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Spring Dyeing

  I love this bright coral color that these skeins ended up! I wound up about 2000 yards of 100% Wool yarn and decided that it was bright and sunny out, so it was time to do some solar dyeing I was going for a light pink, but after that skein looked rather wimpy, and my husband said he thought it would look good more vibrant. I decided he may be right. I like to use sun tea jars to solar dye my yarn. It is amazing how warm the sun makes the water and really bakes the dye into the skeins, I’ve used different combos of fiber mixes and 100% wool gives the most vibrant colors. I wound all of my yarn on a swift, and tied each one off in at least 5 places. I found to error on the side or more ties, to reduce tangles. But tie them very loosely, I like the little mark of lighter dye where the tie was located, it gives the skeins a more varied look. Soak the skeins, making sure all of your wool in underwater, I usually put a plate on top of them to weigh them down. Gently squeeze the air

Easy Knitted Wrap

Have some yarn from a forgotten project? So did I. I found a skein of Fisherman’s Wool from Lion brand yarns, in Maple Tweed. Each skein has a hefty 465 yards or so and it is Worsted weight yarn. After some trolling around on Ravelry I found a super simple wrap, a rectangle with rows of knit on the top and bottom and k2, p2* until end of row for 2 rows  and then p2 k2 next row for 2 rows, repeat until you are ready to end it, and then knit your heart out for the ending rows. See the photo in the link here , it is the Shawl by Melanie on Ravelry. I used needles size 13 US, also cast on 132 stitches instead of the 110 called for. I just knitted until my skein was over. Then couldn’t decide if I needed another one. There is a fine line between wrap so big you don’t want to take it anywhere, and wrap just right. So I stopped at one skein, I like the longer length, I can wrap it over my shoulder to stay on, or wrap it backwards. It can also be used as a cowl/doubled scarf, due to the ope

LaLa Shawl

Knitting always sooths me, I was stressed and needed a small project, out of town with little resources. I had one knitting book and found a Joanns store. After much looking around and dithering, some yarn was found that I fell in love with a wool, mohair, acrylic mix!  Patons North America Lace ,I decided to buy two balls, because, well who knows what it would become? Only having one knitting book gave me few options, Greetings from the Knit Café , so I picked out the Lale shawl and started in. The pattern is super simple and goes fast due to the yo’s and then drop them the next row! This would be a good first shawl for a beginning knitter! Love how the yarn is giving the color change and lacy look with a slight halo. Pattern is very easy to follow, once you knit one repetition of it, you can go on auto pilot with it.I knitted most of it during visiting friends for a music festival. So little attention to detail, and lots of talking involved. I’m always surprised at how many knit