For the Holidays: Felted Leaves Garland

This simple pattern , courtesy of Red Heart, is easy to adapt to just about any time of year by altering colors. The one shown here is perfect for Christmas, whether coiled up as a candle ring, garlanding the tree, or bedecking  the mantle or banister. You could even use a template for holly, flowers, ornaments, etc, or doll it up with novelty yarn, glitter, bells, or buttons. And wouldn’t it make a cool grab bag gift for casual parties? The possibilities seem endless, really. Let the crocheting begin!

Christmas Knits: Felted Stocking

This design has so many embellishment possibilities. Use your imagination to turn out one of a kind holiday keepsakes.

pattern link

My Favorite Felted Mittens Pattern

photo: LGP

This past winter, I knitted, felted and sold about 20 pairs of felted mittens at pre-holiday craft fairs. I don’t mind making socks on circular needles, but not mittens – guess the hole for the thumb bothers me, I dunno. Anyway, I use the 2-needle pattern below, but I make the mittens much larger than if they weren’t about to be felted. That means, for a child, I make a small adult size. For men, a medium woman’s size. You have to use your judgement and know your yarn. For felting, I’ve found that Paton’s 100% wool worsted weight gives me predictable results. It is readily available, inexpensive, knits up beautifully, and comes in many lovely solids and blends. Yarns made specifically for felting shrink too much for this application.

Traditional two needle mittens work up quickly, and suit everyone from child to adult. Use up your yarn stash and knit a pair of mittens in a different color for everyone in the family.
Sizes: small child, medium child, large child, adult

# Materials: #5 and #7 needles
# 200 yards of worsted weight yarn
# 1 stitch holder
# 2 stitch markers
# tapestry needle

Gauge: 5 sts = 1″ on #7 needles

Cuff: With smaller needles, loosely cast on 24(28-32-36)sts. Work *K1, P1,* ribbing until piece measures 2 1/2 (3 1/2, 4, 4 1/2)”. Change to larger needle.

Hand: Row 1 (right side): K2, inc in next st, K to last 3 sts inc in next st, K1. Row 2 Purl. Continue working in SS until piece measures 1″ (1 1/4, 1 1/2, 2″) from end of ribbing, ending with a P row. For the last 3 sizes only Work 2 more rows. (SS)

Thumb Gusset: Row 1: K12 (12-14-16-18), place marker on needle; inc in each of next 2 sts, place marker on needle: K12 (14-16-18) sts. Row 2: and all even rows Purl. Row 3: K to marker, sl marker, inc in next st; K to st before next marker, inc in next st, sl marker, K to end. Repeat Rows2 and 3 until there are 8 (10-12-14) sts between the markers; end by working Row 2.

Divide for Thumb: K12 (14-16-18), drop marker; K8 (10-12-14)sts for thumb, and then place thumb sts on holder; K 12 (14-16-18) Work even in SS until work measures 4″ (5 1/2 -6-7″) from start of Hand, ending by working a purl row.

Top Shaping: Row 1: *K2, K2tog; rep from* across. Row 2: Purl. Row 3: *K1, K2tog, rep from * Row 4: Purl. Row 5: K2tog across; break yarn, leaving 18″ end. Thread yarn into tapestry

needle, run needle through remaining sts. Slip sts off needle, pull yarn up tightly and fasten securely. leave yarn for sewing.

Thumb: Sl sts from holder to needle, purl one row. Work even in SS until thumb measures 1 1/4 ( 1 3/4-2-2 1/4″) ending with a purl row. Next Row: K2 tog, rep across row cut yarn leaving 12″ end finished the same as above. Fold mitten and sew seams.

Your mittens will be comically large and floppy. That’s OK, that’s what you want. Follow your best felting instructions until they shrink to size. I’ve been known to throw wet mittens in the dryer, medium setting, to get to where I want them.

Good luck, happy knitting , let me know how you do!

(updated 10/1/09)

Textile Terms: Wool Gathering

When someone is daydreaming instead of paying attention to the talk at hand, it used to be, and sometimes still is said that the person is “wool gathering” .  How did that saying come about? Most people don’t require any wool at all to do their fanciful thinking.

Henry Herbert La Thangue - Gathering Wool

The answer is simple enough. When sheep are out in their meadows or even in their stalls, they often rub their sides along fences, trees, bushes, and other upright, stable objects, probably to scratch an itch or just because it feels good. In the days when wool was processed by hand, someone in the family that owned the sheep would have to go into the fields to collect the pieces of wool that rubbed off and stuck to the “scratching post.” Waste not, want not, after all. As this is not a very taxing occupation, it’s likely that the wool gatherer would be thinking about all sorts of things.

http://danceswithwool.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/textile-terms-wool-gathering/

http://www.alpacafarmgirl.com

Natural Dyeing: Bracken Fern

The very first natural dye I ever used (perhaps 20 years ago) is bracken fern. It was April in CT, and I had to do a demo at a Rev War re-enactment. Not many plants available here that early in the spring. But the  “fiddleheads” from the wild ferns that grow around the yard were about 6″ high, so, I decided to give them a try. (These are not the edible ones, from the ostrich fern, but the somewhat furry ones.)

Talk about flying by the seat of your pants! I’d hardly done any dyeing before, but necessity is the mother of invention, nothing ventured nothing gained, and all those other similar sayings apply to this experiment.

Here’s what I did:

1. Cut about a pound of fiddleheads.

2. Mordanted a 4 oz. skein of homespun wool yarn in alum and cream of tartar.

3. Set up an iron kettle, with about a gallon and a half of tap water,  over an open fire.

4. Added the ferns and brought up to a simmer, for 1/2 hour.

5. Removed the plant material with a slotted spoon.

6. Add the yarn, which had been soaking in warm water. Simmered another 1/2 hour.

Here’s what happened:

Surprise!! The most beautiful shade of deep grayish green you can imagine! The iron kettle was probably responsible for the richness of the color. On a few future occasions, I tried fiddleheads/alum in stainless steel, and got a rather washed out shade of yellow. I no longer have the yarn, but the chip to the left is a good approximation. Now that I’ve written this up, I’m inspired to try it again!

Save Your Leftover Easter Egg Dye!

This year, my niece and nephew are doing the egg dyeing. But I did it last year, and used the leftover PAAS egg dyes  on some white wool roving I had in my stash. Here’s the result, which I’m quite pleased with. After it’s spun and plied, I’ll post a yarn photo:

Knitting News: Yarn and Fiber CSA

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and idea in which the individual can invest $$ in a farm and share in the yield. It’s been done for quite a while now for food, and now a fiber/yarn producer has started a CSA for knitters and other fiber artists. Martha’s Vinyard Fiber Farm and Hudson Valley Fiber Farm raise Angora goats and Cormo, Cotswold, and Southdown sheep. They use proven, humane techniques to produce the finest fleeces, and have them privately processed into yarn and roving. Shares are limited to ensure that investors receive an abundance of wooly goodness. Little Bo Peep, move over!

more info

Natural Dyeing: Color Variations with Wool

I’ve been dyeing wool fleeces and handspun yarns with natural sources for nearly 20 years. One thing that perplexed me was the way the yarn would often appear somewhat variegated, with lighter and darker segments. A few years ago, it finally dawned on me what the cause was. It’s urine staining. Urine was often used as a mordant, so it stands to reason that the parts of the sheep’s fleece that got soaked with his own urine (the yellowy parts) would take dye differently from the fibers higher up on his back. This can be avoided by making certain not to card urine soaked portions with the cleaner parts of the fleece. Unless, of course, you’re like me and actually prefer the slight variations, often a hallmark of handmade items.

Roving, Rolags, and Batts

On  some of the fiber arts forums I haunt, some of the members have asked what “roving” is. Well, as Wikipedia explains, a roving is a long and narrow bundle of fiber with a twist to hold the fiber together.  It is created by carding or combing the fiber, and  then drawing it into long strips where the fibers are parallel. Wool fleece in roving form is much easier to spin than wool in rolag or batt form, especially when using a walking wheel. If I am doing a historic spinning demo, I card my fleeces myself using reproduction hand cards. But when I spin at home or at a fiber fair, I use roving. Carding isn’t fun, so I buy rovings in order to get to the fun part faster. I also use rovings at times for dyeing.

rolag

batt

Batts are also used for dyeing, quilting, stuffing, and felting.

Wool Dyeing: Copper Penny Blue

This dye substance is not a plant, but it would have been available in one form or other to many colonial home dyers. Known as “Copper Penny Blue”, this is a dye that does not need a separate mordant or even heat. The recipe is simple but it does take from 2-4 weeks for the process to complete itself. Fill a gallon jar to about three inches from the top with non-sudsing ammonia and put in: either 2 cups of pennies, OR a length of copper pipe OR a coil of copper wire. Screw the lid on tightly. Let this mixture sit for a week and watch it become a beautiful blue. At this point remove the copper , with rubber gloves, and put in the pre-wetted fleece to soak; varying the time gives different color effects. It is also possible to do this with white vinegar instead of ammonia. Some recipes say to add a few teaspoons of salt to fix the color.

I’ve used this method several times with different results. One was a pale aqua, and the others various shades of icy green. I think it might be more reliable to use wire or pipe as the amount of copper in pennies these days is so small. Dyeing times, once the dye is made, have ranged from 1 day to 3 weeks of soaking the wool fiber. If you leave the jar in the sun it speeds the process somewhat. I would NOT try heating the mixture on a stove or fire, however.