Some mitts for me for the Fingerless Mitts for Fall Knitalong! Though I loved the yarn in the skein, the knitted result ended up looking a little bit like...well...dirty oatmeal. It may have just been the wrong pattern for the yarn, but it striped in a weird way, and the stripes weren't defined enough, looking more like oily splotches than color variations. So I took a chance and dyed my mitts with some Kool Aid. They're a little bright, but I like 'em!
Pattern: Whitewater Wristwarmers by Jennifer Meyer for MagKnits
Yarn: Tilli Tomas Voile de la Mer, 3/4 a skein of colorway 249
Needles: US1 Clover bamboo dpns
Start to Finish: October 2-11, 2007
Modifications: I added an extra lace pattern repeat in the cuff (the two repeats called for in the pattern didn't seem to make the cuff as long as in the photos), to start. At the end, I did 1x1 ribbing (knitting through the back loops) for five rows instead of simply knitting through the back loops. I then bound off in the ribbed pattern.
Notes: I quite liked working this pattern, but my little size 1 bamboo dpns were bent and peeling at the tips from all the cable manipulation by the time I was half way done with the first mitt. I ordered some aluminum ones, but unfortunately they didn't arrive until I was completely finished. The same day I finished, actually. I love when that happens.
The whole Kool-Aid dying process was so fun, that I just had to take some pictures. I used the tutorial from Knitty and it was extremely helpful.
My grocery store only had two flavors available: fruit punch and berry blue. I wanted to test them before committing, and was kind of curious if I could make purple by mixing them. So I put three little yarn scraps in each color:
And inspected them after they had been soaked, heated, and washed:
I was too impatient to let them dry, so made a decision on the wet yarn color. Berry Blue it was for my mitts. And here's how the samples looked when dry:
And I dyed the rest of the yarn "cranberry", the combo color:
Not only do I like these colors much better, but the yarn smells fruity, too!
4 comments:
At first, I thought the oatmealy affect was cool, but after scrolling down, the berry blue is really stunning! LOVE it!
Your wristwarmers are gorgeous! That was a nice reminder about koolaid dyeing- I got some yarn and some lime kool-aid from a swap pal, and I haven't tried it before, I might get some berry blue as well and do some sample dying of greens and blues!
wow -- your koolaid dyeing is gorgeous. this is inspiring! i'm going to have to add this to my list of things to try. have a great weekend!
wow. you are soo creative! awesome mitts!
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