The Hollyhock Blog

I had a wonderful day yesterday!   I spent it cooking Kool-aid!  Leslie of Drummond Farms came over in the morning.  She is new to dyeing.   She brought white yarn, Kool-aid and lunch – not much makes me happier!  We spent the morning with big dye pots on the stove.  We did 4 batches. 

Our morning's accomplishment

The green, red and orange/yellow are all pretty solid colored.   A little variation, but mostly solid.  The purple dye pot, however started out blue, then red (tropical punch, I think) was sprinkled on the yarn, let sit a short time, then stirred in.

Crazy colors

And this is the result.  Mine is the bulky, Leslie has the Suri lace weight.  We shared dye pots on the batches. 

Then we ate lunch on the deck.  Leslie’s coleslaw was as yummy as the yarn we dyed!   Then visited the alpacas in the barn and walked around the yard a bit.

Afternoon was ‘nuke the Kool-aid’ class!   Kool-aid was mixed in little squirt bottles and applied in various patterns to wet yarn.  The yarn was wrapped in cellophane and popped in the microwave! 

And for dessert!

And this is our afternoon’s work!   (Leslie’s on the right, mine on the left)  A day filled with fun conversation and beautiful yarn besides!   If your interested in buying, Leslie’s is all lace weight.  Contact her for more info.   My hand painted is 80% alpaca / 20% silk lace weight, all other is 100% alpaca yarn.

Nothing, Nada, Zip, Zilch!  I didn’t even get one puny pair of mittens knit last week for charity.   I will do better this week!

I did get the red mittens felted.  This is a testimony to dyeing with Kool-Aid.  To felt the mittens, I put a big pot of water on my stove and heated to nearly boiling, added that to the hottest tap water I could get in my wash machine, added detergent (not gentle Aquilaun like I recommend for alpaca) and agitated the bejeebers out of those poor mittens for at least 15 minutes.  This is NOT the care I suggest be given to alpaca products – especially those dyed deep, dark colors.   But here is the set:

Red set

The felting gives the mittens a fuzziness the wrist warmers and scarf don’t have, so they do look a little different.  And they did fade some – the water was pink.  But I was amazed at how little they faded – since I did not think of that possibility when I started the set (duh!)

First – my grocery / project / carry-anything bag!

My bag

It doesn’t look like much until it is filled with something.  I stuffed a couple little pillows in it. 

Stuffed bag

It stretches, but the crochet cotton is so strong, I think it could carry groceries.  I can’t wait to try it out! 

This set is almost finished.  I have to felt the mittens yet. 

Scarf, mittens, wristwarmers

But then it will be mailed off to its destination, so I thought I would show you this – incase I forget to photograph the felted mittens.  Next set – scarf, mittens, wristwarmers, and hat from yarn I’ll dye with walnut husks!

They are my standby!  Mittens from the bags of acrylic yarn donated to my knitting group.   They still need to have seams sewn – which will be done by another gal in the group.   She offers – how can I refuse!

3 little pairs of mittens

We meet tomorrow, so these will be on their way to warm little school kids’ fingers soon. 

Legwarmers are finished – ready to be picked up later this week.  I think I will make another pair soon to have in the gift shop and maybe list onEtsy.   These were fun to knit.

Legwarmers

Striped like these or solid color?   Which do you like?

I may have overdone the Kool-Aid in the dye bath!  A combination of cherry and tropical punch and, man, is it red!   I don’t know if I can get this bright a red from commercial dyes.  Not sure I need to try!

Really red yarn

This is for a custom order of mittens and wristwarmers of the sport weight and a scarf of the bulky yarn.  Notice the white ties on the skeins – that is acrylic yarn that went thru the dyeing same as the skeins of alpaca.  I’m always amazed that acrylic just doesn’t pick up dye like natural fiber!   Makes you wonder how they dye acrylic in the factory!

Here’s the end to the red scarflette saga.

I decided to put in 3 buttonholes for the 2 white and 1 red buttons.   I found this great tutorial on making buttonholes.   After a few tries, I was making pretty good buttonholes – much better than the ‘bind off, next row cast on’ type I had previously made.  So I switched from the bumpy seed stitch to smooth stockinette, knit a few rows, put in buttonholes, knit a few more and bound off.   I sewed my center red button on the other end and take a look!!!

One button one

End to end

The stockinette rows pulled in shorter than the seed stitch and the buttonhole row even more so.  Bad scarf!   So the scarflette went into time-out for a few weeks! 

When I determined that the scarflette had sufficiently repented, I ripped back to the seed stitch and started again.  I put in 4 buttonholes for the 4 red buttons.  (Thanks to Linda and Karen for agreeing on this!)  I continued to do the seed stitch and attempted to keep it as consistent as possible on each side of the buttonholes.  And here it is!

The buttons are on

Buttoned

Over the head with one buttonThe buttonholes still pull that row in a little, but it is much improved.Wide front

Pointed down in front

It is finally done!  I even had fun fashioning it is different ways on my mannequin head.   It is knit from bulky 100% alpaca yarn, dyed with Kool-aid.  $20.  I think it will go into my Etsy shop, but my blog readers get first chance.   I can say it is warm and cuddly!