Publish or Perish

Ok, so the title of this post is meant to be a really bad pun on dyeing.  I may occasionally be guilty of awful puns; I blame the geology degree.

It was a pretty good weekend.  I even managed to have a somewhat relaxing day on Sunday in which I only knit for some of the day.  Otherwise, some very exciting firsts happened:

I published my first pattern:

Double Heart Dishcloth

It can be found here, as a free Ravelry download or from the links on my brand new Patterns page!  Seriously, download one even if you don't need one; just to make me look good.

It actually is a kinda fun, quickie project and the cotton yarn it's made of is dirt cheap.

I also swatched for my Joji Locatelli Even Flow sweater.

Mmm . . . swatches

I have to admit: I hate swatching.  I want to just cast on and go!  That is why so many of the projects I do are items that you don't need to swatch for or that (like socks) you can measure your gauge as you are knitting it.  I know that you are supposed to swatch on pretty much everything, but I find it very boring.  

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that I would be more annoyed to knit an entire sweater only to have it not fit.  And judging by the fact that my swatch on the recommended needles didn't match the gauge in the pattern, it is time well spent.

Then, the most exciting news:

I am teaching myself how to dye yarn!

I started with food dye on some cream colored Cascade Eco Wool that I had lying around and came up with this:

My first attempt

Not too bad for the first time.  Of course it leaves plenty of room for improvement though. 

This was done with just water, white vinegar, and McCormick food dye.  Apparently if your dye bath is too acidic, the red will be taken up into the yarn faster than the blue and instead of getting a purplish-blue, you get red splotches with blue around them.

In order to prevent this from happening again, I have ordered pH paper from the internet.  When in doubt, apply science.

Finally, tonight I may go check out the Black Hills Fiber Arts Guild meeting.  I don't necessarily feel like going out and talking to people, but I think I have to remember that it is never as scary as it feels before hand.  And I have baked an apple spice cake to take with.  How could I go wrong if I'm bringing a cake?