Because I haven't posted in a looooooong time.

Through an interesting series of events, I have committed myself to knitting a stuffed toy for each of my children as their Christmas presents.
Knitted dragons for my two boys that will be varying colors of this:

 

And the doll for my little girl.

I don't know about any of you guys, but the moment I put a deadline on something it becomes a slight drudgery.  So, self-discipline is a mantra I am going to have to say over and over until they are done.  Thankfully, I have finished all the knitting for my youngest's dragon!!  

I guess I have a lot of weaving in to do...sigh...

 

So.....

Things have been a little silent here lately.....there's a very good reason for that.

The Peaches side (Erin) to this venture hasn't been feeling too hot for the past couple of months.  I don't know how much she would want me to disclose here, so I will leave it at that for now.  I guess I can add that she is doing better now, but may still have some mountains to move.

The Purls side (Moi) had her workshop burned down a few months ago when hubby neglected a fire he built close by.  Thankfully my dyes and yarn were inside my house at the time, so I didn't lose those.  However, I did lose quite a bit of my supplies to the fire.  I have been slowly rebuilding my stock.  We have had a new workshop built, so I am hoping to be getting back to dyeing soon!

Now I will show you a few of the things I've been working on in the meantime:

This is the wrong-side of my Pippa Jumper.

It is inside-out at the moment since I want to take care of my tails before moving on to the collar and sleeves.  I was too lazy to rearrange it for its photo session.

 These are my Charlie Brown Socks, so named because the colors remind me of his sweater. 

I will probably end up giving these to Erin.  The pattern looks so pretty on the pattern page, but it has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for me.

 And lastly, here is Hat.  I'm not quite sure what its name will be, yet.

 This is an entrelac hat that I have actually finished, but I still need to weave in some ends before it is ready for its finished photos.

Siren Skid Hat

Here's a project using our Sofee Sock yarn! It is the Skinny Skid Hatby Stephen West. I am using the colorways Siren Song and Skinny Skid Blue.


A few girls from my Greenville Knits group have knit this hat, and I just loved them!! Obviously I needed to knit one for myself! Off I went to my "yarn shop" (aka my stash) and selected the Siren Song, but could not find a complementary color for it. So I dyed one. (Goodness, I love being able to just whip up a custom color for whatever I am working on!)

Onto the knitting! I cast on my stitches and got to the double knitting portion of the brim...uuuggghhhhhh, and I thought, "This really is pointless double knitting." But, I trudged on, determined to knit this the way it was written. About an inch into the double knitting, though, I hit a snag: I criss-crossed my colors the wrong way and if I knit with the blue strand the way I would naturally the pink would show through the blue portion of the brim. So, I had to pull the blue strand up through the pink that had snared it before starting my next round. Two rounds later it happened again.

At that point I lost all patience for the pointless double knitting, put the back color on a spare bit of yarn and knocked out the front portion of the brim on its own.

I'm enjoying this hat a lot more now that I've taken out the double knitting.

And here's how far I've gotten:
I got the front done and cast off, and I've finished the length of the back! Yay! Onto the body of the hat.

Potluck Hanks

For those of you who may be wondering, Potluck Hanks are what I've decided to name certain colorways that are unrepeatable. They are dyed using leftover dyes from previous skeins, so the results are a potluck of dyes! Dyeing this way is just as much fun as creating the dyes for an intended colorway. Only in this process, I never know what's going to come out of my pot...ah...the mystery!

Potluck Dye Pot

Here are two more hanks for our shop, both on the Sofee Sock base, and both are Potluck hanks:

Bing Cherries


Midnight Iris

Anne Shirley Dyepot

Here are the skeins produced with the dyes from the teaser photo I posted.

We have Lady Cordelia:


on our Sofee Sock base

And Depths of Despair:

on our Blue-te-FuL Sock base

There was another skein to go along with these, but it got snatched up by one of my knitting group members before I got the chance to photograph it!

A Taste of Dyepots to Come

Here's a sample of what this week's dyepot results will look like.


I am just thrilled about these vibrant colors. It's taking all my will power to wait until my hanks have properly soaked to get started...just you wait, hanks, just you wait!

You May Be Wondering....

why we haven't been posting much about actual knitting projects.

My excuse is dyeing and Christmas, and sissy dearest's excuse is she has become a daytime nanny. Both excuses left us little time to knit and/or post about it. In my case, I couldn't post about my projects since they were all going to be presents for my family. Erin still has two extra kids at her house, plus a faulty computer, so I'm not quite sure how often she is going to be able to update the blog....

All that being said, here are pics of the projects I knit for the females in my fam for Christmas:




These are Susie's Reading Mitts in Lana Grossa's Chiara.

The first pair were for my older sister in the colorway #21-Celery. Second pair were for my younger sister in the colorway #01-Fuschia (my name for it since I couldn't find the color name). Third pair were for my mother in the colorway #29-Teal. Fourth pair were for my mother-in-law in the colorway #27-Silver Lilac. Last, a fifth pair were for my grandmother in colorway #28-Silver Fox (again, my name for it). I don't have a decent picture yet of my grandmother's pair yet, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

I knit so many of these, that I had a whole system going for them. I would knit the main body of them on size 8's, knit the thumb on 9's and bind-off the thumb using two size 9's held together. Try as I may with size 10's, I still could not get a thumb BO that would be easy to slide down. Also, I knit fewer rows before the eyelet row on the bottom and fewer rows after the eyelet row on the top for the hem. Otherwise my hem edge ran into the lace section. My other mod was to only knit one row before and after the eyelet row of the lace section. This is an excellent pattern! Super easy and really fast to knit.

January Dyepot - American Classics

Here are the latest updates to our shop.

House of the Rising Sun



Free Bird



These two skeins were inspired by another skein that was finished in December:

Miss American Pie



I thought, "Wouldn't it be fun to come up with some color schemes themed on Classic Rock songs?!!" So, these were what my "little gray cells" came up with!

Both were hand painted, one on our BFL base and the second on Sofee Sock. I didn't notice at the conception time of Free Bird, but the colors are identical (or near enough) to the team colors of the University of Alabama! This happens to be my father's favorite team, and I have left-over dye, so.... I am going to dye another skein for my dad and knit him a pair of socks! I love it when things work out like this.