Shawls...I love shawls...

I added another shawl to my collection recently...

 This is Stephen West's Daybreak pattern....

I was inspired to make it after perusing my stash one day and coming upon the yarn leftover from the scarf I made for my mother-in-law last year, which you can see here. It's Three Irish Girls Kells Sport Merino, club colorways Lagoon and Arboretum.

I knew when I started that I wouldn't have enough of Color B to do the border section as written in the pattern, and I was right. I only got about 2/5 of the way through it before I was almost out. So I did a couple rows of garter stitch instead and then bound off. Or tried to. I'd overestimated how much I had left for binding off and had to tink back a good 300 stitches. Started the bind off again. STILL not enough! Ahhh! I set about cannibalizing all of the tails I could find, including those buried in my yarn scraps bag from the scarf last year...and I knew it just wasn't going to happen. Tink, tink, tink, another 300+ stitch row. Sigh.

Oddly, after blocking, the shawl was shaped like a half circle instead of the crescent shape it should have been. I imagine that has to do with row gauge differences between sport (which I used) and fingering (which the pattern called for. Not that it matters. I'm very happy with it, and it used stash yarn, so, win!

Another recently finished project was this Lowell Cowl, from a recent Classic Elite e-newsletter...

It is a very pretty, very versatile cowl (check out the other pics on my Rav project page to see other ways to wear it). However, the pattern called for knitting it from two strands of laceweight held together. I opted instead to use Sublime Angora Merino and Kid Mohair Blend yarns instead, held single, and not overlapped in the second section. Dude...soft? Yes. Sheddy? OHMYGOSHYES! I cannot wear this thing without getting bunny in my mouth or eyes, up my nose, sticking to everything...argh. After doing a bit of reading, I've come to the conclusion that the angora used in this yarn was probably clipped, not plucked, which affects the staple length of the fiber and makes it more prone to shedding. Not much you can do about it. I have no idea what I'll do with it. But it's pretty. And, yeay! More stash gone!

In other news, I tried my hand at dyeing up some self-striping sock yarn...

This was the first time I'd dyed yarn at all, and I have to say it is a little more fun than dyeing roving. Don't get me wrong...I love dyeing roving. But yarn...it's different. It's got a different character. I'm looking forward to doing more of it, roving too. It's all part of my master plan...ahem...yes, I have a master plan. I'll let you in on it as things unfold... ;)

So, I had a day to myself...

...and while I could have used it to do a major cleaning job in the house (because, woooboy, it could use it!), or I could have just sat and knit and watched Bones episodes on Netflix all day, instead, I chose to do this...

Deep Space Drama

and this...

Love, Lola

and this...

When Buttercups Play Dress-Up

Yes, I pretended I knew how to dye again! You may recall my first foray into dyeing last September, which went OK, aside from the fact that I wasn't crazy about the fiber I'd used and I'd used way, way, way too much dye in the process. That time I'd kettle dyed. What I really wanted to try was handpainting, and that's what I did today on a bagful of a Rambouillet-Soy Silk blend that I picked up at the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival last May.

Honestly, I have no idea if I did it "right." I read up on it, and while the general process is the same, just about every place I read had some sort of conflicting information about the various steps in the process. Gah! See, it's that kind of thing that can leave me paralyzed and make me want to do nothing. But today I decided the heck with it, I'm going to just give it a try. What was the worst that could happen? I could ruin a bag of wool that has been stashed for months inside a suitcase in my basement? Yeah, that would have been a bummer, but not a huge loss, compared to the alternative of just leaving it in it's dark little home for eternity.

I will say it took me most of the day to do these three batches of fiber, just under a pound, all told. Clearly, there's a learning curve which takes time to master, and there's the set up of mixing the dyes into a concentrated form to dilute as I go (and each pack of dye makes enough concentrated solution to be used for many more dyeing sessions to come), and then there's the issue of figuring out my own process, which will hopefully become a little more streamlined as time goes on.

Handpainting itself is definitely a way slower process than kettle dyeing since you are putting the dye in specific places on the fiber, one color at a time, instead of just pouring it into a kettle with the fiber. My process was made even slower because I was only able to steam one batch of fiber at a time due to a lack of multiple steaming baskets (and the one I had was the result of MacGyvering my old metal colander with some floral wire).

Over all, though, I am really pleased with how this went and with the outcome of the fiber. The colors are fantastic, and when it came time to rinse the fiber, I was pleased to see that the rinse water had very little dye left in it, a far better outcome than when I kettle dyed. And I really enjoyed the process of the handpainting, having more control over where the dye goes. It felt more creative to me.

I have to admit, probably the most fun thing about this project today was naming the resultant colorways! I know, it's silly, because I'm not selling them or anything (at least not yet...hopefully some time this year, though!), but with each batch, as I was unrolling it from it's damp, plastic wrap encasement after it had cooled, and the newly dyed fiber was plain to see, a name popped into my head for each one of them. It was really pretty cool! It felt...biblical!

Adam: You will be called...goat. You will be called...penguin. You will be called...velociraptor--hey, ouch!

Me: You are -- Deep Space Drama! You are -- Love, Lola! You are -- what buttercups would look like if they played dress up, so I shall call you When Buttercups Play Dress-Up!

Yeah, that last one sort of explains why the fiber companies of the world aren't banging on my door asking me to name their colorways. (Haha...reminds me of when I worked at the LYS. A customer came in one day looking for yarn in a specific shade of red. After much discussion, I said, "So, you want sort of a spawning salmon red?" We at the shop came to the same conclusion that Debbie Bliss probably wasn't going to be phoning me up asking for yarn color suggestions anytime soon. ;))

At any rate, it is going to take forEVer for this stuff to dry, as I have nowhere to hang it, and laying flat doesn't seem like the best way to dry it. Though, this roving is pretty fine -- almost pencil roving in some spots -- and I'm not sure hanging it would have been great either, at least not when it was really wet. I've been mentally engineering a rack of sorts that would be good for drying roving. I may need to enlist Kevin's help to make that a reality!