i haven't posted on here in a while because i've been super busy writing and dancing, but i've still been knitting! i've been buying undyed sugar and cream in cones and experimenting with all kinds of dyes. it took me a while to get the hang of it, but i've taught myself a lot. incidentally, of everything i've tried, RIT liquid dyes are far and away my favorite. everybody loves procion but i've found that the colors often come out different from the swatches.

anyway, here are pics of the hats i've been making. yarn is doubled and knitted on 10.5 needles. i knitted 20 of them in two months!





two of these were still undyed. the green ones are leftover s&c colors i already had. you can see on the left where i was experimenting with the burgundy, heh. btw, procion burgundy is the most unstable of all the dyes i've used. the lighter one was done before i figured out exactly the right amount of salt and soda ash. adding salt to your dyes is crucial, as you can see here. the lighter one had no salt. the black was dyed after knitting (procion black: sucks. RIT liquid black: awesome.) the pink was the first variegated yarn i did.



here are five people and a dog named schnoodle wearing the most recent hats. i really like that blue and purple. it may be my favorite variegated i've done. i think it looks a bit like kureyon. i also did a red/green/black that's in two of these hats that i didn't like at first but ended up loving. unfortunately, it doesn't show up well because this pic was taken with a cell phone.

i went to michael's recently to get more dye and they had stopped carrying procion. i just ordered some more colors from dharma dyes and we'll see if these come out true or not. one thing i've heard makes a big difference is washing your yarn with synthrapol before and after. i'll have to try it and see.

i'm crocheting my parents a granny-square afghan out of the leftover yarn. i love how it looks so far!