Yarn Bar Update

Yarn Bar Update, originally uploaded by lyndsey-jane.

Just a quickie to let you know I’ve updated The Yarn Bar.
There is a special charity yarn and roving available in aid of Lupus Charity, I am offering this is association with Fairie Knits who is raising money. Please visit her blog for more info.

I have to go to London tomorrow to get a 24hr blood pressure monitor fitted and was looking forward to some yarn shopping but is appears most of the yarn shops are closed on Mondays. Instead I’m going to the new Liz Earle shop (which is just down the road from the hospital anyway) to treat myself to something.

For those of you who won yarn I will be posting on Tuesday, sorry about the delay but I have been exhausted over the weekend. I even went a whole day without knitting.

Toy Knitting

I’ve become addicted to knitting toys! I was a bleurgh day the other day (pms) and wanted a quick fun knit. I found Lola Bunny and fell in love. It is so cute. I have very nearly finished – should have an FO later tonight. I started it two nights ago. It is great. I am using the hand-dyed bfl I received in the hand-dyed yarn them swap. Its looking really sweet. I’ve found other great patterns, including some amigurumi patterns that have been converted into knitting patterns from this etsy store. I bought Mr Bean, Pirate Panda and This Little Pig. I plan on casting on Sheldon as soon as the bunny is finished. I have a couple of balls of Sugar n Cream (orange and denm blue) which will look great. I am also planning to knit a Baby Bobbi Bear and the small fish from the One Fish, Two Fish pattern from Blue Sky Alpacas, as well as Kate from knitty.com. The bunny is for Karl, and Sheldon will probably stay here too. I plan on giving the fish to my nephew for his birthday, but may make another bunny for him before that as I have a large stash of pale blue yarn. The yarn was bought to make him some clothes but know he is nearly a year I think the colour is a bit baby for him. The rest will be turned into squares to make blankets for the local animal shelter.

I managed to get some dyeing over the weekend – 400g merino sock yarn, 100g bfl laceweight and 100g bfl roving. 100g of sock yarn and the roving where dyed by Karl so will be special ltd editions. I hope to get the rest of the roving done this weekend and have the shop updated late next week. The BFL roving is so soft. I think it has to be one of my fave fibres. I hope to get some BFL sock yarn for the next update.

Off to eat dinner and finish the bunny, which Karl has called ‘Bob’. Everything is Bob at the moment.
(btw: for those unaware Karl is my 25 yr old boyfriend, but at times when I write/talk about him I realise it he sounds like he may be my 5 yr old son!)

The Yarn Bar is open for business

I have listed the yarns and roving on etsy now, so go have a look and tell me what you think. All constructive comments are welcome (good and bad) as I’m pretty new to this.

Find me here: the yarn bar

The Yarn Bar

The Yarn Bar, originally uploaded by lyndsey-jane.

We had some sun today so I took the opportunity to take some photos of the yarn and roving I dyed in natural light. I really pleased with the resulting photos (a photographer I most certainly am not) and have say a big thank-you to splityarn for their tutorial on photo taking.
All going to plan the yarn will up on etsy.com tomorrow. The shop is called The Yarn Bar and will offer cocktail inspired hand-dyed and hand-painted yarns and roving. I will post tomorrow when the shop is stocked up as its still a work in progress right now.
I was hoping to wait until I re-skeined the yarns as I thought the niddy noddy I ordered would have been here by now. They are trying to get it in the mail tomorrow for me but no guarantees, so I have decided to post the items as is and if they are still listed when the niddy noddy arrives them I will re-skein then and take more photos.

I is for..

I have no idea what to write for this letter as I think I used up quota of creativity for this weekend dyeing stuff. So to appease you all here’s a sneaky peak of the yarn and roving from the weekends dyeing sessions. It needs re-skeining but I’m taking a break today so will get back to it tomorrow and Tuesday. Enjoy!

Yarn and Roving Dyed August 07, originally uploaded by lyndsey-jane.

 

Inspired & Sock Yarn

I been wanting to start selling my hand-dyed sock yarn for a while now and have had a great idea for a theme for an etsy.com shop which I hope is original and attractive. It is still very much in the planning stages (I need to persuade my Mum to lend me a small amount of money to purchase some blank sock yarn) but all going well I hope to have some ‘trial’ skeins up for sale in a couple of weeks – weather dependent. I would, however, like some input from all sock knitters. I would like to know what your prefered fiber content is when purchasing sock yarn. Please take a second to fill out the poll, if you choose ‘other’ can u leave a comment stating the content. Thank You!

polls – Take Our Poll

Jack Sparrow Socks

As soon as I saw these socks I knew I had to knit them, they are just so cool! This pair was knit for my housemates birthday and he had already requested more handknit socks.

Pattern: Jack Sparrows Favourite Socks/Wendys Generic Toe-Up Socks
Yarns: Lorna’s Laces – Camoflauge and Natural
Opal Uni – Brown
Needles: Clover Takumi Bamboo 2.5mm
Modifications: I knit more rounds after the heel before beginning the stranded work to make the leg longer.

After being inspired by the knitty.com article on dyeing yarn with food colouring I found a supplier of Wilton food colouring in the UK and had a go. These were my first attempts, I really can’t remeber what colours I used and didn’t write it down. I used the cold pour method in my slow cooker and am pleased with the results. Each yarn cake is about 100g of DK 100% wool. I am going to be ordering some sock weight soon and will probably have a go at handpainting and dip-dyeing too.

My Bulky Cabled Cardigan is almost finised I just need to find some buttons, but can’t decide between these or these in either pink or lilac. All opinions welcome!
(The true colour of the yarn can be seen here (it is Sea Thistle) as the flash has really washed the colour out.)

Kool-Aid Pictures

At last I have the pictures from the Kool-Aid dying. I didn’t take any pictures during the dying process as I was too afraid I would end up dying the camara.
The method I used was as follows:

• Arrange yarn into required size skeins, remembering to tie in aleast four places or the result will be a beautifully coloured tangleed mess!
• Soak yarn in warm water and vinegar (this helps the dye to bind to the yarn) for 20mins, allow to dry or use when damp.
• Prepare Kool-Aid ( I used one packet with 200ml of water in a pint size plastic beaker).
• Dip required section of yarn into dye, squeeze excess back into beaker or into dish but returning to beaker before next dip. Repeat 2 or 3 times.
• Repeat with different sections of yarn and differetn colours.
• Place yarn in microwavable dish and ‘cook’ for 1 to 3 mins depending on microwave and yarn size.
• Allow to cool
• Once cool wash in mild detergent ( I used my normal wool handwash stuff) and rinse
• Allow to dry

Here is the dyed Kool-Aid yarn drying outside in the sun.

Sock yarn dyed with Kool-Aid

Top Left – Jamaica, Grape Illusion & Tropical Punch

Top Right – Strawberry Kiwi & Grape

Bottom Left – Stawberry Lemonade, Blue Raspberry & Grape

Bottom Right – Jamaica, Tropical Punch & Raspberry Reaction

Aran Weight Yarn (100% wool with polyester twist)

Really sorry but can’t remember what i used for these.

Kool- Aid Dying Complete

Had an excellent two days with the Kool-Aid. Firstly I used the opal undyed sock yarn and some undyed 4ply, then today I used the aran weight yarn. Am still waiting for the aran weight to finish drying but think I prefer the colours achieved with the 4ply. I also washed out the recycled sari silk yarn so as soon as the needles arrive can start work on that.

I used the dip-dying method for the 4ply yarn, just dipping it into the dye in a plastic cup then putting the yarn in the microwave – this seemed to work really well and some great colours were achieved. I was however only using 25-50g of yarn at a time, as I was wanting to experiment more with colour than aiming to achieve the perfect yarn to knit with, however I now have enough of the same colour combinations to knit a few pairs of trainer sock – perfect for presents in this weather.

The aran yarn was dyed in batches of 100g and I had to adapt the method for this – I put the yarn in a microwave dish added the dye squished and cooked for 2 mins. This appears to have done the job but the colours are not so pleasing – but I will pass final judgment when they are dry and balled. As soon as this is done I will post piccies for all to see.

All in all I am pleased with my attempt and will definitely be making it a regular in my crafting timetable.