A New Banner

A few weeks ago we were painting rocks. Again. We seem to do this a lot in the summer out at the farm. I think it has to do with the millions of perfect rocks on the driveway. This time, though, I had a project in mind. I collected 26 lovely little stones and, voila!

Simple Moccasins

My son has been asking for moccasins for a while now and since I had a stash of leather in the basement, I whipped these up. In total it took about 1 hour, maybe two. They are nothing so beautiful as the ones at our historical site, but they are sturdy moosehide and should last a while. Beaded beauties they are not though!

Craft day with Mom

Mom has wanted to do some dyeing for a while so I headed over armed with yarn for me and Kool-Aid for both of us. Well, the Kool-Aid was for all of us actually, we drank the leftovers! Here are the results. A mother-daughter collaboration. Mine is the candy bright skein and mom's is the sweet paler one. A bunch of photos of dyeing in the works as well. I had to use yellow food colouring and vinegar to get the yellow. I added a touch of orange Kool-Aid to make the yellow a bit richer. I also used red food colouring (standard little bottles from the grocery store) to get the gorgeous fruity pink since the Kool-Aid was not cooperating with my FruitPunch colour scheme.

Ready to be wrapped and steamed.

The mixing counter.

Mom's skein in progress.

Mom's skein ready to be steamed.

Done!

Kool-Aid is versatile. My son recently attended a cool camp where they dyed silk with Kool-Aid.

A beautiful sky blue play silk that he loves. The purple tinges in the photo are due to the light from the setting sun I think. It's really a beautiful light blue, with water-colour variations in the dye intensity. I bought a few other play silks to dye with the girls, but I am having trouble finding yellow Kool-Aid. We are going to do green, yellow, and pinky-red. Maybe we'll have to settle for orange since I can't find yellow. I'm not sure food colouring and vinegar will work on the silk.

Things I have started lately . . .

Scribble Lace
by Debbie New or Mason-Dixon Knitting depending on who you like to credit.
I think Debbie New did it first.

Subsequently frogged for, although it was beautiful, it was also somehow unwearable.
It will be recreated into a scarf, rather than a stole.

My Future Favourite Socks
created from a variety of patterns, but mostly from:
the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook
and Working Socks from the Toe-Up by Ann Budd
in Interweave Knits Summer 2007

Things I have finished lately . . .

In no particular order:

Knit Picks Lace Headband
from the Victorian Yarn Sampler

Itty Bitty Bear
from Interweave Knits Summer 2005
made from bits of handspun dyed with coffee

Something I finished a couple of years ago, but love so much I made two pairs:
Simple T-Bar Shoes
from 50 Baby Booties to Knit
in Katia Cotton Comfort

Katja

Last summer, I made this top in a lovely blue cotton. Isis by Katia. It only took one tiny ball, I think it cost maybe $6! Fantastic, and it is so cute. But now it is getting a bit short and the back sagged in a not so cute way. I stitched some elastic to the bodice and now its back to fabulous again. Still a little short, but hey it's summer.

I like this pattern so much that this summer I decided to knit another, this time totally improvised. I had some yarn that was a gift from the LYS, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it, until - bing! - I realized it would probably be great for this pattern. The yarn is a ribbonny kind of laddery yarn (well-described, I know) in white with yellow, pink, purple, and green. I knit the smallest size of the Katja pattern adjusting for gauge changes. Originally, I just attached the I-cord neck from one cup to the other in a big loop to pull over her head, but it stretched out waaaaayyyyy too much, so I am redoing the I-cord ties. That way she can wear it until she's at least 6.

Padded Footlets

I started the Padded Footlets from Interweave Knits last summer. I finished one sock. In the photo it looks okay, but actually the heel is atrociously large and sags unbecomingly. Well, I knit the other sock this spring and it was great. Wonderful in its neat-and-tidiness. Nice small stitches. Lovely. But a completely different size than the first one due to, you guessed it, the ridiculously large heel. Well, scissors met my knitting again and this is the result.

Yes, I cut out the offending heel flap and the attached cuff. Picked up all the stitches and grafted them all. Knits, purls, pick-ups. Yup. And it looks great, if I do say so myself.