2009 Knitting Review!

I thought I would recap my knitting accomplishments for 2009!!!

Here they are in order and the awards (Officially given by the Knitting Duck foundation) they recieved

1. Phiaro - Gets the award for Most Used. I wear this thing ALL THE TIME! I love love love this scarf and would probably never knit this again. Hello endless stockinet

2 & 3. Noro Stripped Scarf and Noro Striped Scarf II- gets the award for most addictive knit. I NEVER knit two of something... there are too many other things I want to knit to knit something twice!

4. Happy Birdie - gets the award for "Awwwww"! So cute! and all the seaming is well worth it!

5. Roaming Hat - gets the award for recycling as the yarn came from someone else's de-stash. Bonus!

6. Twirly Skirt - gets the award for stash busting as this was all made from leftovers from the pinwheel sweater! LOVE!

7. Party Hat - gets the award for fun! This was fun to knit and I know my niece has loads of fun wearing it

8. Roses - gets the award for most loved. I know my mom loves having these roses that never wilt... in fact if they get a little dusty you can just throw them in the washer dryer!

9. Roar! - gets the award for scariest hat! Any kid that puts this on automatically feels like a real dinosaur!

10. Orange Hat - This hat gets the award for brightest knit. You can spot this hat from miles away. It came out fabulously and I know the recipient loves it

11. First Socks! - Gets the award for being MY FIRST SOCKS!! and I love them for that.

12. Monsters! - These two get the award for cutest recipient - The little guy I made these two for is SO cute! His cuteness outdoes the cuteness of these monsters exponentially!

13. Bath Blanket - the blanket gets the award for most creative. I know it looks to be one of my simplest knits of all year but I knit it with out a pattern and on the diagonal. So, for me, it was really creative to think up what I wanted and make it happen. Oh and this blanket also went to Mr. Cutie Cute from the above award.

14. Knotted Hat - this hat gets the award for team work. My mom picked the yarn then I found the pattern and then we drove all over portland trying to find the pattern as it could only be bought in hard copy. But our persistence paid off and a week later mom had a hat!

15. Swollowtail Shawl - definitely gets the award for biggest accomplishment. I dyed the yarn and then knit it into this beautiful shawl. My first lace shawl ever! Really loved the way it came out with the pattern and the colors. score!

16. February Lady Sweater - this sweater gets the award for longest. knit. ever. I started this on February 1st 2009 and finished it October 23rd! 9 months! It wouldn't have taken so long if I hadn't put it down for 6 of those months or had to knit most of it twice but oh well... I took my time but still got it done. and I love wearing it!

17. Husband's Socks! - These get the award for endless cables! ugh those one stitch mock cables never ceased to mock me with their neverendingness!

18. Silky Ruffles - gets the award for perfect project for the yarn... I searched hi and lo of a project that would do this georgous yarn justice and didn't find it until I found the pattern for Just enough ruffles. LOVE!

yeesh 18 projects and total skeins used was 26!!! Seeing as my new years resolution last Jan 1st was to have 10 Fo's I would say that I more than accomplished that! Score one for lindsay!

My second new years resolution last year was to make something for me. I accomplished this too in a big way because the FLS, Phiaro, First socks, Noro Striped Scarf II and Silky Ruffles are all for lil' ol' me!!!!

This year I also started dyeing yarn and learned that I really enjoy it. I am hoping to get some more dyeing time in 20-10

But overall I'm quite happy with my progress for 2009 but I know that next year will be even better!

My goals for 20-10 (knitting wise at least) are:

- Knit with some of my dyed yarn
- No yarn buying until at least June!
- Finish the cabled purse I started ages ago
- Make a second sweater for my self (I'm looking at wisteria)
- Complete 19 FO's!

I made purple yarn!

Apparently dyeing yarn is like eating chips - it's so hard to stop after the first time.

Dyeing yarn has gotten under my skin and I just can't stop! I LOVE IT! And a couple weeks ago I got the perfect excuse to dye again...

My good friend Melissa is getting married... She needs to cover her shoulders in the church she says. That's when a little thought bubble popped out of my head. A shawl!!!!! I have been itching to knit a shawl for a while and this would be the perfect excuse! I have seen her dress and it's gorgeous! It's also an absolutely gorgeous shade of purple... and she wants the shawl to match only to be a lighter shade. "I can do this" I tell her! Getting excited and plotting how much fun this would be.

I start scouting patterns for shawls. I narrow it down to the Flower Basket or the Swallow Tail. I studied them both and showed them both to my friend. Fortunately yet unfortunately she loved them both and was more worried about the color... I got the color covered I assured her.

I finally did and eeney-meeney-miney-moe and chose the Swallow Tail.

I picked two skeins of naked Malabriio Lace for the shawl because I saw the same yarn used on some other people's projects and it looked fabulously soft while still showing stitch definition


and then I picked some naked KnitPicks fingering weight (merino wool, silk) just because I wanted to make the dyeing worth it!


Then I got to dyeing!!!

I picked a beautiful purple dye by Dylon that I knew would match her dress perfectly. Look at the beautiful purple water...


Here's how the Malabrigo came out. I wanted it to be all purple but I also wanted it variated so I stuck two ends of each skein in the dye for about 10 minutes. Then I stuck the entire skeins into the water for another 10 minutes so that it would come out with darker and lighter spots


And the KnitPicks Bare. For this I just stuck the entire skein in the water because I would like to try to add a different color to this at a later date and see what happens.


Aren't they fabulous!!!

Then I got started knitting the shawl with my new Zephyr needles from KnitPicks I might add.


I'll keep you posted on my progress

Change isn't always a bad thing... right?

I figured it being my two year blogaversary and all that this place was due for a change. I really liked the way my blog looked before but I was getting a bit tired of it. So I had been pondering this change for a while.

You may recognize the banner pic from this post. Yup! I dyed it my self! Very exciting and one of my very favorite colors in the whole wide world is a soft baby pink. So this was my inspiration (I guess you could call it) for my blog update.

Anyhow I hope you enjoy the new look! If you don't then... sorry (not really but we can pretend)!

P.S. I'm also thinking of changing the name to Knitting Duck... get it? Like "sitting duck"? get it? But I'll keep the web address the same just change the title at the top. What do you think?

Seriously need feedback on this one! thanks!

Maiden Dye-age

FYI: This post is going to be picture heavy but it's totally worth it!

I have been itching to dye some of my own knitting yarn for a while. So when my friend decided to buy some Dylon Dye to dye a dress from a champaign color to a rich dark purple and it came out AMAZINGLY. Seeing the results motivated me to dye some yarn. I went to the store and found the perfect shade of baby pink dye.

Then I picked my yarn....
I got this Plymouth Yarn - Dye For Me sock yarn from my LYS back home, The Knitting Bee

I had some left over Fingering yarn from The Fibre Company that is made from alpaca, bamboo and merino

Finally I had some of this Plymouth Encore Worsted in an ivory color laying around. It's 75% Acrylic and 25% wool. I didn't know what to expect with this but figured it was worth a shot to see what happened when I dunked it in!

Then it was time to set up
I got my little dyeing area ready, washed the yarn and got the pink dye ready for use

Then I started dyeing... I wanted the sock yarn to knit up mostly white with little bits of pink so I stuck just the ends in the pink dye while the yarn was still wet. The fingering I wanted mostly pink with a little white so again I hung it over the edge with most of it in the dye.

For the worsted I just stuck the whole thing in because I figured whatever happens happens... since it was mostly acrylic I didn't know how well the yarn would take the dye.

I let the yarn sit in the dye for 15-20 minutes then it was time for the rinse off.... look at how close the color on the package matches the color on the yarn. So impressed!

After a few rinses it was time for the agonizingly slow process of letting the yarn dry. Uggh I wanted to play with it already!!!

But it was totally worth the wait

The Plymouth Dye For Me

The Fibre Company Fingering

The Plymouth Encore

Yum!

Overall I love love love the results... in fact that I'm so happy with the results I ordered some more naked yarn to dye soon.... next time multiple colors!!