Spinster

I somehow managed to finish both the front and the back of the Pistachio Aran and block them. At the same time. Side by side. I watched Lorien block something the other night, and she was soooo precise. Every movement was painstaking, every pin was deliberately placed. That is approximately the antithesis of my approach. I didn’t even bother to pin it in some places cause the wool stretched and held so well. I can’t tell if this casual approach (to everything) is my downfall (my creations are never perfect) or my saving grace (what’s the point in obsessing?).

This is going to be a loooooong sweater. I do have a loooooong torso and have eternal difficulties finding tank tops that fit (thank you, American Apparel, for cutting your tanks long. I love you). However, I might have overdone it on the length. The length of the body, excluding the armscye, is 18 inches long. My torso is not (thank God) 18 inches long from my underarm. This may be more of a tunic than a sweater. I’m counting on some of the length being shortened when I sew it together and put it on, but as I don’t have large breasts this may be wishful thinking. We’ll just have to see.

Dyeing yarn and wool is something that I’ve wanted to get into for a while. I tried Kool-Aid dyeing but was never that into the sickly colors. A couple of months ago, I went to G & S Dye here in Toronto, and bought their acid dye kit. For 30 bucks, you get the three primary colors and black, soap, and citric acid to set the dye.

Not a bad deal! Plus, the guy who was working there when I stopped in was ultra helpful and knowledgeable.

Because I’d done some dyeing before (Kool-Aid) and hadn’t been too thrilled with the results, I wanted to read up on dyeing yarn before I started. I consulted Deb Menz’s Color in Spinning, which has a wealth of information on color theory, and Lynne Vogel’s Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, an indispensable resource for dyeing rovings. I have some roving and a pound cone of white yarn I got a while ago with the idea of dyeing it, but as this was my maiden voyage (and because I want to have a “dyeing day” later this week), I started with some sale yarn I got at Knit-O-Matic. I had two skeins of 50 grams each.

I put those in a water bath to soak while I set up my workspace.

My workspace pretty much consisted of the deck. I don’t exactly have the most professional set-up here. (We are not going to discuss the windiness of Toronto, nor are we going to talk about how pissed off I was when a freshly mixed bowl of green dye upturned all over the aforementioned books. Let’s just say that there was a lot of profanity.)

Anyway, after the yarns had soaked and the wind had messed up my books, I was ready to begin dyeing. I laid down plastic wrap on a drop cloth and secured it with masking tape, then laid the wet skeins on the plastic. I had mixed up four colors of dye; two purples and two greens. There was a light and a dark purple, and a forest-y green and a light, kind of kelly green. I hadn’t decided on a particular effect (stripes, etc.), so I just started painting. Eventually, I figured that if I stuck to the two most abundant colors (one green and one purple), I could use the other two as accents. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped up the plastic, but here’s what it sort of looks like:

And here they are after steaming:

Now, I just have to wait for it to cool (which will take forever) and then I can wash, rinse, and dry it!