Sweater to dye for...

I've been dyeing yesterday. *^v^*

(doesn't it look like a proper witch's cauldron? *^v^*)

No, unfortunately not my plaid fabric for the cape, because I thought about it and it's 100% wool, so it may shrink or felt badly while being in a piping hot water for an hour. I decided that it may stay as it is, and I may add some violet accessories, like a brooch or buttons.
I was dyeing two sweaters my mom knitted for me a long time ago (sorry, mom!...), because they were the wrong shape (red potato sack...) or colour and shape (dark blue boxy square lacy potato sack with butterflies, well...). I have some nice sweaters that my mom made for me, but she often doesn't ask about my chosen design and she chooses it herself, along with the yarn...

Anyway, I decided that either I do something with the yarn or they should go, because I don't have a space in my tiny flat for any unwanted sweaters!
So, I prepared the violet dye and processed both of them for an hour, together with some pieces of other yarns from my stash that I wanted to dye but to test first.

Here are the results:

Exhibit A: bright red sweater of unknown yarn (soft and a bit fuzzy) - the result is a nice dark red (darker than in this photo), which I'm going to turn into some nice sweater. ^^

Exhibit B: dark blue sweater of unknown yarn (probably acrylic blend, soft) - no, it's not even worth photographing, it didn't change at all... Well, bye bye!

Exhibit C: a piece of orange cotton - not too bad, but the result is a very dark violet, I may try to dye it with amaranth dye.

Exhibit D: a piece of mix green cotton - it turned out violet with some lighter spots where the lighter threads were, not too bad, considering the previous colour - light green with yellow and pink spots... But it's very coarse after a hot bath, not scratchy but looks very ragged, hm...

Exhibit E: a piece of mix fuchsia cotton - that's the best result! nice violet, not too dark, even colour, but it was light fuchsia at the beginning, so I could expect this. ^^ Although it's the same yarn as the green one above, it stayed soft.

Exhibit F: a piece of brown wool - turned out almost black,well... I'm not going to be dyeing this, either. I believe I'll just sell the yarn at the on-line auction and buy myself something else. The red spots you can see remained under a knot and didn't catch that much dye (which is a pity the whole piece of this yarn didn't turn like this, really...)


I've seen many sweaters that I really liked but there are a few that grabbed my heart and I thought that I really really must knit them, or else I'd burst like a bubble!...
Purple Belle was the first one like that, and here is the second one that I'm definitely going to knit: Kimono Styled Sweater from the old pattern by KnitPicks.

I don't have the pattern but that's not a problem - I have both of those cables in my "200 Aran Designs" book, I can measure myself and do some swatching, and I've already started to plan the knitting, with as little sewing as possible. ^^

One thing I really don't like about it (apart from the gray colour, but that's obvious in my case! ^^), is the yarn that was used here - I can see this sweater only in some light, soft, luster silk (which I cannot buy in Poland, bleh...), linen or mercerized cotton, not wool. I've seen some other knitters' versions on the Web and I just don't feel it in wool. But that's just me. *^v^*


Today's SFTC is not about cooking a specific meal, but about the ingredient that I find necessary in most soups: celery leaves.


And I'm not talking about the fancy schmancy leaf celery (Apium graveolens var. dulce), I'm talking about the ordinary root celery (Apium graveolens var. rapaceum). Now is the best time in Poland to harvest them, and whereas the root is very delicious and can be eaten in many ways, the leaves are also very important (this vegetable is also veeeeeery cheap and full of vitamins, mind you! ^^).
Add a small twig at the beginning of cooking your tomato soup or broth and you will enjoy an immensely great taste and smell when eating the cooked meal!

They can be frozen for later and I tend to prepare a batch for all my late Autumn/Winter soups so we can enjoy this extraordinary taste when there is rain and snow outside! *^v^*
Look at this bags - I have ten twigs ready to go to the freezer, which means ten delicious soups over the cold months, out of only one celery! *^v^*

Now I'm off to frog the red sweater, and later we are having dinner with my friend Anna - I'm cooking a leek tart. ^^
Happy Wednesday! *^v^*

I'm famous and that's final!

I've been recognized on the bus! *^v^*
Yesterday we were coming home from the Sunday dinner at Robert's farther's (by bus and then by subway, because we have no car right now), and on the bus I was approached by a girl who said that she knew my blog and came to say 'hi'! *^v^*
It was a total surprise, but a very nice one! Paula is also a crafty person, although she doesn't write about her crafts (yet, I hope! ^^), she has a cute dog and she lives in my residential district. Paula, if I seemed a bit nervous it's because I am in fact a very shy person, but I'm really glad that we met and maybe it is a chance to have a Stitch'n'Bitch meetings in Warsaw from time to time. Keep in touch with me, please! *^v^*

Thank you for your kind comments on my woven shawl, Paula asked me yesterday about my favourite craft (but it was already my subway stop and I had to leave the train and didn't answer properly), and I would say right now, that it's knitting and weaving interchangeably. I am really very fascinated by weaving at the moment (well, I managed to actually make a piece of proper even cloth, so anybody would be happy in this situation! ^^), so I keep occupying myself with weaving activities nowadays. ^^

And I even learnt something while making the red shawl that I had no idea about before - you need a lot of thread for the warp but you need surprisingly small mount of a thread for the weft! There are probably very sophisticated ways to measure it before you even start weaving but I discovered this fact in the process. ^^ It's good to know because I can plan the weft yarn now.

I wrote on Saturday that I was warping the loom again (and before you ask - yes, I am a big fan of all the Star Trek series! ^^ Warping, warping all the way!...) - and it was partly true. I started to warp the thinner heddle I bought (40 threads per 4 inches) but it turned out that first I should prepare all the 320 warping threads (8 m long each, because I want to make a 4 m piece of cloth, 80 cms wide), count them and see if I have enough.

Remember, I work with the tangle, which means that I have different colours of wool in different lengths, from 10 cm to 30 m, all tangled up of course. So, if you ask about the photos - these are the warping threads, each one in a separate ball, waiting to be warped when I have enough of them. The fabric will be in blue and green shades.

Some replies to your comments:
Rho, I have just started to use the fish sauce in my cooking and I don't know yet if I find it useful or I'll just stick to good old salt ^^ I agree that the smell of it from the bottle is very strong... ^^
Lobstah, I cannot fit my loom anywhere either... My flat has 42 square metres and is packed with stuff!... And I'm planning to buy an inkle loom and a spinning wheel one day. (I know, I'm crazy, don't pay attention. *^w^*)
Heather, I'm not Jungian. I have very, very colourful and busy dreams, every night I dream a different story and you could make some really weird movies out of every one of them, so I'm just interested in the meaning of our dreams and I started to read this book (together with another one - "Dream as a Roadsign. Jungian dream analysis" - the original title is "Träume als Wegweiser" and it is a collection of analysis of several reoccurring motives from our dreams, done by the Jungian analysts).

Okay, now I'm off to more warp measuring and cutting, and counting.
Have a nice Monday! *^v^*