I’m currently gearing up for the So Faded Knit Along (KAL) at The Cat and Crow. The pattern is a sweater called So Faded by Andrea Mowry, and….*dun dun dun*……it calls for fingering weight yarn.

That would normally be enough to scare me off, but I had recently finished the squirrel shawl for my mom, so that was giving me a boost of confidence. On top of that, on my last sweater (worsted weight), I knit the body of the sweater TWICE…and survived. I more than just survived, really, because when I finished that sweater I was immediately itching to make another. So I was feeling pretty good about myself.

I’ve known they were offering this KAL for a while, so I’d also had some time to scope out some of my favorite projects on Ravelry for inspiration:

Therefore, after my adventures in Yarn Dyeing last Saturday, I was feeling ready to take the plunge. Rebecca, one of the owners of The Cat and Crow, was super helpful. They had some pre-made kits for the sweater, but I wasn’t in love with any of them, so she helped me go through a number of iterations of various combinations and permutations of pretty yarn, until we finally came up with a winner:

I’m very excited about it, and my gauge swatch came out the right size, so I am feeling ready to go for the start of the KAL this evening.

Happy knitting!

P.S. If you are a fellow Raveler, here is my Ravelry project page.

This past weekend I attending a Hand Dyeing Workshop at my favorite shop, The Cat and Crow, and it was pretty awesome.

We had a little lesson in the color wheel (which was much needed, because I haven’t taken an art class in approximately 13 years), learned a tiny bit of the science behind it all, but mostly just had fun.

There were only 3 of us in the class, and we each bought 2 full skeins of yarn to dye, but we were also given a couple of small sample-sized gifties to try out the various techniques on. We did some hand painting of skeins and blanks, as well as some kettle dying.

For the hand painting of skeins, I used a syringe to dye a variety of blues/greens onto my yarn (at they shop, they only buy 11 colors of dye, and then they mix those 11 in various recipes to create their large inventory of colors). Then I used a spray bottle to add some dots of pink from the other side of the color wheel.

I really liked dyeing the yarn blanks (plain white yarn, knit up with a knitting machine into a long rectangle). On both my sample and my full sized blank, I ended up dying a gradient. Gradients are very popular in the knitting world these days (see both my Alaska Hat and my Baby Cardigan).  For my gradients, I decided to just do a single color and fade from light to dark (all with the same dye, just different amounts of vinegar water to dilute it). I am VERY pleased with how they turned out, and am already knitting up a hat with my green gradient yarn that I dyed. (Finished product here).

For the kettle dyeing, we put our mini sample skeins into boiling hot water (or was it vinegar water?) and then poured the dye directly onto the yarn within the water. There was a lot less control here, but I was also very impressed with how vibrant the colors turned out (it reminded me a lot of Malabrigo yarn–a very good thing!).

Here is a photo of the yarn drying (it’s cut off from the photo, but for the three on the right, there are grocery bags holding soup cans hanging from the bottom to get the kinks out because yarn that had been previously knit up into a blank):

And here is a picture of what it all looked like after I wound it up (turns out twisting a hank into a pretty skein is pretty easy!):

It was a really fun experience, and I’m very pleased with my yarns (especially the gradients!). The Cat and Crow offers an Open Dye Day every few months, and I think I will definitely be taking advantage of that the next time it comes around.

Hi All,

My boyfriend, Dan, lovingly created this awesome website for me to showcase my knitting hobby obsession–and if you don’t recognize the voice in those first couple of blog posts, it’s because he wrote them.  🙂

Now that I’ve finished putting all my previous projects into my portfolio (Heads, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes), I’m finally ready to publish this blog post that I started in January. So here it goes:

I’m currently living in Madison, WI and wanted to share some local places me and  my yarn habit have come to know and love.

Local stores to buy yarn or take classes:

• The Cat and Crow – I have taken two classes here, and they were both awesome. I’ve taken a stranded knitting class there one Saturday morning where I learned how to make this Baa-ble Hat. I also took a three part class there on Wednesday evenings where I learned how to make my very first sweater! They also periodically offer a hand-dyeing workshop that I want to take someday. The owners are also super nice and helpful, and there is usually a gaggle of knitters just hanging out in the front of the shop doing their thing: knitting.
• Wisconsin Craft Market– They have a humongous selection of yarn (and needles)! You can find pretty much anything you need there (and plenty of things you didn’t know you needed). It’s also right next to my grocery store, so it’s very easy (too easy?) to just pop in and see if there’s anything you just have to have.
• The Sow’s Ear – This place is unique because it is both a yarn store and a coffee shop! That means it has coffee shop hours, so when I snapped a size 2 wooden needle before 8am on a Saturday (what is my life?) they were open for me to go buy some stainless steal replacements. Who knew I was so strong…