a cardigan makeover

A friend had recently bought a large pot for dying (she likes to boil up eucalyptus leaves) and said I could borrow it.

the borrowed  crab cooker 

A while ago I found a crochet cardigan while op-shoppping with my daughter.

vintage crochet cardigan

However it was not my colour, too cream. I could tell that it was a hard wearing yarn, almost definitely 100% wool. I searched around the web and discovered dying knitted or crochet garments is not that easy. This weighs nearly 700 grams and you may see from the photo above how bulky the crochet stitch looks. I asked on Ravelry and a lovely person who was experienced at dying offered to have a go at it for me.

first attempt at dying

It was an improvement, but still a little boring and I felt more confident to experiment myself. I bought some landscapes dye in an interesting colour called Broome. I mixed up the specified amount and put both dye and pre-soaked cardigan into the big pot. I knew my biggest problem would be getting the cardigan to take the dye up evenly. I had learnt this from the first attempt because a section of the collar was a darker grey to the rest of the garment. I brought the pot up to just below the boil and for the first 10 minutes I moved the cardigan around and around in the pot. For the next hour I went to the pot every ten minutes to move the cardigan around. The dye was exhausted after about and hour or so but I could still see the uneven blotch on the collar so I put in some more dye and cooked it some more. I then took to off the stove and let it sit to cool down. 100g of Landscape dye later I was more than a little worried that I had gone too far with the colour. It looked very dark when I pulled it out wet from the pot. Thankfully it lightened in colour with drying.

yarn and cardigan dyed with Landscape dyes

Now I need to sew on some vintage buttons and work out what to wear with it.

new colour for vintage cardigan

a winter knitting weekend

Four of us made the trip to Deans Marsh to stay on a beautiful secluded property and spend the weekend eating, drinking and knitting. When you can only hear the sounds of wildlife and only see trees, sky, kangaroos and cows it feels like you are in a another world. The air smelt slightly sweet as we walked around the property in gumboots checking out the dams and scaring the kangaroos away.

We looked at magazines and books and played with yarn. I continued knitting my shawl.

a place to knit

Knitting is such a portable pursuit and does not really require dedicated space
I have a spare room and it is full of things collected over the years. Many of these things never see the light of day, most of them are forgotten. I plan to rescue them and, if I can, put them to good use.

In the meantime I have carved out part of this space for my knitting. All the yarn, knitting tools etc that have been stowed away around the house will be gradually brought to this room.

A student desk, a display cabinet and a tv stand have all been put to new use. It is colourful and cheerful and I am happy.