It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

OK, not really. But it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas knitting projects, as I have completed two scarves and a hat already, and started on scarf #3 last night. So far, I have:

1 Woodland shawl (except really, it's a scarf - see photo)
1 Woodland hat (my adaptation; there's no real pattern for this, I just wanted to use up the leftover wool on a matching hat)
1 River Rocks scarf (modified to make it less bead-heavy)
The beginnings of 1 Braided Cable Scarf

The Braided Cable Scarf was a little difficult to get started with, because I totally could not understand what the designer was trying to do with the cables and it's written kind of ambiguously. Once I figured out that "purl the middle stitch from the cable needle" really meant "purl that first stitch on the cable needle since you already knitted 2 of the 5 stitches in this cable group" it made a lot more sense. At first I was stupidly trying to purl the middle stitch on the cable needle, which would have meant: slip 3 to CN, k2, slip first stitch on CN to left needle, slip second stitch on CN to left needle, p1, k1 on left needle, k last stitch on CN. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and twists the poor yarn up like crazy.

Anyhoo, it's looking very nice now, although the yarn (KnitPicks Andean Treasure in "midnight" colorway) is superdark navy blue, so it's a little difficult to see the pattern emerging. I've completed two pattern repeats (16 rows) so far. I'm not sure if I like this yarn or not - it's alpaca, so it's hairy as all get-out, but it is also super, super soft.

Once I'm done with this scarf I need to get back to Mr Wonderful's Bad-Ass Cabled Hoodie. That poor thing has been languishing for months - since shortly after Christmas, actually. I need to finish it up so that he can have it in time for our belated honeymoon in October. :) We're going to North Lake Tahoe & staying at a lovely timeshare, courtesy of my mom & stepdad. It should be fairly chilly - at least at night - so I want to be sure he's got his cozy cabled sweater.

Dyeing wool yarn

Last weekend we made a trip to Michael's, to get some glitter and food coloring for the kids (they were making snow globes). I figured since I was there I'd pick up a skein of cheap white wool yarn and try dyeing some myself, since I'd read up on it earlier in the week and it seemed pretty simple. I grabbed some Wilton's paste food coloring in forest green, brown, burgundy and teal, and a skein of Patons Classic Wool Merino in winter white.

When we got home, I pulled out some Pyrex dishes - casserole-type things - and preheated the oven to about 225. All my regular pots & pans are hard-anodized aluminum, and I wasn't willing to possibly ruin my expensive cookware on a test ball of yarn (you can't use aluminum because it is "reactive" - and I'm not sure what exactly happens, but I wasn't about to find out). I don't have any stainless still pots, so I figured I'd do it in the glass dishes in the oven instead of on the stove. I transferred the ball of yarn into a hank by wrapping it around the back of two dining room chairs (back to back) and then tied it in four places with some acrylic crap yarn to keep it in one big hank. I soaked the hank in plain hot water for about half an hour, until the yarn was fully soaked, then I drained the water from the sink and kind of pushed/squeezed the excess water out. I put 1/4 cup of white vinegar in each of the three casserole dishes, then filled each one with 4 cups (1 quart) of hot water. Then came the fun part - adding the dye. It's kind of a trial-and-error sort of thing; the more dye you add, the more saturated the color will be. I just scooped some out of the little jar with a wooden chopstick and swirled it around in the water/vinegar until it dissolved completely. I used the green, brown and burgundy for this trial (Rugrat wanted me to use the teal but I figured three colors was PLENTY to start out with). I carefully put the dishes in the oven (not real easy to make all three fit on one shelf, let me tell you!) and draped the damp skein of white yarn in the dishes, with brown on one end, burgundy on the other, and the green in the middle. I checked it often, poking it with chopsticks to make sure it was submerged all the way, and turned it over once to make sure the color saturated the top as well as the bottom of the yarn.

Finally I removed the yarn and let it cool in the sink, dumped out the remaining dye water, and rinsed the yarn. And rinsed, and rinsed, and rinsed. The burgundy bled like crazy. When it finally let up some, I took a long, critical look at the skein and decided the colors were too bright and unharmonious, so I ended up re-dyeing the entire skein in brown dye. When I rinsed it out after overdyeing with brown, there was no bleeding, and the colors were much more muted - as I had originally intended. I ended up with a lovely autumn-y variegated skein, with coppery brown, camel, olive green, and cranberry colors. As you can see from the picture above, I'm turning it into My So Called Scarf, and the pattern shows off the color gradations beautifully.