Dyed by Coffee: A Tutorial

Even though I had never dyed any yarn ever, I was excited when Knit Picks offered bare yarn. I grabbed a few skeins of merino wool and just waited.  I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

And then I thought....coffee.

I looked around online and found some tea dyeing tutorials and just decided to 1) not waste tea as I love tea more than coffee and 2) just do it already.

So here we go with coffee dyeing:

Grab your bare yarn and marvel at how pretty and bare it is and hope you don't ruin it

I filled my sink with lukewarm water and put the yarn in. There were a lot of air bubbles so I kept pressing gently on it until they were gone. Then I just let the yarn soak until I was ready for it.

 I had bought generic coffee from the store. I made about 2 full pots of it.

I put those pots of coffee in my big ol stock pot on the stove and turned the heat on. My plan was to get the coffee boiling and then remove from the heat and add the yarn. Once the yarn was added, I stirred it a bit but mostly let it soak for a little over 30 minutes.

I checked it occasionally and, knowing it would lighten up as it dried, waited until it looked like what I wanted.

Once I got that color, I removed the yarn and ran cold water over it until the water ran clear. Then I used a towel to roll it up and blot it dry. From there, all I could do was hang it up and wait for it to dry.

I'm pretty happy with this little experiment!  I made myself some fingerless mitts and will be using the rest for a hat. Next up, Kool aid dyeing!

It's The Little Things

I finally finished my super-secret project and will be mailing it to it's recipient this Friday. After it's received, I'll post pictures of it. Pretty happy with this project and the pattern is now a keeper.

Four day weekend this week with Memorial Day (taking Friday off work- yay!). I've decided that for the next 2-3 months, I'm going to be a very selfish knitter. I have so many things I'd like to try and learn (sock knitting, using my new drop spindle, making stuffed animals, etc) but I always get sidetracked with creating things for other folks. Which, please don't get me wrong, I love to do but sometimes I lose myself with it. I was listening to a Buddhist podcast and it was talking about generosity and giving of yourself. But it made a point to say that, if you give all year round, you must remember to give back to yourself. Because you are just as important as the other people who are receiving your compassion. They suggested that a quarter of the year be devoted to yourself. So I'm taking 3 months to just be with myself. Although I still have ideas for gifts for my friends and family, they are going to have to wait.

School is getting closer to being done. For this one class, at least. Advanced CPT coding is harder, but mostly more time consuming. I just finished the 3rd test of 5 (plus the final) and have a solid 85%. Not what I want but I'll take it. At least I do feel like I'm learning so I can't complain too much. Right?

Work has been extremely difficult lately. Or rather overwhelming. The work itself is not that hard, it's just that there is so much of it I feel like my brain is shutting down. Unfortunately, work is cutting into home time - like now, I just finished almost 3 extra hours sitting here on my couch. My knitting has really helped me at lunch calm down and focus on ONE thing. My yarn and needles don't keep asking me why I'm not done yet and oh, they need to make changes and can I start over???

Yeah. Ok.

I'm currently reading The Devil's Cloth - A history of stripes. So far, very interesting history of how striped fabric got it's bad rap (it was mostly worn by people who "deviated from the norm" ie. prostitutes, lepers and hangmen - there's a motley group of people for you). People were often depicted wearing striped clothing when they were felt (by the artist) to not be worthy. This happened frequently to Joseph (of Jesus, Mary and....). Interesting stuff so far!


Another fiber fest is coming up next week. Hoosier Hills, looks to be a good one. I'm taking a day off work, with mom, to travel to Franklin to check it out. Unfortunately, having to replace my well pump last week has left little to the Fun Fund, so I'll mostly be just browsing.

My goal in the next few months, as well as being selfish, is to keep this blog updated more often. *Crossing fingers!*

I'm Not There

I'm practicing project monogamy and boy, is it difficult. I'm thisclose to finishing my super secret project and I really do want to get it done but I keep staring at the miles of plain knitting and thinking cheating thoughts: "I could start my first practice sock." "I need to make some chemo caps" "What about my piano scarf??"

I haven't cheated yet. And I won't, darnit. I will finish this super secret project and get it out to its intended owner. Said owner has no idea it is coming and no idea it's even being created. Hence the super secret part. I do really enjoy surprising people with things and I hope the handmade goods are appreciated.

Knitting time has been cut - pretty dramatically, actually. I have 4 more classes to take to complete the Medical Coding curriculum at AHIMA online. I stopped for quite a while simply because it wasn't fun anymore. If something you are doing voluntarily becomes...not fun, stop. With 8 classes under my belt already, I decided to start the next class: CPT Coding Part II. It was a beautiful day yesterday, so I opened the windows on each side of my computer desk and did homework for about 3 and a half hours. And you know what? It was fun again. Yay for taking a break to get the mojo back!

This Friday I'm heading to another fiber event. This time it's in Greencastle. Very excited even though I need no yarn and no, I haven't started with my new drop spindle yet. It's there, it's waiting, it won't mold and die.

I did forget to blog about the Bloomington Handmade Market. A friend and I took a road trip to check this out. What I noticed was no yarn, no knitted goods (aside from a few baby booties at one table). Very very shocking. There were a lot of binders selling journals and such, a few homemade soap people (of which one I purchased 4 bars of soap - *swoon*). It was fun seeing a crossstitch booth. I purchased a smutty bookmark pattern from her. Nice stuff there, really, just surprised there was so little yarny goodness. At least I see a niche now!

After the market we headed to Upland Brewery. If you are in Bloomington, Indiana, you must go! The food is awesome and the beer is pretty frickin' great. Frickin'. Great.

I'll be blogging about the upcoming fiber fest this weekend. See ya!

Maisy enjoying the knitted boob pillow I knitted for her owner.

Because Knitting IS Art

Is it.....Spring?

Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!! It looks and feels like Spring out! *calm down* I'm sure we'll get snow tomorrow but nonetheless, I'm busting out the patio furniture in the hopes of knitting outside with a beer in hand. Or on the table (hard to knit with a beer in the hand).

I already busted my "don't buy books" resolution. I got some lovely knitting books at Borders yesterday.

I'm quite excited! I'm really ready to start tackling socks, I think. I'm going to get some cheaper, non-handdyed sock yarn to practice with this weekend and just start tackling. The Cookie A book looks so good, she seems to be the top in socks. Heh.

And the MochiMochi? How can anyone resist these little critters??? You can't.

Mailing off some baby goods today to a friend. Hopefully she likes them well enough. I made 2 newborn hats and an umbilical hat from the Stitch N Bitch book (SUPER easy hat to knit). Plus a pair of seamless booties (with I-cord ribbon) and some little French booties that were cute but I'm not sure of the practicality of them.

The Knit n'Bitch group is meeting up again on the 26th. Really looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll get some knitting done this time since all we did last time was talk. Ha!

Going to the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend. Mostly for the Thornton Dial exhibit and the Sun boxes but also to get inspiration. I have lots of color scheme ideas for yarn and several ideas for pillow cases.

Off to enjoy the beautiful day!

Fiber Fest Numero Uno

On Friday, the 11th of March, mom and I traveled to Jay County, Portland Indiana for the Fiber Fest and Spin In. Not a particularly scenic drive (it IS Indiana), it was excellent because of time spent with my momma. Once we arrived, we parked haphazardly as that seemed to be the way to park and entered the 4H barn. After paying our $1 admission, we beelined to the restroom. Turns out we just missed the dog herding demonstration, so we went to look at the petting area. The baby goats were adorable! But the bird guy just freaked us both out and we didn't stay long. I don't do birds.

 Mom was worried the sheepies were cold. It WAS cold out there but I think evolution has probably helped them adapt.

Inside, it was amazing the amount of spinning going on. Little fiber flecks were everywhere. Someone brought some bunnies. I love bunnies and have never seen an angora close up. This little guy was quite hoppy and active. Which is why the photo is pretty blurry.

Amazingly, we found our knitting teacher there. How sad that she is literally down the road from us and we had to travel an hour+ to see her! Susan owns The Trading Post for Fiber Arts and she was actively spinning some pretty purple roving. All of her roving made me drool even though I don't spin. It was all just gorgeous. I found some Mardi Gras sock yarn but resisted buying it since I still haven't started knitting socks yet. It seems wrong to buy sock yarn right now, at least until I start my first sock. I did buy a drop spindle and some roving from Susan. I figure I need to see if I like it before I go whole hog with a spinning wheel.

I also ended up purchasing some wool yarn that looks like it hides a surprise. The outside of the skein is quite festive but if you peer inside, it explodes into an acid trip of color. Susan found this yarn on a trip to Copenhagen. I have no idea what to knit with this but it's now here when I figure it out.

I also found a booth called Paper and Yarn. The girl heading up the booth was super sweet and helpful and I ended up purchasing sock yarn (I KNOW I KNOW!!!). The yarn is gorgeous and I couldn't not get it, right?? Ice cream!!!

Mom and I wandered around and watched demonstrations of a bowl maker. He made bowls out of trees. Very interesting. There were also weavers and basket weavers and such. Something of a sensory overload but I left pretty excited by all the possibilities.

Knitting isn't just making scarves and hats. There is so much more that you can do in the fiber arts if you choose to.

Next fiber fest is in Greencastle, In in April. Another road trip!

Furry...

I actually feel like I have some forward momentum lately. One of the problems of having my thyroid removed and having wonky guts is that my meds don't often work as I think they should, so I've been just exhausted lately. I decided this week that I have too much stuff to do to be tired and am faking the energy it's going to take to power through.

My first attempt at a baby bootie is sketchy at best. My brain isn't seeing how this pattern will make a bootie so I'm continuing to the end to see what happens. And then I can figure out what I've done wrong and correct it for the real set of booties.

I got some homemade stitch markers in the mail today and they can only be described as art. Pictures forthcoming.

Tomorrow is the Jay County Fiber Fest in Portland, Indiana. Is it weird that I wrote down all the yarn I would need for some projects as a just in case?? Because I did. Real, honest-to-goodness day off work tomorrow and mom and I are traveling to Portland! Hopefully the weather is good - unlike right now.

Born Lost Creations is finally getting some "official" things to help advertise the knitted awesomeness. More news soon!