true, very concentrated and very vibrant.

Tierney also used the Dharma Dyes.

Very "outside the box" for Tierney.

These were dyed with a very diluted solution and left in the skein. Can't wait to see how they look when Bonnie knits with them. We think there will be some interesting color shading.

This is the bamboo/merino superwash using the Wilton dyes. I thought the bamboo would make the color paler but it didn't seem to affect the depth although, once again, I was going for a pale gold/pink/peach, which I didn't quite achieve!

This is the BFL ultra! using the Wilton dyes. This was the most fun because I didn't particularly try for anything specific. I used a much weaker solution, didn't mix the dyes too well which resulted in "spotty" colors and just used the up leftovers. I really like this one the best and am going to use it to knit the "Mermaid Gloves". Hope to start them tomorrow.

The upshot is that we had so much fun that we left the microwave downstairs because we want to continue to "play". So if you come in, hope you won't be too offended by the smell of wet sheep!!

See you soon,

Karen, Bonnie, Charlene, Tierney & Natalie

Cinco De Mayo Demo

This is an example of the Ojos demo we will be doing on Saturday, Cinco De Mayo. Except for the white, it is using scraps of Kureyon. A great project for the kids!