Mossy Cottage Knits

Garden: 1; Dog: 0

If you are a gardener, or get gardening catalogs, or have ever been in a gardening store, or know a gardener, or have been in a garden, you've probably seen a gazing ball. You also probably know that you can't purchase a ball and stand for less than 50 smackeroos. But - ta-da! - a $3.00 terra-cotta-pot-and-pearlized-plastic-ball knock-off!

And why is Miss Frankie staring so fixedly at our gazing ball? Because that's her ball perched on the pots! In fact, she had been maniacally chasing it around the yard a mere 30 seconds before. She is most perplexed. (And, yes, that does mean that our lovely and serene Victorian gazing ball is in fact covered in dog slobber.)

Knitting Knews
Continuing to successfully avoid the Oat Couture sweater, I finished the Magic Scarf, casting off, pulling the dropped stitches, fringe, and all. Here is a picture of the finished product, looking a little stiff and boxy, although, in reality, it hangs quite nicely, especially when flung around the neck with an Isadora Duncan-like flourish:

What I learned:

1. All the patterns I found called for stockinette stitch so I followed suit. However, in retrospect, garter stitch would have been preferable because the edges of the finished scarf curl inward (as you can see in the picture). This causes the 8-inch-wide finished scarf to look a mere 4 inches wide. Pooh. Perhaps slipping the edge stitches might have helped with this as well.

2. A "magicked" scarf will pretty much double in length and width. I cast off when the scarf reached 30" in length; after the "magic," it was 60" in length, not including the fringe. I didn't measure the before-and-after width, so I can't report as precisely on that, but the scarf did become much wider.

3. If your yarn is mohair-y at all, it will take a loooooong time to pull the dropped stitches out. It took me about forty minutes and some mighty colorful language to unravel all the dropped stitches in this scarf.

4. To make the cast-off edge as wide as the "magicked" cast-on edge, I did two single crochets between the stitches as I cast off. The process went something like this: Knit the first stitch, crochet one loop into that stitch, crochet a second loop into the first loop, drop the second stitch (a weird but liberating feeling), knit the third stitch, drop the second crocheted stitch over the third stitch. (I didn't actually crochet the loops; I just used my knitting needle to pull a new loop through the existing loop.)

5. The cast-on edge and the cast-off edge will seem a mite Jekyll and Hyde-ish since the cast-on edge will look loose and wet-noodley while the cast-off edge will look more like a normal, tailored cast-off edge, even with the double-crochets. I strongly recommend a fringe; it will help camoflauge some of this incongruence.

Dyeing Dyegest - The Journey Begins
Half-way through my vacation, somehow I found myself with the cart before the horse: a finished alder cone dyebath but no washed or mordanted yarn. Wooooah, Nelly! Time to head on back to square one! In retrospect, I think I was reluctant to wash and mordant because, well, when you're done, the yarn looks just the way it did when you started. As a dyer wannabe, I say what's the fun in that?

For no other reason than it’s what would fit in my larger enamel pot, I washed ten of the 1/2-ounce skeins (five ounces total). Only then did I notice that all three dyeing books had recipes for mordanting -- you guessed it -- four ounces of yarn! Argh! After doing some mental gymnastics, I ended up with the following approximate ratios for mordanting five ounces: 1.5 gallons of water, 1 1/4 tablespoons of alum, and 1 1/4 teaspoons of tartaric acid. My Biggest Lesson: Although you’re supposed to simmer the yarn in the mordanting solution, a large pot on a smallish burner on an electric stove gives you only two heat choices: (1) boiling and (2) one degree below simmering. I spent the hour required for the mordanting process turning the heat up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down, crossing my fingers that the semi-boiling and semi-simmering temperatures I was achieving would somehow average themselves out.

On Friday, we'll start the Alder Cone Adventure!

Posted by Ryan at June 18, 2003 08:30 AM