I know I promised more knitting heresy but until I finish this stupid freaking cast on…I have not the heart to mock the knittish gods. Perhaps if I am a very good sort of knitter tomorrow. So when I had last posted I had swatched for thermal. I really was being overly picky about my cast on and decided to teach myself the tubular. This has prompted me to decide to randomly do this once a week so I can get more familiar with various cast ons and bind off’s etc. Sort of nona swatches but more like zyllah grumbles… Anyway the tubular was fine and dandy and I decided to use it. Not really considering the problems of it being in the round and such like. So at one point you go back and pick up the purl bumps every other stitch. Yeah turning your work every other stitch is a real freaking blast when you have 154 to knit and 154 purl bumps to pick up. I worked on it a fair amount yesterday and I’m maybe half done. Anyway here is the review:
Tubular Cast On: Gorgeous edge. Love the way it looks, be prepared to have your knittish faith challenged by the pain in the ass it is.
I have more done now but I’m too lazy to take an updated photo. Now the prepicking up knitting and the stitches on the right needle represent more time of my life than I want to admit to.
Moving on to vastly more pleasant things…. I do not have updated pics of the zip cardi or the sock since they look the same just you know longer. Thus makes for boring blogging…however Soxia continues to smile upon me and depending on the cast on idiocy I can assume I might get to the heel of the sock before the weekend is over. I also have delusions of finishing the back of the zip cardi.
So Thursday because I had leftovers to serve for dinner I decided to dye a bunch of yarn. I actually dyed more but I’m saving it for future blogging material and cause I don’t want to fight to wind it. The whole lack of wanting to wind it will be made clear in a second. So first up we have a quarter pound of Louet gems goodness…
Colorway: Iced Wine (feeling uninspired and lame)
Yardage: 430
Base: Louet Gems Pearl that I got here. Fantastic prices and Customer Service.
Techniques: So not like I’m sundara or anything but I find is frustrating that so many people treat dyeing like its alchemy in the 17th century so I figured I’d talk about what I did. First off I dyed it pink. My original plan was to dye it and then hand paint the darker sections on. So pink umm yeah try some weird inbetween pepto and neon. So I thought about how to tone it down and decided a dilute black mixture was in order. So at this point it was very uneven and over dyed like which pleased me so I painted on burgundy before setting it. In the end I got some nifty tiny bits of icy lavender and pink and burgundy. I am really pleased with it.
Notes: So anyway I really need to figure out a better way of not getting slightly tangled when winding and yes I do have a swift and winder…so after I got everything straightened out I am winding it for the second time and the ball comes FLYING off the winder and hits me. So I wound it ummm 3 or 4 times.
So Next up is the crockpotted junk I did to use up leftover dye.
This is the roving that came with my learn to spin kit. It is crapalicious. It doesn’t even come close to soft and I hated spinning it. So in the interest of not wasting it and not letting the dye leftovers sit I decided to dump it in the crock pot and see what happened. Not terrible looking…However I had way too much dye in there and it wouldn’t exhaust so I went rooting through the stash and came up with the alpaca I used for husbands scarf. It was natural colored before I tortured it.
Its very kettle dyed looking. No clue what I’ll do with it but hey at least its something I would consider using for myself now. And now I have procrastinated enough and must return to my cast on hell.
I love love love tubular cast on. And it *is* a total pain. But so worth it for that gorgeous, “oh, couldn’t you tell I knit this myself?” result.
PS: Your dye job is lovely. Did you use acid dye?
I’ll try tubular cast on with some project that doesn’t have to be knit in the round. I have absolutely no love for ptbl.
Now that I know the story behind the Iced Wine, it’s amazinger. I really like all the color changes.
Looks great! And I love the burgundy grape the alpaca became.
Did you do extra figure eight ties on the dye hank? I find that the two that it comes with are usually too tight, and I like to have at least 4 ties. I also do one that’s a loop around the entire section of the skein. It can help when I’ve treated the skeins really rough and they’ve doubled back in the figure eights and all that mess, so I find that loop and make sure I can move it all round the skein, and that makes me sure I’ve got the true center before I stick it on the skein winder. I have a hank of white red heart I use just for the yarn ties.
Plus, since it doesn’t absorb dye it makes it easier to pick out the ties when you are pulling it out of the pot.
And, still, with all of that, I still occasionally end up with a Hank From Hell that gives me fits.