Knitting Dragonflies

A short post before I leave for work….. This pattern is easy and looks more complicated that it is. I was looking for a fairly simple project to occupy me and while blog reading, (because if you can’t knit, crochet or spin you can still read about it), I ran across this on the Knitting Up A Storm blog, from Anna Peck. Give it a look! This is a great step by step tutorial, enjoy and thanks Anna!! In the process of going through my stash, I started dyeing up some yarn to work with for this pattern, I had the idea of making the skeins painted in random light to dark mix. I started with two skeins and decided to dye 4. Hey, new rule, if I work two jobs, I get to wear my PJs when I’m off. I’m using a larger needle size 13 to get a lacy effect, and relaxing in the process. Everything is better with knitting. (I think this could be a beer commercial *grin*) Ravelry link below and photos http://www.ravelry.com/projects/knittyknitter/the-dummy-clap-shawl-scarf—shrug May your

In the attempt to get a different look to my dyed yarn, I tried to dip the yarn into separate dye pots. Wow, I love the look, clean colors, more definition.  I used this article from Knitty to guide me. Of course it is more work. My hats off to all of you who hand paint yarn! I started with some vibrant shades of violet and green. I couldn’t find what I wanted and ended up using this tutorial on food coloring. From Spindle and Wheel. I used the Neon food colors that I found at a baking shop. They came in a paste. The mixing was quite a bit of trial and error. To come up with the right color and salt/vinegar mixture, this resulted in lots of little bundles of dyed yarn, and several pages of notes. I wanted the colors fairly close together to get a nice repeat when knitted. Wheee…This really exercised my arm muscles, dipping into the green, I tried to make five different bands of color. Then the purple, also five bands. Then wrap it all up into saran wrap and microwave i