Pi Shawl preparations

I joined the yahoo group Elizabeth's Year which is knitting along through the projects in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. We are starting with the Pi shawl, a beautiful circular shawl knit from the center out.

I was going to try to do a Bugs In My Garden Pi with another group but decided that I was just not quite up to all that lace and counting right now. I needed something simpler. I think this project will be perfect. I am going to make a very simple Pi without lace for the most part I think, though that is subject to change at whim.

It will also be perfect for the yarn that I already have. Knitpicks laceweight. I have 3 hanks that are each 880 yards. I dyed one of the hanks with Easter egg dyes that were leftover from the holiday back in April. Aren't they pretty?

My plan right now is to start with the white for the center of the shawl and when I near the outside I will used the dyed yarn. I am pretty sure that I have more than enough yarn but I am not sure quite when to start the colors. I will just have to see where whim and whimsy take me.

I have about 13 inches of the Silky Wool tank knit and will soon be to the underarms so I am hoping to get it finished before we go on vacation in July. Then I will start this Pi Shawl so I can knit on it during the times that I am not driving on our trip. I imagine that it will not be the only project that I will take along though. There are more hats to knit and the kids need mittens too. Then there is always a sock or two that I could take along. DH has already asked how much yarn is going along! Between my daughters and I it could be half the baggage!

Sock attack!

I went on a sock binge! I knit socks almost exclusively for more than a week. Most of these are plain vanilla stockinette patterns. I really like doing plain socks. These first 3 pair were all done on size 2 needles. That is big enough that I can knit without looking so I can read while knitting my socks!

I finished up the koolaid dyed socks. I even wore them already. These are lots of fun to show off.

The blue and brown ones and the Jelly Bean Stripes are made from Lion Brand Magic Stripes yarn. I started the blue and brown pair during Socktoberfest I believe.

The Jelly Bean Stripes were finished but I took out the toe and reknit them a little longer. I had tried a star toe on these. It seems to be a shorter toe than what I usually use. I decided to use my regular toe when I knit them longer. I like the tapered toe better for wearing, though the star toe doesn't require grafting. As you can see I still have one of each to graft.

I also made some progress on my TOFUtsies socks. This one is on size 1 needles. That alone makes it go slower. Then I decided to add a waffle weave stitch pattern to the cuff and down the front of the sock......really, really.......slow.

I love the TOFUtises yarn though. It feels really nice and the colors are wonderful! My LYS just got in 15 new colors! YIKES!

You may have noticed the little yellow tags on a couple of the socks...this idea was courtesy of my friend, Esther. I write the details of the pattern on the tag, number of stitches, rows etc as I knit the first one. It makes the second sock much easier! Thanks Esther!

Easter Egg dye

Did you guess it? I was dyeing Easter yarn! Lots of little skeins of lace weight yarn.

I was surprised at the intensity of the colors. I thought that once I added more water for the dye jars that the color would be more pastel but these are nice bright colors. The red and blue separated a bit in the purple one.

I used an 880 yard skein for lace weight Bare yarn from Knitpicks. I made 9 skeins from it approximately 100 yards each. Then I dunked them in jars filled with the leftovers from dyeing the Easter eggs on Saturday night. I put them in the microwave and zapped them for 2 minutes at a time, letting it rest a few minutes between. It seemed like it took a long time to exhaust the dye.

I was thinking of doing something with a color blocked look when it was knit up. That's why I made them each about 100 yards. I would love to knit a lace shawl. I have been reading about Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl. I have only done simple lace patterns and would like to explore some new ones.

I am not sure about these bright colors though. They might be a bit much. They are not the pastels that I was imagining for this. Well, I guess I can always make it into socks!

Happy Easter!

Guess What I have been doing?

Rainbow Tie-dye sock

Here is my really long hank of kool-aid dyed yarn. It was about 10 feel or so. We put it over 2 chairs in the dining room so it could be wound up for knitting. Carl helped me wind it into a smaller hank on my niddy noddy. He kept saying it looked like a rainbow so we have dubbed it the Rainbow tie-dye yarn.

Then we put it over the backs of 2 chairs and wound it into a ball. Carl loves this part--he does the winding. Usually he is pretty good about going slowly and stopping when I need to straighten out the yarn but sometimes he gets in a hurry! He loved watching the ball spin around with all those pretty colors.

See his hands? He was patting the ball into shape after squashing it. Ahem....

I started a plain vanilla sock with it...well I guess it is a Rainbow Tie-dye sock. I am almost to the heel turn. The stripes are looking great! We are going to have to try this again!

Tie-dye Sock Yarn

The kids and I made some fun sock yarn today! I was gifted with some sock yarn that I could dye a few months ago. Thanks Von!

I had the 3 youngest helping this afternoon. First we made the hank into a ball with the help of my ball winder. Then I had Amy, Rosie and Carl sit as far apart as they could in the living room. They each held up an arm and I stood in the middle wrapping the yarn from one to the next. We ended up with a hank that was about 10 feet long.

It went into the sink for a long soak while we chose colors. I had picked up some Mixade from Aldi and had some Kool-aid in the cupboard. They keep eliminating colors! What is with all the invisible Kool-aid these days? Yeah, I know it doesn't stain the kids clothes but what are we going to dye yarn with in the kitchen?

After the soak I carefully laid the hank of yarn in a glass pan, weaving back and forth from one end to the other. I was trying to get as long section of each color as I could.

We had chosen Berry punch which was blue, lemon-lime, and tropical punch. I started pouring the blue on and realized that I had greatly underestimated how much dye I should have mixed. I quickly mixed up some grape to finish it off. It still wasn't as much dye as it could have been but we decided to go with it and see how it turned out.

After cooking it in the microwave, I took it out to rinse. There was no extra dye at all! Carl said it looked like it was tie-dyed so here you have our tie-dyed yarn hanging up to dry.

I like all of the colors except the grape. It is more brown than purple but I think when it is knit it will be fine. Now I have to find a way to get this big hank wound back into a ball. Should be fun to knit into some socks!