New FO's

I've got two of my latest Finished Objects to share:

#1: Chunky Stripes Cropped Cardi


Pattern: Anthropologie Inspired Capelet by Julia Allen

Links: Free Pattern Pattern's Ravelry entry My Ravelry Entry

Needle size: 11 (I'm a tight knitter, so it's about the equivalent of a lot of knitters' size 9)

Yarn: Two balls each of Purple and Black Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky

Yarn Source: Gift from Dawn for last Punk Rock Gift Exchange

Conclusion: I LOVE it! It's my favorite piece of knitwear to date and I love LOVE love the yarn



#2: Jack the Easter Dog

Before:

During:


After:


Links: My Ravelry Entry

We were going for purple but got magenta and pink. This is how I did it:

1. Made a vinegar / water mixture and saturated the white spot on the back of his neck with it. Put a square of plastic wrap over it and put his collar back on to hold it in place. Let sit for about 30 minutes
2. Using purple wilton’s cake dye (you know, the kind that’s like a paste that comes in a jar?) and a paint brush, I painted it on his spot. Re-covered in plastic wrap as above.
3. Held a blowdryer on low over the plastic-wrapped spot for about 5 minutes (moving it around and testing with my hand to make sure it wasn’t burning him). Let sit for 20 minutes. Repeat once more.
4. Bath time! I filled the tub with about 1-2 inches of water and poured 1 cup vinegar over the spot. Wet and washed with dog shampoo in all places BUT the spot. Rinsed well.

Results
Due to not being able to marinate Jack in a crock pot like real yarn, his fur didn’t have enough time/warmth to suck up all of the purple dye, leaving us with a magenta spot instead. Rinsing the spot with vinegar worked to both help set the dye on the spot and added water to the tub Jack was standing in…helping the rinsed-off dye adhere to the white on his chest and paws.
Jack is quite the happy punk rock pooch.

Finished Object Alert!

Rember this sad little sock?


With its sad little one-sided yarn overs? Well after a partial frog and a total yarn over makeover, my sad little sock has grown up and turned into this:

Ooh la la. I am very happy with how this sock turned out. My only previous sock attempt was very sad. I was a little nervous about whether or not this time things would turn out well (and therefore whether or not I would just have to call this one a "learning exercise" and never knit its mate) mostly because I have never knit lace before and also because I didn't use traditional sock yarn.

These are my sock's stats:
Needle size: 2
Gauge: 15 sts / 2 inches (little different than called for in the pattern)
Yarn: Moda Dea Baby Talk a 3 weight 55% nylon, 45% acrylic blend
Color: Lilac

Why did I pick such odd yarn? Well, on an impromptu trip to the craft store to kill time, I decided I wanted to knit socks. Being an imprompu trip, I had mot previously researched things like what weight or materials make good sock yarn, so I thought I'd just look around to see what the store had.

They had a section with some self-striping yarn that said you could use it to make socks. The yarn wasn't very pretty but it was 3 weight and 100% acrylic so I figured I needed 3 weight yarn and it was okay if it was acrylic. So I looked around at the baby yarns because they were the lightest weight yarns in the store. I thought this color was pretty and the yarn is SO soft and it wasn't 100% acrylic...so I bought 1 skein.

About half way into knitting the sock (the second time) I did some reasearch and realized I made a rather stupid sock yarn selection and was prepared for it to be awful....but now that the first one is done, I LOVE it. It fits nicely without falling down and they are so so so soft. So laugh at me and my rediculous yarn selection if you will, but I've got me one (soon to be two) of these:

And some of this...