Last year, I dyed some yarn with Kool-Aid. I liked the yarn and the colors that I used. After Easter of 2019, I purchased some Paas kits on sale to dye some yarn. For the experiment, I used Valley Yarns Berkshire 100 Gram Hank from Webs. The wool and mohair blend is very similar to undyed Brown Sheep yarn. It’s been the base of a couple of dyeing projects that I have done – with coffee, Kool-Aid and Easter egg dye.
This time, I let my lovely assistant, my mother, pick the colors that I would use. Charged with selecting four colors, she picked some and made an educated guess as to what one would look like. To give as much a of color variety as possible I bought four of the nine packs of color to make the yarn more vibrant. When using Easter egg dye selecting the colors isn’t always easy especially with the nine pack because you don’t know what the colors actually will look like until they are mixed with the vinegar and water. For my purposes, I didn’t add any water, just four tablets of the same color and vinegar to almost the brim of the squirt bottle. The four tablets that I used ended up being a light green, a darker/Kelly green, aqua and pink. I asked my assistant if she had a preference for the color placement and she said “don’t put the greens together.”
I soaked the yarn before I squeezed out as much of the water as possible, laid the hanks on a heavy plastic bag to dye the yarn, then began. The colors were more vibrant than the Kool-Aid ones, but it could be the color choices or also that I didn’t soak the yarn I dyed with the drink mix long enough. When I had used all of the dye, I covered the hanks with the plastic, then rolled up the yarn and microwaved the roll on medium for about 45 minutes in 10 to 15 minute increments in a glass dish. Then I let the bundle rest to cool, rinsed the yarn, squeezed it out and then hung the hanks to dry.
The colors were still vibrant and didn’t fade a lot once dry. The yarn is completely dry, but I haven’t had a chance to wind it up yet. Four hanks, which is 560 yards (140 yards/100g), is enough to make a hat and a scarf. The yarn from this experiment still feels soft. As last time, one of the skeins had an interesting difference in how the colors blended in one section, so I’m reserving that bit to do the hat. The pink and light green blended to make a rust/brown section.
The fall Kool-Aid yarn dyeing experiment yielded a nice hat and scarf. One hank that was a little different and that was reserved for the hat. It worked well, the pattern that I used for the scarf curled a bit in the but I blocked it (a first for me) and the scarf looks fabulous. This was the first complete hat and scarf set that I made toward my goal this year. Thinking back, I need to look and see if I used the yarn that I dyed a couple of years ago with the Easter Egg dye, if not, I’ll have to make something.
One of the benefits of working on multiple projects at a time is that I don’t get bored with crocheting. Also, since I’m working on afghans, after a short time, they are too large to be portable. 
Yes, it’s the second week of January, well, the first FULL week of January and I’ve finally set my 2020 crochet goals.
I ran into a neighbor as I was getting some packages that I’d ordered for Christmas. She commented – presents for Christmas? Yeah. “I’m making mine this year she said” I’m a senior at [a local university] and college is expensive. She shook her bag and said I’m just making everyone hats this year, they’re easy and quick.
My 2019 crochet goals have changed a few times. I met the baby hat goal, original scarf goal, then added a hat and scarf set goal, then met and exceeded that goal. Now everything that I’ve made has been donated. This leaves only 8 scarves to finish for the modified scarf goal. Four are in progress and no holiday gifts are on the horizon, so I’m ready to keep plugging away!
The holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day can be stressful. Since my counting of completed projects is inaccurate until I’m ready to send them, I chose to make more hat and scarf sets to donate. Ambitiously, I was going to make a nice round number of five, but decided to not impose added stress on myself and donate the four completed ones.
Pressure to create is real for many people especially those making Christmas gifts. I’m not making anything for anyone – yet. But, I’ve been in that position before, so I chose not to put any additional pressure on myself and concentrate on meeting my revised goals. The four scarves in progress means that I and a few stitches closer to the goal of 75 scarves. How do you meet your crafting goals – one stitch at a time.
definitely cheer myself on when I get the math right or plan the correct number of stitches for a new project. [Thanks to the practical use of algebra.] When it comes to finished projects counting is where the difficulty comes in. I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets excited when the math works out for a pattern repeat. I get more than a little excited especially when I have decided to combine a couple of different things and don’t have to restart a project after the first try. I know I can count and in other aspects of my life, other than my own personal budget, I have to make sure I can count.
While working on my original goal of 10 hat and scarf sets, I lost track of what was finished and greatly underestimated what was done, because I hadn’t counted in a while. The temperature dropped in Chicago and was been below freezing just after Halloween, so I figured out a time to take some things to a local organization. I thought I had only completed eight sets and I like to give away round numbers when I make donations – weird quirk, but whatever. Thinking I had 8 sets I was going to drop off five. Well, I had eight completed in one part of the house, another two in my work room; plus four partial sets (hat or scarf complete, but not both). Including the partial sets, that’s 14 sets.
As I finish items, I stash them away. I thought I still needed to complete more to meet my goal. On a recent road trip, I finished a set and hat for another. Eight plus two equals ten; plus four sets in progress is more than ten. I have gotten better in determining how much yarn to take on a trip, it is the speed of completion that I lose track of. When I finish a project, I just start something new, or if something is too large to transport, I start a new project. The same way I treat a book, if I only have a few pages left, I don’t’ want to carry two books, I start a new one.
The American Heart Association has ended its Little Hats Big Hearts program. Many of us who made hats for the organization were concerned. The hats that were already sent to the AHA will be donated. Those of us who hadn’t sent in our hats were looking for other organizations that would accept the hats. In the Little Hats Big Hearts Illinois group, another organization’s founders said they would gladly accept the hats. This isn’t the first time that a program has ended and won’t be the last. When one door closes another opens. Several years ago, another program which asked knitters and crocheters to make items for special Olympians ended. That was the first year that the women in a shelter also received a scarf along with other goodies that were donated from my church.
I’m not ashamed of the fact that I crochet. It’s just that I didn’t want people to ask me questions about crocheting when I crocheted in public. Reading in public is a closed activity, for the most part, no one will feel free to talk about what you are reading, unless they have read the book, or want to read the book. Generally, if you are reading, no one will bother you. When you are crocheting in public, however, that is a different story. Someone may decide to come up and ask what are you knitting, ask “is that for me?” or chat about your project.
