Kool-aid Dyeing

Last week you got to see Anthos' first tiny sweater, and I mentioned that I had a ton of yarn left and was thinking about dying it. Let's see how that turned out shall we?

There is a ton of good resources on the internet on methods on how to dye your yarn using Kool-aid packets, but I was not using the standard yarn, in weight, type or amount, which made most of them more of suggestions.

Starting yarn.

Let's review: I am using an extra fine, merino wool, lace weight yarn, and about 50 yards, maybe.

Most instructions call for using several packets, but I figured one packet would be more than enough dye for my small amount of yarn. So I got two flavors: Blue Raspberry Lemonade and Black Cherry, figuring they would be good strong colors. There are a ton of charts online for what colors you can get with what packets, but I didn't have a ton of options in my grocery store. I decided to try each color straight and then a third with a combo of the leftover water.

Steps:
1. Wind yarn into loose ball. For me, this meant wrapping around two fingers to make a sort of donut of yarn. This greatly affected how the dye turned out, but there isn't really a good way to start a ball with such fine yarn. I should have been more careful about how I did it, perhaps next time I'll look up how to make one of those skein/hank shapes...
2. Wet yarn in water. Be careful not to manipulate it too much or it will felt into a giant knot.
3. Add to small pot with just enough water for it to float around in. For me this was about 2 inches.
4. Add packet of kool-aid and stir to mix into water.

happily simmering. 

5. Leave over a low heat (4) on stove. Occasionally flip over in water. I left the blue ball in the water for maybe 15 minutes. Black cherry maybe 10 minutes since it was so dark of a color. And the hybrid color for 8 minutes. I wanted to see if the length was really affecting the color.

looks really dark when wet, had no idea insides were still light

6. Remove yarn to cups to cool and set. I made little tin foil cups and set them in a bowl so they wouldn't run or dye anything I cared about accidentally. Forgot about them so they had about 3 hours of cooling time... probably more than needed.
7. I gave each ball a quick rinse and squeeze under cool water to make sure it wouldn't leak dye.
8. Wind yarn again onto something to dry fully. I thought about using cardboard strips but I figured it would just warp and crumble since the yarn was wet, so I used three glass bottles.
Done!

unravelling the ball revealed weak spots in color

I wound the black cherry and the hybrid color first. What I immediately saw is that the edges and outside took the color much better than the inside. So if I had wanted a real gradient, from the cream it was to the color, I should have been more careful to wind it like a true ball, but if I wanted a total solid, I should have made a larger more open and thin loop. I am doubtful that longer in the water would have helped with this as it just didn't seem to penetrate all the way to the core of the blue which I left in there the longest. Instead I got a sort of variegated gradient, which you can see best on the blue as I wound it carefully.

drying on the bottles, blue wrapped best from outside at the top to inside at the bottom

I really like the straight colors, as they are pretty vibrant. The mixed color is a bit dusty and I think the ratio of water was off, with much more cherry than blue. I still kind of like it though and am thinking about using it in combo with the straight cherry for stripes.

In any case I now have three new tiny balls of yarn to make new sweaters out of for Anthos, with still more of the neutral cream left over. For a few hours of work and $1 in kool-aid, this is the skein that just keeps on giving.

Totoro Tattoo Concepts v2

One of the most consistently popular blog posts I have done is the first Totoro Tattoo Concepts post, from back in 2013.

A good friend is looking to get another tattoo soon and I casually remarked that I really need to move on from wanting to having... She of course is super excited now, and so I started to revisit the original idea I had. When we left off I had narrowed the idea down to a Totoro and a gingko leaf. That's pretty basic I am coming to see. Not to mention my design is a bit flat.

the 2013 design

The new idea is in the same vein but just much more. A while back I splurged with christmas money on a Noritake Totoro bone china cup and saucer. I was kind of stunned to see the lovely colors, line work and realism of the floral art mixed with the totoros I love.

the Noritake Cup I bought

The more I thought about it, the more this art became the inspiration for what I want to get now. I want color, I want little details, delicate line work and color. It could easily include a gingko leaf instead of the flora they use. And I could also add a few other things, like a jonquil or maybe an aster flower to represent my hubby, soot sprites, and acorns to name a few. I started looking through all the different designs and thinking about where I might want it to be on my body. I decided on getting it like a high cuff right below the bend of my elbow on the inside. Then I printed out a lot of the designs I really liked and started tracing and composing a shape.

version 2.0, super rough sketch, obviously would need a real tattoo artist to give it the once over

It is important to say that nothing has really changed in terms of other's negative opinions that I know I will hear, nor with my crippling fear of needles. What has changed is that I realized if I keep telling myself "one day" I can keep pushing it off without ever growing past my fear. Now just need to get the art polished up and save up my pennies...

Whale Song

When we left off there was a lot of kindness going on, and I decided to make one more thing to go into the care package to these lovely ladies. A whale. Why a whale? Well my friend, she has her own art studio called Whalesong Arts and I thought it might be fun to make a crochet whales as colorful as the ones she creates in oil pastels and paints.

Eek!!!!! He's done!!! Finally!!!!! #cetacean #studioart #color #whales #whalesongarts #oilpastels #colorfield #

A photo posted by Whalesong Arts (@whalesongarts) on May 3, 2016 at 11:42am PDT

I bought a palette of yarn by Lion Brand in the Happy color scheme as I thought it might look nice with the heart afghan I also made her. I used the free pattern for Richard the Whale by Stacy Trock, which I liked a lot for the texture on him.

Of course I got the fins done and most of the tail when I realized I forgot about the ribbing part... But as my husband pointed out, the color change was pretty cool all by itself and the ribbing might make it look too busy. In the end I agreed with him and kept going. Good thing too since I'm not sure how embroidering on that ribbing would have looked.

The bag of colors made this much whale. 

Working up the body was no trouble at all. There is a large section of the body pattern that is implied based off the previous rows, so I spent a little time expanding those rows out so I didn't have to keep track in my head.

Fins

Something to note... there are more than one kind of pack of these small colored skeins, and it turns out I bought one with 135 yards for this project which called for 150 yards. So I pulled the dark blue out of my leftover yarns and was able to finish this off.

The pattern just calls for saftey eyes, but I really wanted to make this more like her whales, so I added some black embroidery to try to get that signature smile and lines onto the whale. I really like the way it turned out.

It really made me smile when it was done. I mean look at that face...

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 5 hours
Size: about 10 inches long

The Ponyo Dress

And now for something a little different.

I keep seeing more people online turning costumes into fashion, by making the recognizable features of pop culture on dresses: The Totoro dress. The Dalek dress. The Nightvale dress. The Marauders Map Dress.

I had the idea for a Ponyo dress. Not her exact outfit, which is easy enough to make (and would make a perfect future kid/mom cosplay set), but the art of Ponyo, or more specifically, the opening credits.
Warning: Long Post Ahead

I could just see the colors and shapes in my mind, flowing around a white A-line skirt. It would be insanely cool to do this kind of thing as a quilt or embroidery, but I do not have those skills.

I bought myself a set of 20 fabric markers from Walmart. I then had to find a reasonably priced white dress. This turned out to be much harder than anticipated. With it being fall when I decided to start looking, white sun dresses were pretty scarce. I had this idea in September 2014 and didn't find a dress until April 2015. I went with an Old Navy eyelet sundress because it was both relatively cheap and lined! I wasn't too thrilled with the eyelet design on the bodice and around the hem, but there was a large smooth area to work on the skirt. Turns out that the edging limited the area I would have to paint and contained my design nicely, so it ended up to be a big benefit.

Putting these scenes all together was a bit tough, so I first sketched out how I wanted it to go on the dress in pencil. I tried to have some large element to focus on, on each side of the dress.

Kind of an idea. Didn't stick to it too close.

After that I slipped a large plastic lap desk between the outer layer and the lining. This way I could stretch the fabric and draw on it with pencil and keep the lining from getting anything on it.

Kind of hard to see the pencil drawing.

After I penciled out the design, I went back over with the black fabric marker. I did it in four sections leaving each area to dry over night before rotating the dress to the next area to outline.

Initial outlining. Can see a little of the pencil up top there.

More of the design outlined.

Once the main outlines for the details were done I had to go back over and add the current lines that flow in all the water areas. In each stage of this I kept getting nervous. I was nervous to mark up a dress in such a permanent way. Then once the pencil was on I was scared to put the ink down. Then once the ink outlines were down and I had gotten used to seeing the design and liking it, I was terrified that adding the current lines would ruin it. I had to add them though, if I was going to be true to the movie.

The back, with current lines.

Now that the dress was fully outlined, it was time to figure out how to color it. The movie has kind of a watercolor look to it, but I had these fine tipped markers. My options were:
a) color in the whole dress like you would normally
b) try to open the markers, get the ink out and paint it on
c) go buy fabric dye and try to paint with that (unfeasible since I wanted to many colors)
d) find some other option for water color painting fabric that is permanent.
e) none of the above

I tried out the normal coloring idea on a scrap piece of white fabric from one of my husbands old cotton dress shirts. Luckily my dress is also cotton. I found that if you draw a line or shape then add a little water to the center and brush it around you can get a pretty passable watercolor look. The trouble is that the colors tended to bleed a lot.

just coloring bled out a lot

Coloring lightly then using a damp brush in the center and letting it bleed to the middle.

When starting on my dress I tried to use as little water as possible since I was worried the black lines would smudge, but since they had plenty of time to dry before I started coloring it in, their bleeding was minimal. Unfortunately controlling how much water went on was tough. I colored shapes that would not touch even if they bled so that they could dry and I could go back over and color new shapes with little fear of the first colors bleeding away or messing up the new colors I was adding on.

no touching for first round of colors

This meant that I could color a few elements, then would have to wait overnight for the areas to dry so I could color more the next day. This made it really slow going, which made me impatient, which made me use to much water.

this will take forever.

starting to come together

Luckily, even though nearly every element bled out a bit, once I started working on the solid background water colors, I was able to make it look a little cleaner around the edges. The watercolor effect started looking really cool once I got larger areas colored too.

getting so close to done

just a little more to go.

I tried to go back into each little element as well to give it a little depth and detail. The islands have a few colors and there are little dots for sand in places. I tried to darken the outlines around each item. Added shadows and shading. Added a sun on the horizon of the water too.

Once that was all done, I went back to the area along the top of the water and added a little blue outline that I blurred into the sky. It helped to transition the dress from the designs and colored areas back into the white of the bust. It was a mess in some places but looked ok I think.

Finished front. 

Finished back.

If you are going to attempt anything like this I recommend starting on the back and working to the front and not the other way around like I did. This means that when I got the hang of coloring on the back towards the end of this project that the back is now nicer than the front in my opinion.

Hanging in front of the window. The light coming through makes it look cool!

The markers are permanent and intended for how I used them, so the colors should stay. This dress should also be washable in color safe soap, but might fade a little. I really don't want to have to wash it more than necessary. So, after letting the finished dress hang and fully dry for several days, I put a few coats of Scotchgard Fabric Protector over the top. That way if I ever sit on anything or drop something on it, I won't have ruined all this work.

This is certainly now one of the longest projects I have worked on and is truly a one-of-a-kind dress. I plan to wear it out to conventions, I think, or Ghibli movies (should there be any more).

Difficulty: Advanced
Time to complete: Concept: September 2014
    Work started May 23, 2015 - finished June 20, 2015, about 65 hours

Pink, Purple & Black Baby Blanket

I made a few fish hats for my hairdresser's grandkids a while back and of course she hears about my latest projects every three months or so when I visit. So during one visit she mentioned having a baby shower to attend and asked if I could make a baby blanket for her to give as a gift in exchange for doing my hair in the future. Sounded cool and I took the job.

It happened that I was visiting Houston shortly after and I decided to swing through Twisted Yarns on the way home. They have such a good range of Cascade products and I love to use it whenever I want something a little nicer. This blanket we wanted to be more a long term use blanket and not strictly a baby blanket. They had a ton of colors in Cascade 220 Superwash Sport, which is a little thinner than the yarn called for in the pattern, but I think it will make a nicer finished product. Bonus: it is machine wash and dry!

Speaking of patterns, I am going to use the Chevron Baby Blanket by Rachel C. which is free on Ravelry. I really like the overall shape it makes while being kind of modern looking. This way the new daughter in question can use it for a long time.

Colors asked for were pink, purple, and black. I feel like that can be kind of a harsh color set so I tried to pick colors that were a little softer and that would age well. I wanted to stay far away from that zebra and leopard print color schemes you see sometimes for girls... stuff like that is the worst.

Colors (L to R): Black, Royal Purple, Pale Lavender, Strawberry Cream, Raspberry

I needed eight skeins, but had 5 colors picked out so I got one of each and two of the main three colors. This means I need to plan out my striping, but I was going to anyway, so no biggie. I tried quite a few different patterns out of small thin stripes alternating orders, but it looked a mess on my screen and hurt my eyes. Eye hurt is not what we are going for. So instead I opted for a large color block chevron pattern.

Pardon my wonky chevrons and colors, but you get the idea.

Once I had the order down, I set to work. They way I have it laid out, also works perfectly with the skeins I bought. One full skein of black, then both royal purple, then the full lavender, the full strawberry cream, both raspberry, and the other skein of black.

First skein of black and two pink complete.

The pattern itself is astonishingly simple. It is a single row that is worked over and over. Once you've got it down, no reference to the pattern is needed, which is really freeing. I cannot get over those lovely straight vertical edges. As any crochet person might know, double crochet rows often have an odd hole at the end and slightly offset edges. This pattern has a little trick from MamaChee at the ends to get really crisp edges at the end of each row.

Great mobile project. Looks crisp and modern I think.

Each of my skeins made about 10 rows of color. From there I could estimate how large this would be. Finished size is 27" x 39", which I feel is a little on the small size, but it is really stretchy. I could have probably blocked this out larger.

I like the light and portable nature of this blanket. It is a perfect lap, car, or throw blanket for an adult, so I have to think it will be perfect for a baby/toddler for a while. Fingers crossed that they like it.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 25 hours

"Dark Side, No Moon" Socks Failure

WARNING: Long post. TL;DR: Cool sock yarn, attempt number one fails due to gauge issues, attempt the second fails due to yarn issues. Socks scrapped and yarn awaiting new pattern.

You might remember that at Fiber Fest, I purchased this really great color-way from Fishknits called "Dark Side, No Moon" of a self striping sock yarn. I had a pattern in mind when I bought it, but after looking over the sizes it made, I was worried that none would fit. After hitting up Ravelry, I found a new free pattern by Paton for Toe Up Socks. Not only did they look like nice, simple socks, but their size measurements seemed like the Women's 7/8 would fit me nicely.

Looks so cool, no?

I am not sure what the 7/8 part of that size means (and I hope it is NOT shoe size), but the length of 10.5 inches is a little larger than my foot so, fingers crossed for it to fit! This is probably a good time to mention that this will be the first pair of socks I ever made!

Working with the D hook is tiny and hard to see, especially since the skein starts with black. A good strong light was needed for this project. I also found that I really needed to pay attention as I quickly messed it up in the first 8 rounds or so, adding an extra stitch at the end of the rows and having to rip it out...

A toe cap!

Which brings me to the fact that this sock is worked in rows... I guess I understand why... but at the same time it makes a seam which I can't think will feel good under my foot. For now I am going to make the socks following the pattern, but I can't help but feel like perhaps working it in the round continuously might make for a nicer foot-feel.

In any case, I love the yarn. The ply is wonderful and the tiny bit of sparkle is nice. I can tell already that the striping colors are going in a standard ROYGBIV sort of order, which is very cool if a bit boring. I was hoping I guess for a more random color order, but they did not have one worked up, so it was hard to tell when in the hank.

Colors look great.

I got about 4 inches into the foot when I realized I forgot to make a gauge swatch... OOOPS. I measured on my work to see the gauge and realized that I was an inch smaller in both directions. Instead of a 4" square, their numbers got me a 3" square. I am using a different brand yarn than the pattern calls for, but it says "Fingering" weight on the label, so it shouldn't matter. I tried the sock on and it fit pretty perfectly, so I decided to just keep going. I am now worried about yarn usage though, since more stitches per 4"square means I will need more yarn than I thought.

Got several inches into the ankle after this pic before scrapping it.

I got all the way through the foot. Bound off and got about 2 inches into the ankle when I realized I was running out of yarn. So obviously it is as I thought and that my gauge being off was using up the yarn too fast. I could have bought another skein but this one was 438 yards which is more than enough for a pair... also at $26 a skein I couldn't bring myself to make a $52 pair of socks... they go on my feet for crying out loud.

My husband suggested that I finish the sock and then frame it as a monument to my hubris.
I ripped it out.
_________________________

For attempt two, we are changing this thing up entirely. New pattern, new hook size, new pattern size. I am still using a free Paton's Family Crochet sock pattern, but this time it is worked ankle down to toe. Since I'm going to a larger hook, I'm going to make the Women's L5/6 size this time and of course try it on as I go again.

Ok, first things first... make a gauge swatch. Pattern calls for 22 sc to equal 4 inches. Pattern called for a D hook which I used last time, so I tried a larger E hook... still half an inch off. Went out and bought an F hook, made my gauge swatch and it looks to be a tiny bit too large?!

I went and read through the posts with this Panache yarn on the Fishknits Etsy store and it says that the Panache yarn is a two ply. That actually puts it into the lace yarn category, not fingering weight. So that is probably why I can only achieve the gauge with a large hook than called for... because the yarn is thinner. My F hook gauge swatch being a little too large is probably due to the yarn being all bendy from being ripped out.

With those problems sorted out. I got the ankle ribbing done and started work on body of the sock above the heel. I got about three inches down and decided to see if I could pull it over my foot onto my ankle like a sock. Which as you might have guessed did not happen. I'm assuming that since the yarn doesn't have a ton of stretch to it, that the body just isn't going over my heel. The ankle ribbing fits fine. Maybe socks are a thing you need to custom make for your foot and not follow a pattern except in loose terms.

In any case I have scrapped this second sock as well and am going to try to find some other use for this yarn. Bummer, but hooray for learning.

Heart Scrapghan

A good friend sent me a cute picture of a blanket on Pintrest. I quickly hunted down the pattern on Ravelry and took the job of making her one. The Little Heart Scrapghan by Julie Lapalme is a great leftover yarn consumer. The pattern costs $4.00.

I went though my stash and pulled out leftovers of 24 different colors. My goal was to make three hearts in each color I had, to give a good variety and reach the 72 heart motifs needed. I made the first heart as written and as others mentioned on Ravelry, did not like the holes it left in the center. So I used some of suggestions in the comments to modify the heart pattern. I made the color parts first of each and every one first. At about 25 minutes per heart x 72 of them, thats about 30 hours for the colored parts alone, but I spread it out over a two weeks by setting a goal of making 6 hearts a day.

72 colored hearts

Once done with the colors I got a big pound ball of white by Loops and Threads to make all the borders on each. Adding a border to a heart took about 10 minutes a piece (x72 = 12 hours) Before I started the first border, I laid out all the hearts in columns as I would want them to be when done. This is because rather than sewing them all together when done, I was hoping to attach them in columns as I went along. Then I would only have to sew up the columns into the blanket rather than every single one...

I could have kept reworking this layout all day...

Unfortunately trying to connect as I went along did not work. The seam it made was very uneven and that would have made for a very bumpy blanket, so I followed the instructions to leave a tail to sew them together with. It was a bit painstaking and linking up just the rows of 12 to each other took about 2 hours each (x 6 rows = 12 hours). Laying them out like this was important though to make sure the finished blanket would look nice.

All columns complete and ready for attaching.

Once the long strips are done you then sew those up in a kind of offset pattern. This was even more painstaking, but it helped a great deal to lay them out flat on the table while sewing up. In order to not have a billion ends to weave in, I cut long pieces of yarn about 1.5x the length of the column of hearts and sewed at the points where directed and then wove through the edging to the next connection point. That way I only had to bind off and hide the ends at the top and bottom. Sewing the strips together took another 3 hours. Once all the strips had been connected, I was finally done!

Detail shot of columns sewn together.

The finished blanket measures: 5 feet long by 45 inches wide.

I love how it looks. Since it has some holes between the motifs it isn't super-duper warm, but still does a good job of being snuggly. I also love that what was once two bags of yarn leftovers is now less than half a bag of small balls of yarn. These tiny scraps aren't enough for anything else really, but since I do amigurumi toys you never know when you'll need a little bit of a color for embroidery details.

Finished!

Total time to complete this blanket was about 60 hours.
Difficulty: Medium... no part is particularly hard, it's just a lot of work.