Jen's Mental Scribblings

I'm lucky enough to live where there a weekend of yarn porn.

Stitches West from the Knitting Universe is a Yarn Con. Yarn, fibers, and more yarn. *sigh*

I decided to take a couple of market classes (1 hour learn something specific classes that are cheap) so if I had been so inclined, I could have gone to the pre-public market opening Thursday night. I decided after spending a day at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and I was already planning to spend both Friday and Saturday at the Con, I'd go home.

Friday morning we got up and go moving. The girls and I dropped Gray at KidsPark and we went to the shopping. We didn't have to waste time in the LONG ass buy market tickets 'cause I could go in anytime I wanted as an attendee and the girls are under 10 so they didn't need badges. And we shopped. And shopped...and shopped some more. Stitches West is held at the Santa Clara convention center, which has something like 100,000 square feet in the big hall....the yarn show takes the entire big hall for the market. It took us a couple of hours to go through the market. And even then the girls gave up before we saw it all. Gwen found a skein of really pretty loopy yarn in her favorite colors and then they found a new craft. Punch Needle Rug Hooking. If you've ever seen punch embroidery, same concept, except for using rug yarn on monk's cloth. The booth ladies were oh so kind enough to let them try and they got hooked fast (Ha!). So I bought 2 kits. Not bad priced $15.00. The punch needles on the other hand.OUCH. $35.00 each. Being a smart mom I bought 2. Which turned out to be a good thing because once I got those kits home and showed them to Ike and Joe they both asked for a kit too. The three big kids spent all of today (Sunday) passing the two needles back and forth. Those of you who know me well may ask..."why didn't you get a kit for yourself Jen?" Because I have a huge chunk of Monk's cloth in my stash and I figure by the time the other four get through their kits, there will be plenty of rug yarn left for me to use for my own project. And as a note, I got though Friday's shopping expedition without buying a single thing for myself. (please be impressed)

I went back all by myself Saturday morning. Took a class, shopped for an hour, took another class, shopped for another 2 hours. I came home with 1800 yards of sport/dk weight alpaca yarn. (Lovely stuff, so soft) 750 yards of a camel/silk blend in more dk weight, 750 yards in lace that's a linen/silk blend (lace "should" be soft, but they had a sample and OMG it looked so beautiful, the lace was just so crisp and easily seen) and 200 yards of this fancy silk/metallic blend from one of my all time favorite supplies of stitching silk.  I was just wandering around the show and I come across this little booth the title is "Victoria Clayton" from PA. And I'm like hrmmm...how many Vicki Clayton's from PA can there be. I wander into this tiny booth and see some lovely shiny yarn. Hrm...maybe not the same Vicki Clayton. I look around a bit closer and see in the back her signature silk ribbon. And I turn around and go "OMG! This is Hand Dyed Fibers! I love stitching with your silk!!! When did you move into yarn?" We had a great conversation and I was the third stitcher she met this weekend. And the second mom who picked up knitting 'cause it's portable (unlike stitching). It was so cool to meet her!

It was a good weekend. I didn't buy too much yarn and the stuff I bought it stuff I've never stitched with before. I want to try different things. And I'm just SO glad we picked up yet another yarn craft, but I am glad it's one that Elli seems to enjoy. (cause she hates to knit)


   

A couple off weeks ago I found a sweatshirt grey, 100% cotton sweater in the clearance rack at Target for $6.00



I liked the shape, I liked the fit, I loved the price. Hated the color. I almost didn't buy it...but then I remembered that I had a dye pot and dyes and I know how to use them! I thought about it for awhile and decided on a teal blue. Something bright and dark enough to dye over the light grey. I ordered the dyes and waited. They came in last week and this afternoon while Gray was napping I decided. to dye! I mixed it all up and my sweater came out this color.



Not quite what I was looking for...but not bad! I like it! (Its a pretty light blue with green undertones)

But the dye in the pot was not exhausted. So I pulled out some worsted weight, superwash yarn blanks and tossed them in. I didn't want it as dark as the sweater came out of the pot (when it originally came out of the pot it was a very nice deep, intense teal...rinsing removed a LOT of color) so I tossed in a couple of teaspoons of baking soda to take some of the acid out of the dye bath.

And got this.



A really pretty emerald green.

And I was confused...what did I do wrong? It shouldn't of come out like that. But, I just realized that the dye I used is just for protein fibers! Which is why the cotton didn't hold it and why the wool hung onto it. Oh well! Live and learn...I'm still happy with what I got. Better luck next time.

I did this today at Lifeways! A needle felted Earth Mother. I've never needle felted before and it was a lot of fun. And I managed not to stick myself with the needle. Go Me!