Things I knit in Crowsnest Pass

We just got back home to Medicine Hat, after spending pretty much all of February in Crowsnest Pass. And while I was unpacking today I thought both: hey I finished a fair number of knits there and yeep I didn't knit half of what I brought with me.

The problem of course being the presence of a lovely little yarn shop in CNP, A Nest of Needles.

Some tiny Patons Kroy Socks.

My Carbeth of course.

This little Boy Sweater.

A hat for Kevin for Valentines Day.

A gift hat that turned out too small.

I finished my Flock Colourwork Sweater.

And a second hat, much larger, but I forgot to take a FO picture (probably because I cast it off the morning we left. Which meant I blocked it and dried it real quick on a heating vent).

Two sleeves and the start on the body for my Hearthstone sweater.

Plus a sock and a half for Kevin (no picture).

Oh... and somehow, this followed me home as well:

It's going to be a Carbeth Cardigan.... once I finish my thesis.

I'm a sucker for a good KAL

My friends, I have a problem, and I can admit it.

I am a sucker for a good knit along (KAL).

I just can't resist.

Mason Dixon Knitting and Fringe and Friends are running a Log-Along..... so of course I joined in.

I don't know if it's because I don't have a local knitting group. Or because I don't want to miss out on the fun. Or maybe I just like to drink the cool aide. But none of these things stopped me from caking up 4 skeins of yarn to cast on a Hearthstone (pattern by Ysolda Teague from the Heart on My Sleeve Collection) for the Tin Can Knits Heartfelt KAL .... although I haven't cast it on yet.

I'm not sure how many sweaters I think I am knitting this February (my 30th birthday month btw) but I am currently working on 4 adult ones, 1 toddler sized one, and have yarn caked up for 2 more.

So when Kate Davis and Mason Dixon Knitting announced a February, Bang Out a Carbeth KAL, I initially said, oh no, I can wait. Besides we're in Crowsnest Pass all month, I should just knit the yarn I brought with me.

But have you seen the Carbeth sweater?

I mean, maybe it's Kate's husband Tom's amazing photography (check out her blog for more increadible photos), but how could you not want to knit this sweater.

Plus, knit at a big gauge (bulky weight on 6.5 mm needles) you can fly through the 700 or so yards in half a minute.

So I said, no Sara, you don't need to knit this sweater right now. Work on the projects you have.

Which is why I'm not sitting here next to two skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool in Chocolate.

Thank you Nest Of Needles Wool Shop (in Blairmore, AB), I know what I am doing this weekend! What KAL's are you joining in on? Maybe I need another one?

Natural Dyeing Yarn with Avocado Skins and Pits

We eat a lot of avocados. In salads, on toast, as guacamole, or just cut up and given to the boys as a snack. So it should not be a surprise that the second natural dyeing project I should try would be avocado skins and pits. Apparently if you keep them separate they will give slightly different colours, but I pooled them together for this set of four naturally dyed skeins.

I've been collecting them in a bag in my freezer for the past month, and when I hit 15 (ok really I just wanted to give it a go already and 15 is the number I had) I decided it was time.

I used 15 avocado skins and pits to dye 400g of yarn. After scooping out the tasty parts I scraped the skins clean with the spoon and rinsed everything in tap water. Some skins (about 4) were fresh that day, the others had been frozen for up to 1 month.

To extract the dye: I put the skins in about 3.5 litres of water. The pits I chopped up in my food processor to icrease the surface area in hopes more dye would be extracted. I added this to my pot and brought the whole thing just to a boil, then reduced heat to a simmer for 1 hour, stirring ocasionally. Then I let the pot rest and cool for 24 hours. I strained out the liquid and had 3 litres of dye solution. Note to self, invest in a fine mesh strainer for dyeing.

Yarn: 4 skeins of 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon sock weight yarn, bought online here.

Skein 1 and 2.

I soaked my yarn in water overnight. I poured half of my dye solution into my pot (I use a large enameled one bought on amazon, the porceline enamel surface is non reactive and this pot was cheeper than similar size stainless steel ones). And added an extra 3 litres of water. In to the pot went skeins of presoaked but not otherwise treated yarn. I brout the temperature up to just under a boil, reduced heat and simmered for 1 hour.

Skein 1: No mordant.

You'll see the without any help at all, avocado dyes wool to a lovely pale blush.Apparently if you keep skins and pits separate they'll give slightly different shades, and again, you can intensify colours by creating a more concentrated dye stock (ie use way more avocados), but this pale colour is very pretty in of itself, and the yarn was beautifully soft. No colour washed away with rinsing.

Skein 2: Iron after bath.

After removing skein 1 from the pot I pulled skein 2 out and hung it above the pot (did not rinse, just got it out of the water). My dye bath was still hot, I added in 1/4 tsp of ferrous sulfate powder (Iron mordant purchased from Dharma Trading Co.) and stirred it into solution. Then I lowered my skein quickly back into the pot. Bam! The colour change was mediate, with the skein darkening to a silvery purple. The trick with an iron bath is that it is non-reversible and the colour progresses with time. I should have started with even less than 1 tsp, but alas, that's why this is a dye experiment. But after two minutes the skein had deepened to a great silvery purple and I quickly pulled it out and rinsed it off., not wanting it to darken too far.

There still seemed to be quite a bit of dye in my pot, so I ran downstairs, grabbed another skein of 100% merino (100g DK weight) and threw it into the pot as is (dry!). You can see that skein (the bottom one) is lighter in colour than the first skein in that pot, showing that the dye pot is exhausting. If I had unlimited time and yarn, I would have dyed a full gradient until the pot fully exhausted (one day...).

I cleaned my pot (scrub really well, the tiniest leftover iron residue can affect your colours) and got ready for Alum.

Skeins 3 and 4

These skeins needed pre-mordanting with alum. Into my pot went 4 litres of water and 2 tsp of aluminum sulfate (Alum, Jacquard brand purchased on Amazon). I added my two skeins, which had previously soaked for 1 hour in water in my sink, and heated the pot to just under a boil, then reduced heat and simmered for 1 hour. I let the pot cool and sit overnight before removing the yarn (but not rinsing it).

Skein 3: Alum premordanted

I added the second half of my dye solution to my pot, along with an extra 3 litres of water. Into the pot went my two premordanted with alum skeins of yarn. I brought the whole thing up to just below a boil, reduced the heat and let simmer for 1 hour (I know same old same old). Then I pulled out one skein, the colour in this premordanted skein was nearly identical to skein 1 above. The major difference however was that the alum treatment left the yarn feeling crunchy. This is why it is recommended by many natural dyers that you include some cream of tartar (tartaric acid) to your pot when mordanting with alum, as the acidic pH helps to keep the wool nice and soft. Interesting that this didn't happen in my previous onion skin dying experiments. I may do an acid treatment on this skein and see if if helps to soften it up, since the texture, while not totally horrible, isn't as desirable as the softness of this skein originally.

Skein 4: Alum premordanted and Iron afterbath.

Just like before, I pulled my fourth skein out of the still hot pot and hung it out of the way. I added 1/4 tsp of iron to the pot. Stirred it up and then lowered my skein back into it all at once. Again the colour began to change imediately and although not nearly as dark despite using the same amount of iron (perhaps an effect of the alum treatment). This time I let it simmer for about 10 minutes before pulling the skein. Its concrete grey, not as deep as skein 2 above and without the purple cast.

So there they are, four beautiful skeins, four truly distinct colours, from one batch of avocado dye.

Natural Dyeing with Onion Skin

As part of my homework for my Master Spinner Level 1 (through Olds College), I have to comeplete a dyer's notebook featurig 10 natural dyeing projects. All of these dye projects should feature yarns with or without alum and iron as mordants. There are lots of increadible book resourses (I picked up a copy of Modern Natural Dyeing) and website (I've been freaquenting All Natural Dyeing and Wild Colours to name a few). There is also an extremely helpful group on Ravelry (when is there not?) called Plants to Dye For, that is very active and whose members have tried every plant just about.

So Onion Skins.

I've been collecting them in a bag in my kitchen for the past two months, but after reading online that it was recommended to use a 1 to 1 dyestuffs to fibre ratio, and knowing I wanted to dye 400 grams of yarn, I got tired of doing it the slow way. So next time I did groceries I dug around the onion bin for loose skins ans filled up a bag, which they let me take home for free (after explaining to the confused cash register lady that I was going to dye some yarn with them).

I used 100g of yellow onion skins (with one red onion skin thrown it, because apparently we had one) to dye 400g of yarn.

To extract the dye: I put the onion skins in about 3.5 litres of water and brought them just to a boil, then reduced heat to a simmer for 1 hour. Then I let the whole hot stinking (it really did stink) pot rest and cool for 24 hours. I strained out the skins and had 3 litres of dye solution.

Yarn: 4 skeins of 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon sock weight yarn, bought online here.

Skein 1 and 2.

I soaked my yarn in water overnight. I poured half of my dye solution into my pot (I use a large enameled one bought on amazon, the porceline enamel surface is non reactive and this pot was cheeper than similar size stainless steel ones). And added an extra 3 litres of water. In to the pot went skeins of presoaked but not otherwise treated yarn. I brout the temperature up to just under a boil, reduced heat and simmered for 1 hour.

Skein 1: No mordant.

You'll see the without any help at all, onion skins dye wool to a lovely pale yellow with a pink cast to it. I've seen people get deaper orangey yellows with more concentrated onion skins, but at this 25% concentration (100g skins /400g yarn) the colour is definately more muted. No colour washed away with rinsing.

Skein 2: Iron after bath.

After removing skein 1 from the pot I pulled skein 2 out and hung it above the pot (did not rinse, just got it out of the water). My dyebath was still hot, I added in 1/2 tsp of ferrous sulfate powder (Iron mordant purchased from Dharma Trading Co.) and stirred it into solution. Then I lowered my skein quickly back into the pot. Bam! The colour change was immediate, with the skein darkening to a brown. The trick with an iron bath is that it is non-reversible and the colour progresses with time. I should have started with even less than 1 tsp, but alas, that's why this is a dye experiment. But after one 1 minute the skein had deepened to a lovely chocolate brown and I quickly pulled it out and rinsed it off.

There was probably enough dye materials in my pot that I could have thrown in another skein at this point, but it was late, and I didn't have any on hand to try it out. I cleaned my pot (scrub really well, the tiniest leftover iron residue can affect your colours) and got ready for Alum.

Skeins 3 and 4

These skeins needed pre-mordanting with alum. Into my pot went 4 litres of water and 2 tsp of aluminum sulfate (Alum, Jacquard brand purchased on Amazon). I added my two skeins, which had previously soaked for 1 hour in water in my sink, and heated the pot to just under a boil, then reduced heat and simmered for 1 hour. I let the pot cool and sit overnight before removing the yarn (but not rinsing it).

Skein 3: Alum premordanted

I added the second half of my dye solution to my pot, along with an extra 3 litres of water. Into the pot went my two premordanted with alum skeins of yarn. I brought the whole thing up to just below a boil, reduced the heat and let simmer for 1 hour (I know same old same old). Then I pulled out my beautiful golden yellow skein and rinsed it in the sink (no colour washed away in rinsing).

Skein 4: Alum premordanted and Iron afterbath.

Just like before, I pulled my fourth skein out of the still hot pot and hung it out of the way. This time (knowing how dark my previous iron skein turned out) I only added 1/4 tsp of iron to the pot. Stirred it up and then lowered my skein back into it all at once. Again the colour began to change immediately and although not nearly as dark. This time I let it simmer for about 5 minutes before pulling the skein. Its a yellowy brown with a slight green cast.

So there they are, four beautiful skeins, four truly distinct colours, from one batch of onion skin dye.

2017 Recap

Hello again. And welcome to 2018, just shy of 18 days in. January has been the strangest blend of busy and slow so far. That feeling the can only come in winter, when you are cooped up indoors most of the time, and are spending your days either hanging out with your kids or writing in your office.

I've pretty much been doing only those two things so far this year. And playing with yarn, always playing with yarn. And it has kept me both busy and bored.

Busy, because over the last month I've put most (so close only a few straggling figures) of my data into my thesis, as well as writing over 100 pages of it. I've played blocks, and books, and kitchen and chase and tickle fights and cars..... with Alex and Dom. We've planned out the first half of our year, with Kevin working Locums that will shuffle our family all over Alberta (again). Oh and I dyed a big old pile of yarn.

Bored, because I've watched more of the Wiggles than anyone should. Same goes for Little Baby Bum and Word Party. I have dredged through my thesis writing (so hard to put your brain in the game after so much time off to focus on babies). And I spent a literal week without leaving the house (Kev was out of town for work and where am I taking two toddlers by myself in -30 weather?).

Anyways, all of that and more has kept me away from writing a blog post, but today I feel in the mood. So let's do it, and recap some of my yarny creations in 2018.

This year, for the first time ever, I kept an Excel spreadsheet and tracked my projects and yarn consumption. The idea was inspired by Mina Phillips (the Knitting Expat), and originally the goal was to use up my stash, at twice the rate I added to it.


Oh I'm sorry, I just fell off my chair laughing. Yeah that plan fell to pieces by March, and by June I had just stopped bothering to track incoming yarn... it was just too shameful.

Anyways here's the stats.

I finished 60 projects. Which included:

14 hats
2 cowls
6 shawls
16 pairs of socks
5 pairs of mits
4 adult sweaters
6 child's sweaters
4 stuffies
and 1 full size blanket.

My total grams of yarn used for the year was 8302 and that was 22 308 yards.

4 projects were chunky or heavier, 26 were worsted, 7 DK and 22 fingering weight (Clearly sport and lace weight are lacking in my stash).

I also dyed a fair bit of yarn (you can find it in my Etsy Shop).

Sewed a fair bit (project bags also for sale on Etsy).

And got back to spinning my own yarns.

Overall it was a great year for the Yarn Lab, and once I get this pesky thesis out of the way, I've got even bigger plans for 2018.

A Tale of Two Yarns

You ever order a skein of yarn because you saw it on Instagram and knew you just needed it. And when it arrives in the mail you think it is beautiful and unique and amazing. So you hang it on your inspiration peg board and it lives there for months waiting for the right pattern/project. And it stays there until one day, when you have to pack the whole thing up, so into the stash bin it goes, but what, inside that bin there is a skein almost exactly like it!

Now I don't quite remember which of these two skeins came home with me first, but I do know that that very story happened to me back in March when we packed up shop to move down to Crows Nest Pass, and I didn't want moths to eat my yarn in my absense.

But here are the two skeins, both by Alberta indie dyers, both purchased sometime in 2016. Don't believe me on  just how similar they look?

Sure one hase more pink and the other is a pinky tan, but come on!

The Vivid Yarn, which is on the right is Hello Fox, and the Yarn Ink, on the left, is Calypso.

And there was just no way I'd be knitting these two separately, it'd be like knitting dejavu.

Luckily for me, I have a project in mind for the Joji Fall KAL that needs two skeins of fingering weight yarn. Oh, and did I mention they appear to be on the same base as well, both are 463 yards/100g, 75% Merino, 25% nylon, 4-ply sock yarns.

Here it is all caked up, and I know, you can tell the difference. The one on the right (Now the Yarn Ink, you think I would have kept things consistent for 3 photos, but nope, flippy floppy I go.) clearly has more brown and pink, but when I knit them up into a swatch...

You'd never guess I was alternating strands of two differnt yarns, by two differnt dyers. Plus, I think alternated them (two rows of each) really minimizes the pooling.

As for the project, this will of course become a Little Boxy, but I won't be casting on until I finish one or two other WIPs.

A quick Spin - Olds Fibre Week 2017 Spin in Social Yarn

This month I attended my second ever Olds Fibre Week, and of course it was a blast. Doubly so because it was my first weekend away from the boys since they were born. (By away I mean I left them with Kevin all day Fri-Sun, but came home every evening to snuggle and put them to bed, I mean you can't expect this momma to leave them over night can you?)

I of course took classes, and shopped for goodies, but one of the things I was most looking forward to was the Spin In Social, because when else do you get that many spinning wheels out in public.

Plus, as an added perk, all of the vendors in the Market donate fibre for everyone to sample and spin.

I didn't just have sampling in mind tho. I wanted to spin a complete yarn that would commemorate the event.

So I grabbed a handful off of each of the lovely braids that were laid out. It's mostly merino, but there's tonnes of silk, bambo, nylon and other in there too.

And I spun up a bobbin of what I like to think of as potluck yarn. I just randomly alternated from each handful of fibre, spinning short segments of each., and proving there's a lot of fun you can have blending fibres even without fancy tools.

I also grabbed a length of Rambouilett roving from a 1lb bag donated by Custom Woolen Mills. As you can see, the roving is full of little neps, either from second cuts, or as I suspect, places where this fine wool is broken up during a milling process better suited to medium-corse wool.

But it was still soft and lovely, and if you don't mind a 'rustic' looking yarn, it spun up into a bobbin chuck full of woolen spun singles.

So I plied them together. I chose to ply the multi yarn with a solid white for a few reasons. First, it would stretch the length my multi would go by double, preferable to plying it with itself and having half as much finished yarn. Next it would provide a stable and constant back bone for a yarn that has sections of different fibre blends. Furthermore, it brings the different colours of the single together, providing a harmonious look to the finished yarn. Finally, these singles were white, just because I didn't feel like dyeing the fibre and having to wait for it to dry before I could start spinning it.

Plying it up, the 2-ply came out as about a worsted weight.

And the finished skein. 252 yards in 120g. and isn't it beautiful! Finished skeins of yarn like this one remind me just how much I love spinning.

And yes, if you look closely it is a little kinky... I still need to set the twist.

A quick post about a long spin

First, before you read this, go to instagram and follow @frostyarn and then go to Etsy and favourite her shop.

OK, now that you've done that, let's get into it.

I've been drooling over Nic's art batts on instagram forever, so way back when in February, I decided that I needed to grab one for my birthday.

I picked out this lovely batt, Peacock inspired, and started spinning it on my birthday eve.

Just amazing isn't it!

I spun the bad boy, all 5 ounces of it, using a method for spinning batts from the book Yarnitecture, called stacking, as in I stacked sections of each colour to spin them together.

I also did way more prep and pre-drafting for this, and let me tell you it paid off.

My singles were finer and more consistent than any I had ever spun.

Which means of course I had more yardage than I've ever gotten out of a batt before.

I present to you the squishy-est skein of two-ply yarn in the history of yarns,

Well maybe not, but as far as I'm concerned it's amazing. 512 meters in 5 ounces of super squishy, super sparkly, merino silk yarn.

Now I just have to spin the matching batt.

Yesterday was a big day for FOs

Sure I've still got some (cough all cough) of the ends to weave in, but it was nice to get some things done.

I had finished these bad boys, the super neat, heel up socks by Daniel Yuhas (pattern from the book Knitting from the Center Out), on Tuesday.

The yarn is an amazing self striping colour way (are we there yet) from Stray Cat Socks, on her Deluxe base which is an MCN. And the fit is pretty good. I do mean to write up a separate post and do a quick video on these... one day... in all my free time (time not spent knitting that is).

So with those off the needles I had only one other project to finish before the end of March (which is the end of Winter Camp), and that was my Eyeball Shawl.

This is of course a Stephen West Pattern (since West Knits are the Best Knits, one should always be working on one), and as of Wednesday I had only the brioche border and an I-cord cast off to finish it.

So of course I figured I may as well cast on a mosiac knitting dish cloth to enter the Skein Game KAL.

This is the Turkish Tiles Dishcloth, pictured here with beer to take the edge off of knitting with stiff cotton (Bernat Handicrafter).

On the one hand, I happen to love any kind of colour work knitting, and it was a great break from all the icord I was slogging through at this point.

On the other hand, my hands were so sore from fighting this yarn into submission that I didn't even keep the leftovers (and that's saying something).

Dishcloth finished, I got back to work at casting off my Eyeball (knit in a kit of Hedgehog Sock...a yarn sooo splitty I am not eager to work with it again, although the colours are amazing).

So just some ends to weave in and a good blocking, and I can wear it to knit night next week (Have I mentioned there is a great little Yarn Shop here in CrowsNest Pass?) (Have I mentioned that we are living in the Pass until the end of June?) (Have I mentioned I am terrible at blogging?)

Anyways, just to finish yet another thing off. I finally finished turning the first half of this:

A beautiful batt by Frost Yarn. into this:

282 yards of pretty impressive fingering weight two ply!