Boo's Attic Yarn

A friend and I paid a visit to the Made-It Market (Facebook link) yesterday. It was a fairly small affair in the Guildhall, with tables sporting cute cards, cool anime accessories, handmade chocolate, and a stall of those meaningful words ('love', 'friend', 'feelings') in a typewriter-y font glued onto stones. There was also some rather exciting yarn, from a local dyer who doesn't seem to have a website yet, but who can be contacted at boosattichomeATgmailDOTcom. I couldn't resist this one-off skein of laceweight - it's not the softest yarn I've ever stroked, but the colour is mesmerising: a dark, sensuous, velvety claret (the colourway is 'Cherry Valance'). I think was is the first time I've met a dyer in person, and it was most interesting to hear how she achieved this intense shade by dyeing over an oatmeal coloured yarn. 

Also, how adorable is this little key charm included with the skein?!

'... from one blogger to another!'

Alison's awesome glove transformation kit arrived from America...

... but that was not all - not only did the package contain much owl-ish, glove-ish goodness (above), but she also very generously included two utterly gorgeous skeins of yarn as a gift 'from one blogger to another'!

I am so touched at this thoughtful present, and determined to steam through my Christmas knitting in order to make something special from it all for myself. 

I have just used the conductive embroidery kit, and can report excellent results. I have taken some photos of that process, but I think I'll save them for another post, and leave this one as a simple expression of gratitude - thank you so much!

Dyeing drying

I let my freshly dyed yarn luxuriate in its cochineal soup for about 32 hours before rinsing it out and hanging it up to dry. For some reason, as I was doing that, I had this obnoxious reggaeton song stuck in my head, with 'gasolina' replaced by 'cochinilla' (as in 'A ella le gusta la cochinilla/ Da me mas cochinilla!/ Como le encanta la cochinilla/ Da me mas cochinilla!'). As Jane commented, cochineal is indeed the product of thousands upon thousands of dead beetles, making it a somewhat unethical choice for a vegetarian... Oh well, all in the name of elaborate procrastination historical research. In honour of its entomological origins, though, I hereby call this colour 'Beetlejuice'! It looks like it's going to be a deep rose, a colour lacking from my wardrobe.

But what to make with 874 yards of rose-tinted fingering weight yarn? I've been eyeing up Laura Chau's Honeybee Cardigan for a while; I especially like fernknits' pullover version. I am drawn to pullovers at the moment, possibly because of a buttonband 'mare which I'll tell you all about soon. 

I've been dyeing to tell you...

Yesterday was 20/10/2010, an appropriately momentous date for a hugely exciting couple of packages to arrive. 

Firstly, down at the bottom right of the photo collage, two skeins of superwash bluefaced Leicester yarn, creamy and naked and natural. I have never used bluefaced Leicester before; in the skein it feels crisper and possibly hardier than merino - I shall be curious to see what it's like to knit with.

Secondly, a selection of treats from DT Craft and Design: at the top left, sodium carbonate and alum, and at the bottom left, 10g of powdered cochineal.

I received the packages at lunchtime, and, without wishing to sound melodramatic, went straight home to dye. I was only slightly guilty about leaving the library: really this is not so much fun with fibre as a very serious and studious piece of research for my PhD, actually. I have been reading A Perfect Red by Amy Butler Greenfield, which is all about the quest for a vivid red dye in the early modern period, and the importing of cochineal by the Spanish conquistadors. Cochineal had been used in Mexico for centuries to dye all manner of things from cloth to food to prostitutes' teeth. It was eagerly received in Europe as an improvement on existing Old World dyestuffs: madder often yielded autumnal russets or oranges rather than true reds, and brazilwood and orchil gave impressive initial results that were disappointingly quick to fade. By the 1580s, the tiny black grains transported across the Atlantic by enterprising Spaniards had virtually eclipsed all these other options: as Butler Greenfield puts it,

The priest's red velvet chasuble, the dandy's red satin sleeves, the nobleman's red silken draperies and the countess's red brocade skirts - all were now coloured with cochineal.

In my kitchen, I felt like an apron-ed alchemist, mixing up potions, stirring in crystals, engaged in the mystical process of turning one thing into another thing. It was thrilling to feel practically connected to the early modern dyers I read about, and indeed the Aztecs, who used alum as a mordant and cochineal as a dye exactly as I did, though they did not order their supplies off of the internet, or use a microwave to practise their art. I followed the excellent leaflet included with dye, and have left my yarn to steep in the fabulously crimson dyebath. I'll be sure to update you on the progress of this first dyeing experiment of mine.

Lace or sock?

I am still dreaming and scheming of what to include in my upcoming blogiversary giveaway. I have some delectable yarn in mind, but am torn between lace-weight or fingering weight. Which would you rather win?

Crazy-ape-bonkers

We are in the middle of May Week revelry here in old Cambridge town, entailing trips to Grantchester, champagne picnics, and generally living the stereotype. It has mostly been blisteringly hot during the days, but it can be hard to remember this when the sun is on the other side of the world in the early hours of the morning at a May Ball. This being my fifth year in Cambridge, I have been to a fair few May Balls in my time, so I can say with some authority that, for girls at least, Being Cold is high on the list of Ball spoilers (or busters, if you will), second only to Sore Feet. Many carefully composed confections of dress and shoes can be seen from around 3am hobbling about barefoot and swathed in huge men's dinner jackets. I have found that the best way to get around this is to check in a monster bag at the beginning of the night containing the Ball Survival Kit of flat shoes, plasters, Something Warm, and other sundries. 

Hmmm. Something Warm. Despite all this accrued wisdom, it was with a sense of mild panic that I realised I didn't have anything that fit this description and went with a black dress I am planning to wear. No shrug, no wrap, no cardigan. Nothing. What to do? Surely I couldn't buy something: since going knitting-bananas I have developed rather a violent and snobbish aversion to commercially-produced knitwear. There was nothing for it. I was going to have to make myself something. 

The only problem with this moment of epiphany was that I had it on Sunday. The ball in question is on Wednesday. I did not initially see this as a problem, however, but more as an exciting challenge. It was in this - mildly delirious - mood that I set off for John Lewis. I had a pattern in mind (the Two-Tone Ribbed Shrug from Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel); I had two full days of knitting time (plenty!); all I needed was some delightful black yarn. 

I got this...

It wasn't until I got home that I realised the awful truth. Not only was there no way I could knit this thing in time, but even if I did succeed in this endeavour the resulting shrug would make me look like not so much a mysterious, gossamer-clad creature of the night, as a gorilla.

I felt like an ass.