More Fun with Food Color

I took a day off work so I decided to play with yarn and food coloring.  Currently, there is a skein of yarn in my crock pot and another soaking in a bath of Eucalan before I hang it to dry.  Pictures of those later.

First, I experimented with a couple of micro skeins.  Each is only about 10-15 yards.  I used a combination of Wilton's icing colors and gels and Kool-Aid on these.  Both were painted then steamed.  The blue-green was painted with Buttercup Yellow and Royal Blue Wilton's and Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid, steamed and cooled.  Then I twisted the skein, dipped it in a jar of mystery green,  and steamed it.

I'm not too sure how I feel about the yellow-pink-purple one.  I've decided to call it Tears of a Clown because I think it looks like Circus Circus exploded.

After drying and re-skeining my color experiments I'm very happy with the blue-green, which I'm calling Mossy.  The Tears of a Clown is growing on me.

Swatching

Yes, I am one of those legions of knitters who hates swatching.  However, I do realize that sometimes it is necessary, butIwannastartknittingrightawaydammit!

I've been wanting to knit Carina Spencer's Catkin but didn't have yarn that suited the project.  Although the madelinetosh Prairie in my stash looks nice together, I think it might be too fine even if doubled.  My wonderful, generous mom came to the rescue when she got me some beautiful Tosh Merino Light for my birthday.  I absolutely love the colors: Cousteau and Moss.  It's one of the yarns suggested for the project so I knitted up a swatch to see how the colors work together.

Yes, I think this will do just fine...

Museum Day

I've always loved museums; it's an appreciation that was instilled in me by my parents.  They used to take my brother and me to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from the time we were very young  so I've always had an emotional connection to the place.

LACMA recently did a summer promotion where if you bought a ticket before June 30 you can visit the museum as often as you like for 3 months.  My dear friend and favorite  museum buddy treated me to a ticket for my birthday so we met up on Sunday to hang out and to check out the much-anticipated and often derided Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer.  I think it is a delightful addition to the LACMA campus.  They have really transformed the space outside the galleries into a perfect free gathering spot in the middle Miracle Mile.  Levitated Mass also, to my mind, works as a great companion piece to Richard Serra's Band, on view in the Broad building.  Both bring the feeling of the natural world into an urban space.  The Serra installation evokes rocky canyons, its steel walls, covered in a patina of rust,  rise up like canyon walls have the look and feel of rock formations.

The highlight of the day was finally experiencing Chris Burden's Metropolis II.  It's like the play set you fantasized about when you were a kid.  Like the ultimate Hot Wheels track with trains, buildings made of Lego, Lincoln Logs and every other material imaginable.  I loved that the crowd gathered around in anticipation of the control boxes being turned on, and, when the first train started to move, people started cheering and clapping - the adults enjoying it as much as the kids.

I loved this building with its arched windows and little window boxes.

How would you like to be the person standing in the midst of these tracks making sure everything is running smoothly?

Birthday Yarn!

My mom and I celebrated (or tried to ignore) birthdays last week and on Saturday we headed to Abuelita's.  Mom got me this beautiful Madelinetosh Merino Light as a birthday gift. 

This one is Cousteau.  I absolutely adore this color way and would have gotten two of these if there'd been another skein:

This is the Moss color way.  The green is actually a more subdued olive (closer to the top photo).  Madelinetosh yarns have such beautiful colors.  I just want them all!

Fun with Kool-Aid

I decided to do a bit of Kool-Aid dyeing today.  This is some Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool.  I used Black Cherry Kool-Aid with a couple of drops of blue food coloring for the main bit and a mix of Cherry, Grape and Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade for the purple.  After nuking that for a bit I poured some pink lemonade to tone down the orange in the Black Cherry.

Here's some that I did yesterday.  The red/purple is some Paton's Kroy Sock yarn that I've had in my stash for a while.  I did a similar blend as for the Fishermen's wool, although the first dye bath didn't saturate the yarn fully so I had to re-dye it.  Unfortunately, my ties weren't secure so when I went to pick up the hank it fell apart and I had a nasty pile of yarn barf.  About an hour and a half later I had it reskeined and ready to dye again.  I'm really happy with how it came out.

This is some Stitch Nation Full o' Sheep.  I used Pina Pineapple and Lemonade for the yellow, Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade for the aqua and the green was a 2:1 mix of Lemon-Lime and Orange.  I'm torn between leaving this as is or over dyeing it to get a bit more saturation.  Think I'll live with it for a week and then decide what to do.

 Finally finished my Color Affection shawl (well, almost - I still need to block it) so I cast on my Bigger on the Inside shawl.

I don't think it will be quite as long as I prefer, so I plan to add more lace repeats.  Will probably add increase/decrease repeats so that the shawl is a bit wider as well.  In order to keep the edges nice and neat I'm slipping the first stitch of each row purl wise.  On the right side rows I'm slipping with the yarn in back and on the wrong side am slipping with the yarn in front.  I think this will make it easier to pick up stitches for the TARDIS section and will make for a more attractive top edge as I don't like the look of garter stitch edging.

TARDIS Love

I've been wanting to cast on Kate Atherly's Bigger on the Inside shawl since it was published on Knitty recently; it went to the top of my queue immediately.  So, although I really shouldn't be spending money on yarn right now, I treated myself to some Stroll from Knit Picks, which arrived today.  Yay!  The color way is Sapphire Heather.  It's a bit more teal than true blue, but I think it'll work anyway.  I like the depth of color the heathering lends to the yarn.

Now I just have to finish my damn Color Affection shawl.  It's a simple pattern but for some reason I have had nothing but trouble with it.  I actually had to frog it once because it was puckering in the three color section.  It seems that no matter how loose I make the edges it still wants to pucker a bit.  Hopefully it aggressive blocking with take care of it.  There are only 2.5 three color repeats to complete and then I'm on to the final section.  Can't wait to be done so I can move on.