tie dye knit skirt

Alas, just a little too late it would seem.  I intended to make this skirt for quite awhile but I wanted to get all I could out of this sheet.  I ended up with two peasant tops and just barely enough left to piece this skirt together.  It's light, cool, and summery.  Unfortunately none of those adjectives describe the weather in Seattle right now.  While this skirt has been in existence just long enough to see some summer wear I didn't manage to get any pictures until today.

Decidedly autumnal ensemble no?  Unfortunately, as comfortable as this skirt is on hot lazy days, I'm not sure I'm feelin' it for cool weather wear.  Being unlined and all it kinda sticks to my tights.  Plus I've been having trouble gathering knits nicely and I think the stickiness on the tights exacerbates the problem.  I have to admit that the pieces are all different sizes due to being short on yardage and the seams are a bit wonky as well.

I feel like all this makes it look pretty frumpy and homemade, but probably not as much as the painfully amateur tie dye.

I was inspired by this dress, which includes a tutorial.  This really makes this skirt that much more embarrassing.

That and the fact that my photographer can't be serious for 10 minutes.

Apparently neither can I.  It's infectious I tell ya.  But moving on:

Summary:

Fabric: The remains of an old top sheet (once again)

Notions: Some 1" elastic of unknown origin.  It's one of those things that I didn't buy but somehow ended up in my sewing stash...  you know, like the huge box of buttons

Techniques used: Using the stretch stitch instead of zigzag for knits

Hours:  Not many.  Probably 1

Will you make this again? I may make another knit skirt, but hopefully with less problems

Total cost: This skirt was totally free.  The elastic and thread were in my inherited sewing stash and the sheet was given to me by a friend.

Final thoughts: This skirt is all right for hot summer days lounging about but I'm not sure how much more credit I can give it.  It sure is comfy though.

And a little curtsy to send you off.  

Coffee, Tea, Shrug?

With the epic failure of my recent sewing and crochet efforts I need to give myself a little back pat for a more successful knitted endeavor. I'm in need of some new shrugs; I love them for warmer weather to dress up/warm up an outfit and with baby impending I certainly don't plan on any full sweaters any time soon.

The pattern is Flowers After the Frost from Ravelry and here is the direct link. I've been wanting to try a pattern of this shape to see how I like it and I couldn't resist the beautiful lace pattern on this shrug. The written instructions are dizzying but Tribute has a nice, easy-to-read chart. For slightly longer sleeves I cast on 104 stitches (basically an extra half repeat on each side of the original 78 stitches). My original plan included ribbing on the sleeves, but I ended up liking the way they looked after blocking.

It still isn't quite warm enough here for short sleeves, but here I am hanging out with our sad looking hyacinths trying to stay warm.


The yarn is from a recycled thrift store sweater; I can't remember the exact blend but it's got angora and it's oh so soft! I dyed the yarn with coffee, tea, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon, and a little bit of anything yellow, brown, or gold that wasn't nailed down! It's held double for about a light worsted weight or heavy DK and I used size 7 needles for a nice open lace. I have enough dyed yarn to do a matching fairy hat and enough undyed to do another shrug, with longer sleeves I think... I just have about a million things to do first! Oh yeah, and look: I found some new tricks in Picasa which I'm pretty psyched about

Cashmere & natural dyes

I found a cashmere sweater with cables made of lace to light fingering weight yarn. It was a nice beige color and I made a full sized Laminaria for my grandmother, but that only used most of the sleeves. It was a nice beige, but really? Beige? Not for me. So what to do with the rest of it...

So I grabbed a short pieces and went to the kitchen (better known as my laboratory, insert evil laugh here) and started experimenting. We know we need vinegar but what else? Ahh, some coffee grounds from this morning, and that nasty mangostene green tea that I simply cannot bring myself to drink (it was bought because it was on sale really cheap and now I know why). Well, we'll throw in all that stuff and why not use apple cider vinegar since it's already out on the counter (it's not just for barbecue anymore!)

I hanked up a big ball and actually tied the tea bags and coffee grounds to it hoping for some real variegation. When it came out, cooled off, and I finally got all the coffee grounds washed out of it I was disappointed that it wasn't that variegated but it was a beautiful gold color! Upon knitting it into an Aeolian shawlette I can see that there is a perfect amount of variegation: lighter spots of almost beige and darker spots closer to golden brown.

I still have enough yarn leftover to make something else (I'm thinking another lightweight sweater) I may have to attempt to recreate this lovely color. Although green would be nice too. Oh the decisions! I can't believe I got enough yarn for two shawls and a sweater out of just this one big old cashmere sweater!