answering questions

I've got a few FO's to show, but no pictures. I've finished the three hockey hats ofr my brother's kids. (is it funny to anyone else that I originally typed "bother" instead of "brother"? He can be one, sometimes...) Two are blocked, one is not, so I should have pictures tomorrow. But since I have nothing else today, I thought I would answer some questions that have popped up.

Lucky asked if I had given the Victorian Lace book to hubby to give me for Christmas. Well... it's actually still sitting on the dining room table. I may have glanced through it a bit...

Tracy asked how I got the colour variations when dying the rayon chenille for the scarf.
FIrst off, I wound the yarn onto my niddy noddy to creat a hank about 36 inches around. I tied the hank in 4 places, then made up my dye baths. I put a package of brown (maybe tan? I can't remember which Rit I used. It was definitely a lighter brown) in the water as per the directions. I then dipped about 3 inches of the hank into the dye bath, and let it sit for about a minute or so. (I rigged up a coat hanger contraption to hang from the kitchen cabinets above my stove). I then dropped a few more inches of the hank into the dye bath, and repeated this to about halfway up the hank of yarn. I then flipped the hank over, made up the grey dye bath and repeated the process. What this does is create a variance in the depth of colour - the ends are darker, since they spent more total time in the dye baths. so the colour cycle goes something like dark bronze, medium bronze, light bronze, light pewter, medium pewter, dark pewter, medium pewter, light pewter, light bronze, medium bronze and back to the dark bronze. One thing about chenille - it almost "seizes" when it gets wet - it seems to contract onto itself. I didn't want to yank it to stretch it, not knowing the tensile strength of rayon chenille! But it does relax again when it dries. Next time, I'll take pictures. I did this before I started blogging, so there didn't seem to be a need to document the process.
Here's a picture of the leftover chenille - the water bottle gives you an idea of scale (or you can use my son's arm as he eats a banana in the background. Yes, he thinks his Mom is strange for taking pictures of her yarn...) The pewter and bronze ball is a little deceiving - is a centre pull ball, so there is a large empty space in the middle, but there is still a ton left. The blue/green ball to the left is for another scarf for another SIL. These colours shine with the rayon fibre - they remind me of the Carribean with the sun shining on it. THe smaller ball is solid pewter, but again, the rayon, and the way the light relects off it makes it seem slightly variagated. THe colours shift slightly when you move theyarn around. I may keep this for myself. (Yeah, project # 6,777,435 on the list...)

Tracy, To be honest, I never thought about doing the feather and fan on the machine. This chenille is about a heavy worsted weight - it probably will run through my LK-150 OK, but I didn't try. Now you've got me thinking about doing it for the next one! I really don't use my machine nearly enough - I use it for great expanses of mind numbing stockinette, but I have not had the time to really experiment with it and hand manipulating the stitches. Plus, one of the things I like about knitting by hand is knitting lace. I guess I'm really a process rather than product knitter.

Marie left a nice comment about the woven "teacher gift" scarf, saying she was a few years away from having to worry about teacher gifts, as M is still too young. Marie - it comes up quicker than you think! Just yesterday, I was wrapping my boy in a blanket and laying him in his crib. Now he's almost 8, and skateboarding with his friends. If you want more info on the kits, let me know and I will get it for you. Heck, I can even get the kits and send them to you!

Tracy also mentioned that Grumperina had tried the azalea doily as a scarf (from the Modern Lace knitting book). I knew that, and remembered she got frustrated by it. I still like the pattern and would either make it in a very lightweight lace weight so that doubling it wouldn't cause too much bulk, or only make it a partial circle. I just thought the way the petals flowed outwards was so pretty.

Lucky was wondering if I would show all the Christmas knitting before I wrap it. I will - I'm just debating if I just do it, or let you guess the final total. Maybe there will be prizes for those that guess the closest! Hmmm... a contest... maybe...