The Hand-dyed Yarn Swap

I received this wonderful package from Stephanie yesterday. 200g of bulky alpaca/wool in my favorite blues and greens! So soft and light, I want to hug it and keep it all for myself. Maybe a hat and neck warmer ....

She sent me not one, not two, but a whole book of fast and easy knitting patterns. Wow. Perfect for this novice knitter. Those mittens are really cute!

And for noshing while knitting, she sent a bunch of premium Scharffen Berger chocolates for snacking. Yum!

Luv it all and can't wait to get started!

Dye Pot

I participated in The Hand Dyed Yarn Swap and it got the yarn pot out for me, which was great since it was a great winter activity. This is two skeins of KnitPicks bulky peruvian, just straight dyed in pots in bright colors. I'm very happy with the outcome and decided it would be perfect for a new purse I'm designing.

Now that my swap partner has gotten her yarn and posted about it I can too. My swap partner and I decided to exchange 200 g of yarn. I wanted to use greens and browns since those are her favorite colors and tossed in some blue and yellow for good measure. One skein was straight dyed in pots of color, standard dyeing stuff. The other I wanted to handpaint and play with the color a bit. In the past I've handpainted by laying wet yarn on plastic wrap, painting, then microwaving or steaming. I wanted to play with the technique a bit by combining with free form kool-aid dyeing. When I first started dyeing, I soaked the yarn in a vinegar solution in a pot, then sprinkled kool-aid powder on the yarn, the effect was soft and free form, not like space dyeing which is more controlled. So I used a flat roasting pan that I could lay the yarn in and still have it floating, but since it was large enough I could control where the color went.

Lyra Hat

I made this Lyra hat from the Golden Compass a little while back with 6-7 strands of dk wool from my stash and a strand of bulky. It looked a little funky with all the different colors so I fulled it a little so that they would blend together. Of course it's warmer now and probably too late to wear but it'll keep. Here's a pic before fulling.