We Bought a House!

December 28, 2015December 31, 2018 - Caitlyn

While I don’t think anyone online is obliged to explain their silence, I’d like to think that buying our first house is a sufficiently momentous accomplishment to justify a ~~freaking~~ two-month-long absence. Believe me when I say that I’ve spent every single day of that time thinking about all of the things I want to share about the process. I’m glad that I’ve finally slowed down long enough to catch my breath and do some of that.

But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Our house hunt began this past summer. I had made a lateral career move to the same position with another company, and Justin was hired permanently by the company that he had been temping at since February. Both of these job changes came with welcome pay increases, but they moved us to new offices in Cary and Durham, respectively. Although commuting was not entirely out of the question—it’s fairly common around here, and even more so in the area of Virginia that we came from most recently—it was not particularly pleasant for either of us. Combined with the fact that the management of our apartment complex had changed for the worse the prior year and we had new neighbors with serious domestic issues (including two uncontrollable children), we felt it was time to explore owning instead of renting.

Since it was our first time in the real estate market, we chose to work with agent Cindy Leonard. She came highly recommended by a coworker who had worked with her on four different transactions, and we had a very positive experience with her. Not only was she incredibly flexible—and backed up by her business partner Chuck Hinton when she was unavailable—but she also understood our desire for a bit of a fixer-upper that we could shape and learn from. She has a good eye for simple aesthetic problems versus more serious structural ones, and she recommended several of the inspection services that we used, including home inspection and pest inspection companies. She also steered us to a mortgage company that handles non-conventional mortgages, which will become important shortly.

With Justin already working in Durham, it was difficult for both of us to get to properties during the day, so we did most of our viewing online rather than in person. Having a must-have/nice-to-have list was crucial, and we got pretty good at spotting deal-breakers in listing photos. In all, I think we visited about ten houses.

Our breakthrough came when we spied this 1957 ranch selling well below our maximum budget. It was a single-owner home in an aged neighborhood, and the elderly owner had passed away about a year before. Although the home was clearly well built and maintained, it suffered from a not-inconsiderable list of problems due to age and drastically changed building codes. For example, the porch was never properly tied into the foundation, so over time it had pulled away from the house, allowing stormwater to penetrate behind the porch and pool against the foundation, which in turn caused the basement wall to bow inward.

Under ordinary circumstances something like this would have scared us away before stepping foot inside. But I had read an eye-opening article by Faith Durand, Executive Editor of TheKitchn.com, who introduced the idea of a construction or renovation loan. These loans allow home buyers/homeowners to roll the cost of renovations into their mortgage, increasing the monthly payment but eliminating the need to have a lot of cash on hand (which we didn’t). Discussing the arduous process of obtaining a renovation mortgage is material for a whole post unto itself, but suffice to say that it allowed us to buy a home that needed of a lot of work without the fear of going bankrupt on repairs or living somewhere potentially hazardous. (Speaking of hazardous, the property also had an inactive underground storage tank that needed to be addressed, but that, too, is a post for another day.)

For reasons related to the loan process and the sellers, we weren’t able to close on the house until October 2. Our apartment lease didn’t end until November 16, so the heaviest renovation work was completed before we moved in. But lest you think we arrived to a pristine new house on move-in day, let me assure you that this was not the case—in fact, we’re still tying up loose ends this very week, and we hope to officially close out the formal renovation process at the start of the new year.

Then the real work of making this house a home can begin.

I can’t wait to do it. And I can’t wait to share it all with you.

FO: Hylia

October 18, 2015December 31, 2018 - Caitlyn

What do you do when you make something that isn’t quite right? I’m not talking about a glaring fit issue or a really unfortunate color choice—I’m thinking more of those niggling little things that keep a good project from being great, like pockets that are a little too low to relax your hands in or a neckline that grazes your throat, but only when you lean far forward. Do you wait awhile to see if it’s something you can live with? Do you fix it, or move on and make something new now that you know better?

About a year ago, I knit the hat above, which I called Meditation to play off the names of the pattern (Lotus Hat by UptownPurl) and the yarn (Zen Yarn Garden Serenity Worsted in Blood Orange), and because I found the knitting itself to require a little mindfulness without being difficult. The slanting motif looks like it would involve some kind of traveling stitch but in reality requires only simple decreases next to the yarn overs. I wore the hat several times, but soon discovered that the loose gauge, openwork, and short height meant that it didn’t cover my ears completely and didn’t keep my head particularly warm.

Now, I absolutely think there’s room in the world for hats that are more pretty than functional, but what really killed me was that the pattern doesn’t use very much yarn—only about 64 grams/112 yards out of 100 grams/175 yards, which meant that I had about a third of the skein left when I was finished. Normally I’d be thrilled to find such an economical pattern, but since the yarn was a souvenir from Lettuce Knit that I carefully selected during a day trip to Toronto whilst celebrating my 5th wedding anniversary in Niagara Falls, it seemed a shame to use so little of it and have so much lingering behind with no real purpose in sight.

Frogging a project that I didn’t deeply dislike felt strange at first, but that’s a feeling that’s quickly overcome. I waffled for a while about what to knit it into for its second life—I didn’t want to repeat my “mistakes”—and settled on Koolhaas, the perennial favorite from Jared Flood.

Although I don’t have a particularly large head, I chose to make the larger size so that I could be sure that it would cover my ears. I used about 90 grams/158 yards of yarn this time around, leaving behind enough yarn to make repairs should I ever need to but (probably) not enough to do another pattern repeat. The only place where I deviated from the pattern instructions was the decreases, where I replaced the SSK with K2togtbl; I think it continues the look of the twisted stitches better.

This pattern offers an excellent opportunity to practice cabling without a cable needle. (Like nearly everyone who knit this before me, I followed Grumperina’s tutorial.) Although it’s not my first cabled project or my first time working without a cable needle, I still consider myself a cabling novice. For someone looking to learn to knit cables, or someone like me who wants to get better/faster at them, I highly recommend this pattern. It probably looks overwhelming, but I’d argue that a small, heavily cabled item like a hat is the perfect opportunity to practice, because it allows you to iterate. As you continue making the same motions over and over again, you start to build muscle memory while figuring out how you can make the stitches most efficiently and consistently. Compare that to a large item or an item with only one or two cables, where each cross is isolated from the ones before and after it by swaths of other stitches, and you can see why this project makes sense. This is one of those times where do yourself more favors by jumping straight in rather than dipping in a toe here and there.

I confess I didn’t get up to full knitting speed for more than three or four crosses before I stumbled and had to slow down, and I did end up with a few crosses in the wrong place, but overall I feel my technique did improve, and it didn’t take me nearly as long as I thought it would.

How do I know? Back in September, during the first weekend that the temperature really dropped into fall territory and the skies were overcast, Justin and I were lucky enough to have a weekend of no commitments. We decided to hunker down inside, and instead of popping in movies, he decided to play through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo while I watched (it’s a long-standing custom of ours that, whenever one of us plays a single-player game, the other watches). He’d started a game previously, but apparently the cartridge’s battery is failing, because his save had been wiped. Undaunted, he started a fresh game, but he knew he’d have to play the whole thing in order to keep his progress.

Luckily the cartridge had enough juice to survive being powered off overnight, so he managed to complete the game in two long sessions spread over two days for a total of about 14 hours, during which time I knitted the entire hat from start to finish. We were actually racing each other at the end, and he beat me by a narrow margin of about an hour, but only because I took an hour-long nap on the first day. So I call it even. 😛

Considering the connection between the hat and the game, I was tempted to call this Minish Cap after the red hats worn by the Minish people in the game of the same name, but it’s the wrong shape and I want to leave room in case I decide to knit myself a Minish cap in the future (cosplay, anyone?). Instead, I named it after the lake that features prominently in A Link to the Past and many of the other games.

When I took these photos, it was only about 60 degrees outside, so I can confirm that it keeps my head nice and toasty, proving it was a good choice to frog a good project in favor of a great project. Have you ever done the same? Would you? If not, what would you do instead?

FO: Cloudless Lady Skater

September 14, 2015December 31, 2018 - Caitlyn

Another dress ahoy! It’s that long-time love of sewing-blog-land, the Lady Skater dress from Kitschy Coo. I actually completed this before my Garden Party dress. I was in the midst of forsaking the original pattern in search of a better fit for the fabric and in dire need of a faster, easier project that would inject my sewing with more confidence. Basically, I needed something that would prove concretely that I could, in fact, sew clothes that fit and that I would actually wear without driving me up one wall and down the other in the process. A knit dress seemed like just the ticket.

I actually picked up the pattern in October 2014, but my first attempt didn’t go very well. I made two mistakes. My first mistake was choosing a very light, very slinky cotton blend jersey. It felt great to the touch and featured a lovely pointillist print in purple, black, and white, but it was an absolute beast to handle and cut, which resulted in some pretty wonky pieces. My second mistake was cutting the wrong size in defiance of the very explicit instructions about how to choose the correct size: instead of picking a size based on my high bust measurement, I picked a size based my full bust measurement, and then rounded up just to be safe. The result was a huge, saggy sad dress that I instantly didn’t want to wear. (Don’t despair, I didn’t get rid of it—I’m thinking of cutting it up to make underwear.) Although I had plenty of fabric leftover to cut another dress, I decided to set the pattern aside and return when emotions weren’t so high.

When I pulled out the pattern this time around, I re-read the instructions and had a pretty good idea of what I had done wrong, so I felt more confident tackling it as a feel-good project. I started by choosing a 100% cotton interlock, which is heavier and more stable than a jersey and much easier work with. Still, I was really concerned about cutting every piece precisely on-grain, so I scoured the internet to find the best tip for marking the grain. Advice ranged from Tasia’s meticulous approach of pinning the entire length of the yardage to Gillian’s self-proclaimed “lazy” approach that involves identifying the grain, folding the yardage, and having done with it. Neither was really working for me, however, because both methods ended up with distortion and gave me fits of anxiety.

Then, in a thread on the Sewing Pattern Review forums, I saw this most excellent tip from user Emelle:

To keep track of where the grain is, I use a trick I learned here from Nancy K….take painter’s or masking tape, find the grainline and mark it all the way across the fabric with the tape (since you can’t pull a thread on knits….This works well on the shifting knit material.)

Since the tape is (relatively) wide with a straight edge, once you line up the first inch or two with the edge of a column of knit stitches, you can lightly lay down the rest of the tape without having to carefully position it all the way down, because it doesn’t have a tendency to curve or twist. And if you don’t get it exactly right the first time, you can always re-position it. (Disclaimer: Check a small patch of your fabric first to make sure that lifting and re-positioning the the tape doesn’t stretch out your fabric or leave any residue. I didn’t have any issues, but a more delicate fabric might. Basically, your mileage may vary.)

You don’t even have to put tape down the entire length of the yardage, just enough so that when you go to fold the fabric the tape acts as a guide and encourages the fabric to stay straight down the length of the fold.

Thank you, Emelle and Nancy K—you saved my sanity.

I cut a size 2 at the shoulder/bust and graded out to a size 3 at the waist and hips. I shortened the bodice a scant 1/8″ based on measurements I had taken sweater knitting. When I tried on the dress for the first time, I felt the waist was a little too low; since I had washed and dried the fabric prior to cutting, I assumed it had shrunk as much as it was going to, so I guessed I would probably need to raise the waist of future dresses by about an inch. But after washing and drying the completed dress, it seems it’s shrunk a little more, so raising the waist may not be necessary. Could be a different story with a drapier fabric, though.

I did all of the construction on my serger and all of the finishing (twin-needled hems and tacking down bands) on my sewing machine. Rather than buy four cones of sky-blue serger thread that I may or may not use again, I opted to borrow a trick that I’ve seen many people use and bought medium grey serger thread instead. While it certainly won’t fool anyone into thinking it’s blue, it’s a lot more subtle than a stark white thread would be, and it’s a lot more versatile for future projects.

Per the instructions, I stabilized the shoulders and waist with clear elastic, which I can apply at the same time as I’m serging. It’s not noticeable at all on the shoulders, but I’ve noticed some rippling around the waist.

Ironing reduced the problem on the front, but it’s still pretty pronounced on the back.

Did I stretch the clear elastic too much? Is this just par for the course?

Looking at these photos, it seems like I might need a swayback adjustment, which is crazy because I’ve got good standing posture. (But let’s not talk about my sitting posture.) Then again, I think the back bodice piece is longer than the front bodice piece, so it might be a simple matter removing some of the unneeded excess length.

Speaking of excess length, the skirt is definitely on the longish side on my 5’2″ frame.

On the one hand, it’s nice, because I can tuck my knees up into it and have no fear of a stiff breeze causing problems. On the other hand, in this fabric, it’s a little heavy, especially for a summer dress in a notoriously humid climate. You could make the argument that the 100% cotton interlock is more of a problem than the length, and you would probably be right. In any case, it’s something I’m definitely going to think about for future iterations.

I have no idea why I look pissed off in this photo, but I’m including it anyway because it shows that the armholes came out a good size. Initially I thought they were too loose, but as with the waist position, I feel like things improved after a trip through the washer and drier. My plan to raise the entire dress from the shoulders by an inch shouldn’t be necessary now—a good thing, since I’m not sure how to translate that change to the height of the sleeve cap.

For these photos, I tried experimenting with a few serious faces, since I feel like I can do big smiles just fine but look pouty or just plain weird when I try to do a neutral/non-smiling face. (Don’t even get me started on “sexy” faces. Talk about derp city.) This one is the only one that came out looking pretty okay.

Taking photos out and about will only get better as the weather starts to cool, and I’m looking forward to having a new permanent backdrop during the winter months this year. I’ll be sharing more about that soon. 🙂

FO: Garden Party Dress and Mashion Cardigan

September 10, 2015December 31, 2018 - Caitlyn

AKA Outfit Along 2015

AKA Third Time’s the Charm

AKA Better Late than Never

If I had actually sewn the dress I said I was going to sew, I probably would have finished on time instead of more than a month late. Then again, “finishing” may have consisted of wadding the dress up in disgust and refusing to think of it ever again. In the balance, satisfaction was clearly more important than punctuality.

The problem with the original dress plan is that I bought McCall’s M6887 solely as a result of peer pressure, in direct defiance of my own stated preferences and without regard for my previously purchased fabric. Don’t get me wrong—I like the pattern, and I think I actually will make it at some point. But in order to not hate the feel of the waist seam/fit-and-flare silhouette, I’m going to have to make it out of a stretch woven at least, or possibly even adapt it for a stable knit like ponte. My fabric was neither of those things, and I didn’t even make it as far as I muslin before I had a reality check and realized that I already didn’t like the road I was headed down.

After reviewing my recent haul of patterns, I briefly considered making McCall’s M7084, a shirtdress, instead. But it also has a waist seam, and I didn’t have enough fabric to do the fuller skirt, which felt like a must on a breezy summer dress. Instead, I settled on McCall’s M7156, which has princess seams and no waist seam. I’d been imagining it in a rayon challis or possibly a lightweight jersey, but decided that it should work with my fabric. And if it turned out a bust, I wasn’t any worse off than I would have been by sticking with the original plan.

I decided to skip the muslin on the grounds that there are a total of 8 seams on the dress, all designed to be sewn at 5/8″, which allowed plenty of leeway if I needed to take it in or let it out anywhere. After a recent knit dress project, those seams looked enormous! *cue the faintly ominous music of foreshadowing*

As I was handling my fabric in preparation for cutting, I confronted the fact that, no matter what my husband said, it was too lightweight to sew on its own and liable to be see-through in strong sunlight. So I quickly went out and purchased a white cotton sateen to use as an underlining. It came on a ridiculously wide bolt, something like 109″. I feel like I’ve heard somewhere that because sateen is a satin weave, it’s warmer than a plain weave, but you just can’t beat how smooth and lustrous it is. Besides, when it’s 95°F with an equally high humidity index, nothing is really going to feel cool, you know?

It’s a good thing it felt so lovely, because I struggled mightily to prep it for cutting. When I went to square the cut edges to the selvage, I expected it to behave like a plain weave and attempted to snip into the edge and tear it straight across, but instead it tore on a diagonal. (I tried to find a scientific explanation for this, but nothing at all came up in my searches. Is it because it’s more similar to a twill than a plain weave? If anyone can tell me what happened, I’d love to hear about it.) Since I couldn’t use the torn edge to position the grainline of the pattern pieces, and because the fabric was so wide, I went through an elaborate ritual that involved positioning the first piece relative to the selvage and then each subsequent piece according to the grainline of the piece that directly preceded it. It took forever, but I think I must have done it right, because everything hangs really nicely in the finished dress.

I started with a size 10 at the bust and graded out to a 14 at the waist and hip. I also took advantage of the For Petite line at the hip to shorten skirt. I cut everything on a single layer for accuracy, and I stole the pocket pieces from McCall’s M7084 since I’d cut them out when I though I was going to be making that pattern. I hand-basted all of the underlining pieces to my fashion fabric by hand, and followed the advice of this Threads article to account for turn-of-cloth. It took a couple of evenings in front of the TV to get it all done, but it was well worth the effort because I avoided any slipping or bunching during the actual sewing.

Since I didn’t make a muslin first, I machine basted all of the seams to check the fit. But because of the wavy nature of my hand basting and a couple of places where I had to staystitch per the instructions, I didn’t baste all of my seams at 5/8″ as I intended to sew them because I didn’t want to a) sew over any other temporary stitching or b) take out my hand-basting stitches before the actual, final stitching was done. I know, I know. This is a decision that seems completely absurd when I type it out now, but that was my thought process. I had plenty of excess fabric throughout with the narrower seams, so I reasoned that sewing them at the correct width would bring everything perfectly into line.

Rather than test this theory in a semi-rational way by sewing them at that distance, I decided to double-down on my questionable decision-making and proceeded to disassemble the basted dress and serge the vertical edges of each piece first. (I should have done this—with the knife disabled, if I was worried about accidentally shaving off too much fabric—before I basted everything together, but since I’m new to serger ownership I forget this and no commercial pattern I’ve ever encountered actually tells you to do it.) And, because my brain works in ways mysterious even to me, I elected to serge the edges at different widths. I know, I know. This doesn’t make any sense. Sure, avoiding a bulky seam on the princess seams makes sense, but do not ask me why I sewed the center front/center back seams and the side seams at different distances. I do not know. Also don’t ask me why I thought it was safe at this point to cut into the corners between the pocket bags and the side seams to allow me to press the seams open—I was just blindly following Lauren’s tutorial for adding pockets and conveniently forgot that she didn’t need to check the fit of her dress midway through.

Once I had the edges tidied, I sewed the dress up properly. Shock of shocks, it was too tight pretty much all over. Who would have guessed that barely estimating the changes you planned to make and then making said changes inconsistently would result in an outcome other than the one intended? Not me, apparently.

I had a bit of a cry about it, and then I unpicked all of the seams and sewed them as narrowly as I dared. I believe it was ¼” for all of the seams except the princess seams, which had already been serged together, but I can’t be sure, because I’d trimmed off different amounts while serging.

Lucky for me, this solved all of the fitting problems. But because I cut close to the original stitch line to free the pocket bags for pressing the seams, and then moved the seam outward, I ended up with holes above and below the pockets on the outside of the dress. To fix this, I carefully sewed a line of stitching that blended between the old and new seams to close the holes. The only downside was that my excellently constructed pockets are a little lumpy at the top and bottom and no longer completely hidden; they now have a tendency to peek out a bit, as you can see in a couple of the shots at the top. Otherwise I daresay they would have been perfect.

Once the fit was resolved, the rest was, if not exactly smooth sewing, at least more pleasant sewing. Taking advantage of the various feet for my machine was, I think, a contributing factor. The invisible zip, while still a little uneven at the top, is easily my best to date. (Well, as long as you ignore the fact that I sewed the seam to the dress and, while unpicking it, poked a hole through the underlining and fashion fabric. I was able salvage it by embroidering a red flower over the hole. Justin suggested I put a tiny flower on all of my makes. It would be sweet, I’ll admit, but I don’t think I have the patience for that.)

Since I underlined the whole dress, I elected to skip the facings in the pattern and use bias facings instead. I used self fabric for the neckline edge and stash quilting cotton for the hem. It was a great excuse buy Clover bias tape makers. (I love gadgets). I used this tutorial from Colette for making continuous bias tape. It took a couple of tries to get everything just so, but it was totally worth it and I don’t see myself ever buying pre-packaged bias tape again unless I’m in an absolute crunch. I used my overcasting foot to attach the bias tape, since I don’t have an edgestitching foot (yet) and it gives me basically the same result; I turned and sewed them down by hand using blind stitches. The bias facing along the neckline ended up narrower than intended, but it hasn’t popped free during wear, so I get to pretend that it was a deliberate and delicate touch rather than another miscalculation.

I attached the straps before the bias facings, but forgot to also check their length before I sewed the facings down, and they ended up too long and with exposed ends showing through in one or two spots. I solved the problem by pinching out the excess right where the straps meet the dress and then sewing them to themselves and to the bias facings with more hand-sewn blind stitches. You can’t tell from the outside, and you can honestly barely tell from the inside, either.

As I mentioned earlier, I took advantage of the For Petite line to shorten the skirt portion, but it still came out quite long so hacked off about 4 inches from the bottom.

I didn’t use the For Petite line to shorten the torso between the bust and waist because it seemed to align with my own measurements, but in hindsight I think it would have been a good idea to do that too. It would make a subtle but positive difference.

I think that’s everything for the construction and fit of the dress. There’s a lot less to say about the cardigan, although there are a few key things I’d like to share. First, I’m apparently such a tight knitter that I had to go up not one but two—TWO!—needle sizes to get gauge. I’m not sure I would have knit it quite that loosely if I’d had my way, but so far nothing has snagged so I can’t complain about it.

Second, and a thing I feel justified in complaining about, is the construction of the sleeve. Now, I’ll admit that this approach to a top-down set-in-sleeve is new to me, but it’s not the short rows that tripped me up (I’ve done them before on my Black Cherry Tart Cowl). No, it was picking up stitches that nearly drove me to madness. It’s not clearly spelled out in the pattern, but you should pick up a stitch in every other stitch, regardless of whether the edge is vertical, angled, or horizontal. That may not seem like a big deal, but one constant that every knitting resource agrees about is that you pick up stitches at a 1:1 ratio along horizontal edges. That’s what I tried doing on this cardigan, and it resulted in too many picked up stitches. I ripped this part out and re-did it several times, attempting to pick up fewer stitches everywhere else, before I realized what had to be done. I understand that designers shouldn’t be expected to hold the knitter’s hand every step of the way, but if you’re going to require the knitter to fly in the face of one of the few universally accepted pieces of wisdom, I’d appreciate it you’d say so up front.

That frustration aside, I’m not convinced about the fit/attractiveness of this set-in-sleeve construction method. Picking up every other stitch results in an almost hole-y pickup, especially around the underarm. The cap shaping seems okay, but I think the way the sleeve connects to the body at the underarm is causing the large wrinkle you see at the bust in every photo where I’ve bent my elbows away from my body.

Third, I found that the final cable cross happened in a weird place relative to the ribbing, so I adjusted by crossing later than specified to align with the pattern set by prior crosses. It’s possible this was my fault, since I had issues with the cables shifting too early (detailed here), but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I’m aware that it sounds like I’m being rather negative about the knitting, but I did truly enjoy it and I love the final result. It’s toasty warm even with the three-quarter sleeves, and it perfectly complements the dress. The buttons are easily my favorite part, though. I was going to use plain green plastic buttons, but at the last minute chose these wood-look ones instead and really love have they contrast the yarn but tie into the natural theme of natural fibers and flowers.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the name Mashion comes from the name of the pattern, Marion, and the fact that Justin and I embarked on a journey to watch all of M*A*S*H from the beginning around the time I started knitting, and much of it was accomplished during the first couple of seasons. Plus it’s green, which is ubiquitous on a show about Army life.

Overall, I’m so glad to have participated in the Outfit Along and so happy to have two handmade items that I know I’ll wear because I know I can wear them with each other if nothing else.

I’m also really happy to be following along with Gillian’s Better Pictures Project, which is aimed at taking better blog photos even if you don’t have a fancy camera or fancy training. This month’s prompt was to step away from the blank wall and take pictures out and about. This is something I love to do anyway, so it wasn’t out of my comfort zone to visit the Raleigh Rose Garden for these photos. And, in an effort to increase the number of usable photos that came out of the shoot, I had Justin take a ton. People, he took 187 photos. Is that not crazy? Here are several more that I liked:

And tied for absolute favorite:

Procrastinating

August 13, 2015December 31, 2018 - Caitlyn

When presented with a deadline, I always start out with the best of intentions, and can even claim to have some pretty solid habits. I’ll come up with inventories of tasks and resources and identify interim milestones that I want to achieve. I’ll make lists, take notes, sketch or outline as needed. But in the middle of this process, when I’m far enough from the beginning that I no longer feel the thrill of starting a new project and yet too far from the end to be able to visualize how things will turn out, I tend to veer off the path and into the woods. You could call it a lack of discipline; you could call it a lack of focus. Maybe it’s denial about how invested I really am in the work.

But if you ask me, the answer is a lot simpler: I get bored. And when I’m bored, I get distracted. It doesn’t matter how much I like the project, or how dire the consequences are for missing the deadline—I have a complete inability to motivate myself to work on this project because I need the novelty of doing something, anything, that is not this project. I’d rather learn about grog, go virtual window-shopping for sheets, or find out if my city will allow me to raise chickens and bees.

Luckily, my survival instinct usually kicks in about 24 hours before a deadline (48 hours if it’s a work deadline, since those inevitably involve FedEx overnight shipping) and I put on a sudden burst mental speed and go ~~briskly walking~~ sprinting to the finish line. I never failed to turn in a college paper on time (although there is a strong correlation between “number of college papers assigned” and “number of nights I didn’t sleep”) and—knock on wood—all of my work proposals have reached their intended clients by the due date.

Unluckily, this power apparently doesn’t apply to self-imposed deadlines.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that I have not finished my Outfit Along 2015 ensemble. The cardigan is done, but the dress is still in pieces. I stalled when I realized that there was no possible way I could get away without underlining it, and despite having heaps of cut-up white bed sheets, I didn’t have enough fabric to do the job. I have the fabric now, and the pattern pieces pinned thereto, but stalled again.

So, in an effort to not be completely unproductive while shooting furtive glances at the cotton sateen engulfing my dining room table, I decided to take this…

…and turn it into this:

Pretty, no? I accomplished this in about two hours, if you don’t count the time spent running back and forth to the computer consulting tutorials for fear that I’d somehow turn my yarn to mud or melt it or something—I don’t know.

This isn’t a tutorial, however, just a little photo journey through my own process. If you want a tutorial, there’s a fantastic Ravelry group called What a Kool Way to Dye that has compiled a list of tutorials tagged by heat source, color source, and dye application method. I used one from PieKnits for temperatures, timing, and vinegar amounts. I relied on an old Ravelry post for color amounts, but more on that in a minute.

For the record, there was nothing wrong with this yarn per se, but it was an impulse buy (on sale, pressure from the husband) and as soon as I brought it home I realized I had no idea what to do with yarn that looks like watermelon, sort of. It has long repeats at least, but none of the projects using it convinced me that there was a place for it in my wardrobe, so it sat unloved for about two years. I thought about overdyeing it before, but imagined that it would require special chemicals or something. Hint: it does not. All it took was normal kitchen tools, water, white vinegar, and two pots of Wilton Icing Colors concentrated gel food dye. Yep, food coloring. Yarn made from 100% animal fibers can be dyed with ordinary food coloring and an acid. (Coincidentally, those are the two key ingredients in Kool-Aid, which is a popular way to transform yarn on the cheap.)

I chose to overdye some of the yarn with yellow and some with blue, since basic color theory (and a memorable childhood moment involving a fuzzy poster—remember those?—and markers) indicated that using either red or green would just turn one-third of the yarn brown.

The first step was unwinding the ball, winding it into a hank, and then dividing the hank into quarters and tying it off to prevent it from tangling when immersed in liquid. I meant to split my 100-gram ball into two 50-gram hanks, but the yarn had other ideas, so I ended up with roughly a 67-gram hank and a 33-gram hank, minus a couple of yards due to snarls (of my own making, blegh.)

I soaked the yarn in water to make it more receptive to dye and more likely to absorb it evenly. I hadn’t intended to soak it overnight—I’m not that patient—but ended up doing it anyway. A long soak certainly doesn’t hurt.

The next day, I gathered up my supplies, and silently thanked my mom for buying me a candy thermometer one year for Christmas.

Not pictured: said candy thermometer, and the quarter-teaspoon I used to measure of the dye. Not needed: the plastic knife, which I thought would be necessary to get the dye out of the canisters. I really need to work on staging actually accurate supply photos.

I was skeptical about the amount of dye called for in the PieKnits tutorial, so I went back to Ravelry and found a post from the very prolific user NekkidKnitter, who recommended using about 1/4 teaspoon per 50 grams of yarn. I figured that 30 grams is close to 50 grams (ha!), and more importantly I wanted a nice saturated color, so I used 1/4 teaspoon of Wilton’s Lemon Yellow for my smaller hank.

I added about a cup of hot-from-the-tap water to it and stirred it up. For the record, the quantity of water doesn’t matter, just the ratio of dye to yarn. Our water isn’t especially hard or soft, so I wasn’t worried about using filtered or distilled.

Because I didn’t break up the gel blob first, it didn’t completely dissolve in the water no mater how much I stirred. I was a little worried that it might leave abnormally saturated spots of color on the yarn, so I made sure to stir the blue dye before adding the water as well as after. For the blue, I used 3/8 teaspoon of dye. I figured 67 grams is approximately 50% more than 50 grams, and the recommendation is for 1/4 teaspoon for 50 grams, ergo use 50% more than 1/4 teaspoon, or 3/8 teaspoon. (That right there is some questionable math and/or logic. Hope my dad isn’t reading, he would not approve my slapdash mathery…)

I added the water and dye mixture to the pot and then filled the pot with cool water from the tap.

I gently lowered the yarn in the dye bath, being careful to avoid jostling it since it seemed prone to felting without any water involved.

I immediately lifted a sliver back out to see if it was taking dye. It was, but only barely. That’s why heat and time are important. I clipped my candy thermometer to the pot, and then cooked according to the instructions.

When time was up, the dye bath was nearly clear, and the yarn had taken on a yellowish cast.

I was a little concerned when I took the yarn out that the yellow wasn’t pronounced enough, but I think it was just the poor quality of the light in the kitchen giving that impression.

I followed the same steps for the blue overdye, then hung both hanks in the guest bathroom with a towel underneath to catch any drips. Here they are wet…

…and dry:

From there, all that remained was to clip the ties and wind them into cakes.

The orange/yellow/green one makes me think of citrus.

The green/blue/purple one makes me think of sour candies.

In case you need a refresher, they started out looking like this:

Isn’t the difference huge? It’s enough to convince me that no yarn is completely unsalvagable so long as you like the fiber content, and it’s nearly enough to drive me to rescue orphaned clearance skeins from my nearest LYS and give them new life. Somebody hold me back; my it’s-not-a-stash is big enough already.

Now all that remains is deciding what to make with them. Since there isn’t a ton of either color and it is only laceweight, I pretty much have to use them together in a single project. Should I color block it (knit all one yarn, then the other), or do some kind of alternating bands or stripes? Lace work, or plain fabric? Help me pick!

Practice Makes Pretty

A North Carolina Knitting & Sewing Blog

We Bought a House!

FO: Hylia

FO: Cloudless Lady Skater

FO: Garden Party Dress and Mashion Cardigan

Procrastinating