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I've got just the thing. Well, lots of things, actually:

Fun with Fibers, week 1: Dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid

My go-to guide for dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid is the 2002 article in the online magazine Knitty, which can be found here: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/FEATdyedwool.html  It's got explicit directions, as well as samples of what colors you get from different flavors of the drink mix.  I've tried the directions, and they work well at home and only require standard kitchen equipment.

Additional information for the lecture this week came from http://www.colour-experience.org/teknicolour/teknol_historical/teknol_historical_1.htm

More information and activities for modern dyes: http://www.rsc.org/Chemsoc/Activities/Perkin/2006/index.html

Craft project for natural dyes: http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/nature-craft-activities-for-kids4.htm

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Yarn: Sensations Kashmira, which is readily available at JoAnn Fabrics.  Any yarn with a high content of wool or other animal fiber could be substituted, but keep in mind that anything that is mostly cotton or acrylic won't hold the dye.   Dyed yarn should be colorfast and safe to hand-wash, but it will fade in the light and will probably felt if washed in a machine.

Dye: One packet of Kool-Aid per 20-yard hank of yarn.  The article says you can dye up to an ounce of wool with one packet, but for the most saturated colors, use more Kool-Aid and less yarn.

Dye pots: We're using plastic leftover containers I bought at the grocery store.  In the past I've used Pyrex custard cups, Corelle bowls, and glass casserole dishes.  You want something that's wide and shallow to make it easy to reach the yarn and have it spread out enough to get good contact with the dye.  It also needs to be microwaveable and something that you don't mind getting a little stained (which usually doesn't happen, but I'd hate for you to be disappointed when it did).

Stirring: We're using chopsticks, but you could also use plastic spoons or other disposable items.

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Educators:  when you're dyeing hanks of yarn with a class full of kids, you have to do things a wee bit differently.  Here's what I did:
- Selected inexpensive yarn - one skein of Sensations Kashmira from JoAnn Fabrics was enough for 10 hanks that are about 20 yards each.
- Wound the hanks, then tied each one with acrylic yarn at three places to keep it from tangling when being manhandled.
- Prepared the hanks by dunking them in slightly soapy water and squeezing them gently to get them thoroughly wet.  I did this a few at a time in a basin of water, then wrung each hank out and rinsed it in running water.
- Prepared the "dye pots," which were inexpensive plastic storage containers (shallow, large footprint containers work best), by placing a damp hank of yarn in each and adding a shot of clear water to keep it wet until class time.  Each child has one dye pot.
- Gathered the rest of my materials, including: a plastic tarp to protect the work area, several disposable chopsticks to use for stirring, a few plastic drinking cups we could use to transfer water, one package of Kool-Aid for each child, a roll of paper towels, a large container of water (there isn't a water supply in the classroom), and a bath towel I didn't mind staining.  The children already had smocks at school to cover their clothes.
- Each child got a dye pot with damp yarn inside, and a packet of drink mix.  They took the yarn out of the pot, emptied the drink mix into the pot, then added about 1/2 cup water and stirred the mix until it dissolved.  Then they added the yarn, squished it down into the dye, and added enough water to cover the yarn completely.
- I took the sealed pots to the room with a microwave, and microwaved them until the water in each pot was mostly white or clear - about 5 minutes or so, checking every two minutes.
- I showed the kids the pots before I rinsed them so they could see that the dye had been absorbed, then I took the pots to the bathroom and rinsed each hank separately under warm water, squeezing them firmly to get all the water out.  I rolled all of the hanks up in a bath towel and jumped on it a few times to get some more of the water out, then put each hank in a plastic bag with the child's name on it.

inspired by textures

We spent yesterday at the San Diego Zoo, and I ended up filling up my camera's SD card with shot after shot of the textures you see on all the animals.  I've got zebra zigzags, rhino rumples, giraffe globs, and llama lashes.  I've got hibiscus flowers ad nauseum.  And I have approximately 400 shots of a mother flamingo feeding her chick, thanks to the other birds who would not move their butts out of the frame so I could get a clean shot.

Be on the lookout for new Gsees photos soon, as I am chock full of good material (once I get it edited and color corrected).

TGIF - Thank God It's Finished

"Well, Jim, it's looks like this week you've bagged an elusive beast, the Giant Double-Irish Chain of Doom.  Tell us a little about it."

"As you can see, Dave, it's a monster.  And so brightly colored - beautiful plumage on this specimen."

"Right you are, Jim.  Let's go in for a closeup to see if we can see its true colors."

"There, Dave - do you see the characteristic pixelated lines that criss-cross the belly of the beast?"

"I see them, Jim, I see them!  But tell me, are they usually so spotted?"

"No, this one is unusual in both size and coloration.  Let's flip it over and see if the pattern continues on its underside."

"Aaaaaah!  My eyes!  Jim, what have you done to me?  I'm feeling woozy ..."

"Sorry, Dave - I forgot what it can be like the first time you are exposed to a sight like this.  Shall we return the beast to its natural habitat, then?"

"Please, make it go away, Jim!  Make it go away!"

"Off you go, then, Beauty.  There's nothing I like to see more than a magnificent beast like this back in its natural surroundings."

"Arglflarbl ... head ... spinning ..."

Wait, wasn't there something I had planned to do in the past 6 weeks?

Things have been busy around here, but unfortunately, not with stuff that's terribly interesting to anyone other than me.  For example, right now I'm supposed to be simultaneously

- finishing mermaid tail orders #9 and #10 of the fall

- hemming two pairs of my daughter's pants, which currently are 6" too long.  Six inches.  What were they smoking when they designed those?

- putting the finishing touches on a really badly-made quilt for my daughter's room.  She picked out fabric before her birthday - in April - and lost interest in the whole thing as soon as I cut it out.  I lost interest too, and did a seriously half-assed job on the quilting (it's so bad I won't even photograph it to make fun of myself, because oh my god it's awful).  I missed a couple spots with the quilting that I found while binding it, and there are a couple of seams that didn't quite get sewn well enough that need to be reinforced.  And the thing is practically big enough for a queen-size bed, despite being designed for a twin.  It's like the project designed to torment me in as many ways as possible.  I just know I'll finish it, she won't ever use it, and then the cat will throw up all over it one day as it's laying on the floor in her closet.  But at least then it won't be taking up half of my sewing table with its taunting ugliness

- sewing about 48 pairs of legwarmers that are all cut out and waiting on my sewing table

- sewing a new pair of pajamas for my kid.  Flannel-backed-satin feels really, really nice ... I'm sure it's going to be lots of fun to sew with!  Yes, indeed!

- working on the projects for a crochet class I'm supposed to be teaching at my LYS this November

- working on the projects for the kids' craft class I'm supposed to be teaching at my daughter's school this year

- finishing up the pattern for this quilt:

which is also this quilt

And I'm not supposed to be blogging, so I guess that's it for now. Ta!

Busy busy busy!

Well, it's about time I got a picture of that

Sheesh, I've had the Limited Edition version of the tail available for, um, years, and I just got a photo of it in action YESTERDAY?  Guess you know why the "Lazy" is in my name ...

Mermaid season approacheth

Well, once again my mermaid costume has been featured in the parenting.com list of cute Halloween costumes, so I guess it's time to haul out the satin and stretch velvet and give it a semi-permanent place on the cutting table (again).  Yay!

Hallelujah!

That right there is LazyKid boarding the bus for the first day of kindergarten, the start of 9 months of me having 9 hours a day to work on stuff around the house and in my studio.

Huzzah!  Let's hear it for public education - the next best thing to boarding school!

Which should make me more proud?

A) The fact that I willingly hauled 50 pounds of craft supplies outside so that LazyKid and some neighbor friends could do plein air glitter glue painting?  And I remained sane after having to help squeeze the 1,000 different tubes of glitter glue out onto paper that was on a knee-high table?


B) Or the fact that not only did I get 5-year-old LazyKid to help me iron fabric scraps, she was good at it, and I got her to enjoy it enough that she has requested to do it again tomorrow morning?


Yeah, I'm going with B, if only because I could really use an extra pair of hands in the Scrap Management Department at LazyMama HQ.

Knitting milestone - reached!

Today was LazyKid's first visit to the unofficial "sock club" that convenes at my local yarn store every Saturday afternoon.  Well, she's been there before, but today - worldwide Knit in Public day - was her first time as a participant.  She got a couple inches of spool knitting done while attempting to charm the pants off of everyone in attendance.  She wolfed down her weight in blueberries, carrots, strawberries, and broccoli from the snack table.  She remembered the names of some of the ladies she had met before, and she was polite to all of them.  I was so proud of her, I didn't even remember to take a picture!

What do you say when everything was just ... perfect?

One week ago today I was in the car, driving through five states with a friend, en route to Squam Lake, New Hampshire.  The trip was easy, if long, and while we didn't see any moose ...

... we did see a deer fly off the hood of a car in the next lane on the highway.  Did you know that deer bounce when they hit the pavement at 65 mph?  Now that's something I never expected to learn at ...

Four and a half days of crafting bliss - just me and 150 other crafty people taking over a historic family summer retreat on an idyllic lake ...

... for classes, camaraderie, and (at least for me) a lot of this:

Our first class was at a cabin that was, as I fondly referred to it, at "the ass end of nowhere," which was reached via a brisk 10-minute hike through the woods ...

Luckily, I had a hearty breakfast that morning, so I even after the hike I was ready to tackle my first class - Latvian fingerless mitts in five color stranded knitting, with the incredible Beth Brown-Reinsel.  I've done colorwork before, but never with so many colors, and she really opened my eyes to some of the things I've been unintentionally doing wrong (can you say, "dominance? what dominance?").



Really, it's not that hard once you get used to the whole idea of controlled chaos on the back side of the piece.  Don't give me that look - you know you want to try it, too.  Look how easy it is - I didn't even break a sweat!

My class the next day was even farther away from our home cabin, which gave me plenty of time to gather inspiration from the woods around me.  I'll spare you the approximately 48,000 pictures I took of ferns, and instead show you the most interesting bit I stumbled upon:

I swear, those puppies looked so fake, I was tempted to see if somebody had hot-glued plastic mushrooms to the tree.  Anyway, I needed all the inspiration I could get, because I was supposed to be designing botanical-inspired things to print on fabric in Maya Donenfeld's awesome class.  I was also totally copying designs out of that Japanese book on the corner of the table :)



Squam wasn't just about crafting, though - there was plenty of time to enjoy the facility and its surroundings. I decided to use a free afternoon to drag myself up to the top of a mountain the hard way (i.e. on the shorter path that went straight up the side of the damn thing, which meant there was a lot of actual "dragging myself  up the hill" involved).  Luckily, the view was totally worth the schlepp.

My last class was only half a day, which was a shame because I really had a good time meeting Jared Flood and starting the blanket he designed.  The thing was so fun that I couldn't resist working on it more in the car on the way home.  

Luckily for me, wool is very absorbent, because there may or may not have been a few sniffles from my side of the car as we drove off into the sunset (well, actually just away from the sunrise, since we were heading west at an ungodly hour of the morning).

I'm not a normally effusive person, but I have to say, this was among my best vacations ever.  Nothing went wrong, everyone got along, I didn't forget anything, the people were nice, the place was spectacular, there was plenty to do, nobody thought you were weird if you didn't want to do anything but sit on a dock with your feet in the water, and everybody was crafty.  I'd go back in a heartbeat, and while I don't know if I'd say it was life-changing, it was certainly awesome.  And fun.  And inspiring.  And only slightly mosquito-filled.  So if you're even slightly crafty, go check it out.  You'll be glad you did.

I came, I S.A.W., I Squammed!

I'm still planning to put together my thoughts on the experience, but here's a video from Jen Grey that shows where I was last week.  I'm in the video (look for the red capris around 1:30-2:00) and my partner in crime is the lady in short overalls walking through the dining hall later in the movie.  Thank you, Jen, for capturing the experience so wonderfully and sharing it with us all!

teehee

Sewing humor - you have to love it!

Something that's making me happy

Check out the patterns here:

http://www.magpiepatterns.com/embroidery-patterns.php

Makes me want to drop my yarn, pick up my floss, and get started. If only I could ...

Damn, she photographs nicely

And for once, I'm not talking about the kid.

Shawls are usually so jammed up on the needles that it's next to impossible to see the pattern develop as I'm knitting, so blocking a shawl is almost always a delightful surprise. This was even better than most. Half an hour ago it looked like a big purple snotrag, but a quick soak and a bit of tugging revealed this beauty - behold, my Morpork Pi shawl designed by MMario:

Wow.

Now that's a rather impressive use of 3 1/2 skeins of sock yarn, wouldn't you say?

Closeup of the pattern near the edge:

Closeup of the center section:

Inspired by colors

Went for a walk in the Metropark as part of my 3-Day training yesterday, and the wildflowers in some areas were just spectacular. Acres and acres of forest carpeted in emerald green leaves with quarter-sized bright yellow daisy-like flowers on top. And just around the bend, it was completely barren - not a leaf or petal to be seen. Around another bend, big clumps of lily of the valley foliage were up, and a few rogue daffodils peeked out here and there.

Now I want to make a "spring in the park" quilt in those greens and yellows ... it would look sort of like the Emerald City exploded all over the Yellow Brick Road, but at least I would know what it was.

You didn't think I'd skip the fundraising message here, did you?

This summer I'll be participating in a very special event called the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. I'll walk 60 miles over the course of three days with thousands of other women and men. But as crazy as that sounds, that's not the end of it ... or rather, that's not the beginning. Because in order to survive walking 20 miles a day for three days, I have to train, and train hard. I'll be walking four times a week, every week, in every kind of weather, from now until the end of July. I'll be averaging more than 30 miles every week, for a total of more than 600 miles by the time I'm done. I'll be rearranging my schedule, fighting blisters and chafing and boredom, and dragging my 5-year-old "training partner" behind me in a wagon for part of it. Why on earth would I do this to myself? Because net proceeds from the Komen 3-Day for the Cure walk are invested in breast cancer research and community programs. I've been lucky so far - while breast cancer has touched the lives of my family and friends, so far it hasn't taken anyone I know. But unless something changes, it's only a matter of time. Consider these chilling facts: - Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and is the leading cause of death among women worldwide. - One person is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes in the United States. - A woman dies from breast cancer every 68 seconds. That's why I'm walking so far. To do something bold about breast cancer. With every step I take, I'll be helping to stomp out breast cancer. I hope that you'll share this incredible adventure with me - by supporting me in my fundraising efforts. I've agreed to raise at least $2,300 in donations. So I need your help. Would you please consider making a donation of $60? Keep in mind how far I'm walking - and how hard I'll have to train. I'm hoping to complete my fundraising by June 1, 2010, so that I can more fully concentrate on training as the event approaches. You can give online at The3Day.org. Just follow the link below to visit my personal fundraising Web page and make a donation. You can also call 800-996-3DAY to donate over the phone. Thank you in advance for your generosity! Sincerely, Gretchen Woods P.S. Ask your employer if they will double your donation through a matching gift program! Click here to visit my personal page. If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/2010/ClevelandEvent2010?px=5018396&pg=personal&fr_id=1464&et=Py5QUNZdp2wZculbOglr5w..&s_tafId=415331

For more information about the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure or Susan G. Komen for the Cure, visit The3Day.org or call 800-996-3DAY.

Breeding like, well,

This is what happens when I decide to make destash Easter rabbits for my daughter's preschool class ... they take over! That's fourteen rabbits, including the two evil zombie twins there in the back row. I'm partial to the decapitated bunny heads in the front rows, and not just because they took half as long to make :)

Anyway, the pattern is loosely based on my Zombie Bunny crochet pattern, which you can find in my etsy shop here.

New tutorial: Changing color in the Zombie Bunny ears

I had a question from a customer about how to do the color changes on the ears in my Zombie Bunny pattern.

Since it's really easy to do, just hard to describe, I went ahead and made a photo tutorial on flickr. You can find it here.

Feel free to let me know if there are any other techniques you'd like to see - if I can manage to photograph them without growing an extra arm, I'll be happy to post the pictures!