Category: Blog

A long, long time ago, I traveled to England with a school trip organized by my aunt, who taught English literature at a high school in the Chicago suburbs. We did day trips out to see various literary sights, but also got to spend quite a bit of time exploring London. I still have an item that I bought on that trip- a bright purple cable knit sweater.

It was the 80’s, so the style was drop-shoulder and oversized. I hadn’t worn it in years, but held onto it for primarily nostalgic reasons. But it was 100% wool- and I always thought that perhaps I could remodel it and give it a second act.

I don’t have a picture of the sweater right-side-out before the project began- but you can get an idea of the general shape from the reverse side

The issues I wanted to remedy- sleeves too short and wide, folded collar too tight, bottom hem ribbing too tight. I decided that I would remove the sleeves, rework the collar into a more relaxed crewneck, and reknit the bottom ribbing to give it a drapey finish.

I soon realized that the disassembly and reclaiming of the yarn for re-knitting was going to be complicated by the sweater’s construction.

All of the pieces had raw edges, sewn and serged. The only bit that was knit in the round was the collar, which I was able to remove in one piece and reclaim as a continuous length of yarn

Thankfully the new collar and sleeve finishing I had in mind wouldn’t take as much yarn as the doubled ribbing did.

I went with a 1×1 ribbing, and just secured the raw edges behind with whip stitching in a single strand of the garment yarn. Here’s a look at the inside of the armhole.

I was able to get it all pretty well secured and tidy, so I’m calling that a win. 🙂

The last bit was the bottom edge. I had to cut off the ribbing in order to unravel it. And the yarn came off in about 1.5 yard lengths. So, while I had plenty to re-knit with, it was chock full of ends. I was able to reknit most of the front using the remaining yarn from the original collar. But in the back side I had to make due with the shorter lengths. I overlapped the lengths at transition points in order to save myself some weaving in later on, and decided that a split hem would finish the new look nicely.

And with that, the 80’s London sweater, is now back in business as a slipover vest! To complete the 80’s London vibe, enjoy this classic from the Housemartins. You’re welcome 🙂

Took some time off work this week and indulged my craving for color.

Tuesday was Gaywool dye in Paw Paw

resulting in this buttery, mango-y gorgeousness

Wednesday I did another Gaywool shade- Raspberry. I dyed both white yarn and also a couple of Tuesday’s Paw Paw skeins to achieve peachy and salmon colors-

also overdyed some medium grey fleece to exhaust the dye bath, and found that grey+raspberry = violet purple! yay!

With those two fairly straightforward batches behind me, I started to get myself organized for the grand finale- the indigo vat.

I’d collected all my materials ahead of time- I had to order more thiorea dioxide (thiox) online and pick up flavorless gelatin at the grocery. But I already had the Lye on hand, and quite a bit of indigo powder, so I thought I was all set.

As it turns out, The last time I dyed with indigo was longer ago than I remembered (time flies!), and lye apparently loses some of it’s potency over time (go figure!). So getting the stock solution prepared was a bit of a trial. I had to use quite a bit more lye than the recipe I was using specified, which made me rather nervous.

I eventually resorted to using the large vat that was heating over the propane burner as a water bath to get the stock solution to clarify and reduce. It was still kind of the wrong color (more of an amber yellow than a yellow/green) when I added it to the vat, but i felt like as long as the solution was no longer opaque, I was on the right track. And once I added the solution to the bath it started adjusting toward the green shade. The Man help me out with capturing the magic indigo color change for posterity:

I found that by the end of the day, I had gotten a pretty good feel for telling if the vat was properly reduced or if it needed a bit more thiox. But pH can be hard to judge accurately with paper test strips, because of the color of the dye! Would have been nice to have a pH meter. Put that in the list for next time.

I was so pleased with the nice saturated shades I got out of the vat! (green is indigo over a sharp yellow, and purple at bottom is indigo over a light shade of raspberry) ((ignore the bright purple at left- that’s next week’s show and tell 🙂 )) And the gelatin seems to have been successful in protecting the wool cuticle in the alkaline bath.

At the end of the day I added a little bit of soda ash to the pot to bump the pH up a bit for the last items I’d planned to dye- a pair of cotton cargo shorts and a linen top that I’d sewn a few years ago, both a rather blah shade of beige

but look at them now!

Love, love, love the indigo.

And it isn’t exhausted yet. I’m letting the vat sit for now. Perhaps I’ll have another chance this summer to do some more blue-ing.

Here’s the whole assembled array of dyed goods

My kind of staycation.

Just a couple photos tonight- a new band fresh off the inkle looom

And steady progress on Daphne’s Bea

And a little closer

It’s a lovely combination of fuzzy and silky. Light and lofty. And with this last batch spun and plied I think I have enough of the the right weight to finish the project.

And with that, I will sign off. Taking a little staycation this week, and hope to do some dyeing, as well as sweater maintenance/renovation. Hope to have more to share soon!

Have a good week, folks 🙂

Tomatoes, most peps, cukes and melons are in the ground. Drip/soaker irrigation is turned on. We have liftoff!!

The garden takes a lot of my time and energy this time of year. But elsewhere in in the yard, the bees have been busy pollinating, setting us up for a fruity feast later in the season- It makes me so happy to see all the tiny fruits forming on the trees-

Perhaps that’s why I turned to fruity colors in the wool stash to work on at Saturday’s Spindrifters mtg.

We met at the Wonderful Woolies sale this month, and I came away with a bump of beautiful Shetland roving (Priscilla) from Marietta Shetlands. 🙂

I’m making steady progress on Daphne’s Bea, but it’s funny how a whole garment comprised entirely of garter stitch can sometimes feel restful and meditative, and sometimes feel mind-numbing and tedious. It’s beauty is in it’s simplicity, and I think it it is going to be great to wear, but it still doesn’t look like much yet

I have tried it on, and the fit is good. Just keep knitting. Just keep knitting. And one of these days I’ll get to the exciting bit- picking up stitches for the shawl collar.

In the meantime, for a bit of color-play, I’ve re-warped the inkle loom. New band pattern:

(minus the last thread on the right)

and IRL:

So springy!

K. that’s all I’ve got for now. Take care, folks-