Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Fabric and Fiber arts’ Category

Shoot, where do I even categorize this? Fabric arts? I guess so. Might need another category… hmm.

I’ve only ever knitted scarves before. And not many, not many at all. Two, to be exact. Both done with Fun Fur and about 5 years in between! Simple garter stitch, easy as pie. Boring, too… but EASY is about my knitting skill level, lol!

As an aside… I used to crochet quite a bit and even made a car seat cover for my oldest niece when she was born… without a pattern. But I did most of my crocheting back when I still actually talked on the phone. My niece turned 21 just a few months ago… and I don’t talk on the phone anymore if I can get someone else to do it for me.

Anyhow. My friend Jan has the cutest purse I’ve ever seen. I really adored it first time I saw it. Just so darling! And back when I was giving all my fun yarns away I kept one… Sapphire blue fun fur, because the adorable purse is done with a furry yarn.

So I begged Jan to tell me the secret of her purse. And she did! And so then I went on a hunt for wool that would go with my fun fur… and also managed to find another yarn for the handles. Expensive yarn, lol! Oh, and of course I had to invest in some knitting needles. Not realizing that most of my knitting would be HUGE I got a set of 7 inch DPNs. I actually started the purse on the DPNs, but had to pull it all out after trying to make my own version of a circular needle. (tubing that the yarn would NOT slide on, ugh)

Jan came to my rescue again, trading me for a set of circulars that she doesn’t use any more. I started over. And so, I’ve knitted my purse. Tonight was the final rows and binding off. Weaving ends in. And emailing my questions about finishing.

I have a lot of questions, of course… this purse gets felted. I do know some things, but not like… where do I weave the handle in? And is one enough? I think I want two.

So I may not felt this tonight, I think I need another i-cord handle. I THINK I have enough wool left, and I know I have enough of the other fancy yarn left for another handle. I’ll probably go start it when I finish typing this…. just in case I need it.

Will post photos (of course) as soon as the purse is finished and felted…

This is gonna be sooooo cute! And so cool, too, that I could knit something like this all by myself!

hugs,
Vyx

First of all, thank you everyone for commenting!

I mentioned visiting Sara and Tony at Paper Odyssey back in July, probably at the bottom of another post. I had given her a silk scarf I’d dyed, and wanted to show her some of the others.

Sara ended up buying one from me, a big purple scarf that I call Galaxy Silk. I do the scarves mostly with Low Water Immersion, and the color variations are just fantastic on silk.

Sara sent me a photo a while back, of herself wearing the scarf. Kept meaning to post it, but it sort of got lost on my computer.

There is a lot of great stuff in the store there in Eureka Springs, just look at all that wonderful paper! I love visiting Sara… I never go anywhere else usually, just to Paper Odyssey. Just too long of a drive to do it very often!

Thanks Sara, for the photo!

hugs,
Vyx

During the summer is when I do most of my dye work. It can be messy, and messy is better outside.

I dyed some cotton yarn, first time ever. I’m lazy, tho… so the first giant spool of it I dyed right on the spool. That was a mistake… no way to wash it without skeining it out. Which I did, wearing gloves. Once it was skeined out, it was easy to wash.

Then I skeined out a smaller ball of cotton yarn, and dyed it. Much easier to work with that way, and washing out was simple, too.

I sent both of the balls of yarn to my friend RubberRabbit. She used the red and black (the spooled yarn) to make a table covering. Here is the photo…

The skeined out yarn of course came out more evenly dyed. It knitted into a beautful green hat!

I will eventually dye up some more yarn for RubberRabbit… she has some wools that could use an update on colors (weird 70′s colors). But Rabbit has promised to skein them all out for me FIRST, before I dye them. That will work better… to me the hard work is the skeining out. I have the patience to very gently warm the dye bath and yarn, simmer, and then let cool very slowly. I won’t be doing any felting in the dye pot! The skeining out… bleah, boring. Although it went faster than I thought it would for the cotton yarns, I was really dragging my feet getting to it.

As a Non-knitter, I just love seeing what Rabbit did with my experiments in yarn dyeing.

RubberRabbit, thanks for the photos!

Hugs,
Vyx

I mentioned I’m going to have a contest.  I really need to rehome some things like all this fun yarn.  I’ve also got a couple packs of fancy paper to give away, but haven’t photo’d those.  Since most of my friends online are stampers, and quite a few of those stampers also like to knit or crochet…  well, what better way to rehome this yarn stash than by a giveaway?

Here it is divided up into sorted piles:

Just so no one is surprised, I may keep the boucle.  That first photo is the 3 bags I brought from my house tipped out on top of the washer.

Now I just have to decide how to run the contest! LOL!

Vyx

Okay, so they really aren’t tie dyed. I dab the dyes on with a foam brush. But they look tie dyed to most people. :)

I got these shoes before they were doing all the canvas shoes with a lot of stain resistant coatings. But there still must’ve been something on them, as the colors are rather pale. (also could have been that I forgot to prewash them)

Unfortunately the laces were not cotton. That’s one of the best things about the pair I did for myself a few years ago… the laces came out almost better than the shoes.

Anyhow… here are photos….