First Attempt at Hand Dyeing

One of the things I love best about yarn is the colours. Texture and quality are very important but colour is what hooks me every time. I don't know why it has taken me this long to try hand dyeing on my own. This week I took the plunge and had so much fun.



Things didn't get nearly as messy as I thought they would. My fingernails did change colours, much to the delight of my daughters, but that didn't last long. The important thing was that nothing that wasn't supposed to got stained and the yarn took the dyes beautifully.



I am off with my basket of yarn to Nature's Millworks in Paisley for the Weaving and Rug Hooking Show that starts tomorrow. I will be happy to knit or weave all of this yarn myself if no one is interested in it but if it sells I will definitely buy more base yarn and see if I can find a market for it. Imagine if I could find a way to make my knitting and weaving pay for itself? That would be amazing.

Third Time's a Charm

I was inspired by the Yarn Harlot's blog to pull out my Cricket Loom again. I tried it about a year ago with no luck. I was determined to get things going and to start zipping through my stash.

I found some yarn I had bought for a scarf and thought it would be good to start with - lots of colour and texture so I hoped it would be forgiving of tension errors as I got used to working with the loom. I set everything up, got ready to go - and discovered that I had just made the exact same mistake the Yarn Harlot had blogged about - a little too inspired by her, I guess. I undid it all and started over. I didn't make the same mistake twice - I made a new one the second time and discovered why things hadn't gone so smoothly when I tried it last year. I found some instructions on youtube that were far batter than the ones that came with the loom.





Third time I got it all set up and started weaving and wow! Now I see what all the fuss is about. Even with it being my first time I was able to finish a scarf in two hours. Not two days, two hours.



A couple of years ago I was crazy about Noro yarns. I made a Lizard Ridge afghan with it and more hats than I can count. I have made a couple pairs of socks with it too. It is absolutely the worst sock yarn I have ever knit with but it makes just about the nicest socks to wear, once they have been washed. I think there were a number of bags and purses somewhere along the line, too. I have a few scarves made with Noro Silk Garden but I am pretty burned out of the Noro jag I was on. Trouble is that I still have a bag of it hanging around at the back of my closet. I think the Cricket Loom is the answer to that problem..........









And about three hours later I had this -



It is straightforward, fun, and look how quickly I can enjoy my stash. Yarns like Noro that I am tired of knitting with are fine for an afternoon date with the loom and then they can make their way to a new home. Weaving will never replace knitting for me but it sure is a great alternative for stash busting. Two scarves in a day - and not just any day, but my first day as a weaver. What could be sweeter?