Tag Archives: teal

November 9, 2016 · 1:00 AM

A call to arms; raise up your arms

I started this project and this post months ago – last January, I think – and I finished the project over the summer, and the post last week, setting it to publish today.

I hope we know who the president is by now, and more so, I desperately hope it is not that horrible horrible man.

So this is not about politics.

It’s yet again about thrifted sweaters.

I got this cardigan during a thrift store run last autumn or winter and hit another small jackpot – I’ve been wanting a teal cardigan, but didn’t want to buy the yarn and knit one, or buy one new

– and I lucked out –

and I so wish I had grander luck than just finding an old sweater for $3 or so…

But anyway, this one was probably made for men – it’s got some unfortunately narrow/tight hips and broad shoulders, and some reaaaaaally long arms.

And the lower half of both arms were quite shredded.

I decided to conduct a partial amputation of the lower sleeves and re-knit the cuffs.

At least 8 inches were completely unnecessary – even for my monkey arms.

But the damn thing had cut/serged seams, so I was only left with short lengths of yarn – great to nearly invisibly repair the other various holes and moth nibbles, but not great for knitting for length.

So I knit them in some dark charcoal wool and have paused to see if I like them as-is…

The bottom of the sleeve doesn’t poof quite as badly as it appears – some of the original cuff is still folded back inside – but I may end up narrowing them a bit. I may also knit the cuffs longer so they fold over. I might add an icord trim around the front so I can move the buttons over 1/2 inch to eek out a bit more width and add a decorative element. I might knit a shawl collar. I might take the short teal yarns and splice them all together and re-knit the cuffs. I might entirely re-knit the sleeves in charcoal. I might open up the side seams and add charcoal side stripes…

I have to admit I’m not feeling this one completely yet, but mostly because I’m still in need of another ass-clearing cardigan and this one stops short – I already used up my luck finding one of those a few years ago.

Bite this three times

I finished my Trilobite hat.

I haven’t left the fence I’m on about it though – I still think the top portion is a bit small, and it’s definitely a hair-smasher – but I will have to wait for winter to see if howling winds will still reach my ears through the doubled brim, and if more frequent wear will relax the superwash yarn a bit more (it’s a lovely variegated teal, despite what these pics might show, from the now defunct Schaefer Yarn Co.).

I have enough coldish weather hats, so in order for this to continue to survive as-is, it must work as a freezing weather hat.

Before finishing the brim, I soaked the top part to see if a good block would loosen it up – I had the perfect hat-shaped bowl to use so I didn’t have to take it off the needles – and then a ridiculously hot afternoon dried the whole shebang in a few hours, so I was able to resume knitting that night – and the soak relaxed it a bit, but not quite as much as I’d hoped…

But the thing that most bothers me about the hat is that the trilobites don’t look like my trilobites. I could ramble on about idyllic afternoons of my childhood spent scouring the creek behind our house for fossils, but not today.

But the ultimate fossil-hunting prize was a triolobite – most often rolly-polly stand alone little guys.

They’ve got this smug lippy carp-like expression going on, and their backs have three wide stripy bands – or you know, lobes – what they’re named for after all…

I tried to figure out the order of these vs. the clearly different order for which the pattern was written, but I got frustrated, then distracted…

But if I do end up re-knitting it for a better fit, I’ll make the center lobe much fatter somehow to look more like my guys.

(Taking picture of one’s own head when too lazy to get out the tripod or too impatient to wait until others return home, results in an increase of time wasted due to editing out 10x more image failures more often than not…

And when will I figure out the camera settings, or the editing, to render accurate color…?)

4 Comments

Filed under collecting, knitting

Tagged as fossils, free pattern, hat, knitting, knitty, superwash, teal, trilobite, winter hats, wool

August 12, 2015 · 8:51 AM

Catch-up, but no ketchup…

Going on vacation is great, but the aftermath is a bit of a struggle…

I’ve been doubling up on work-work to make up some hours and the house-work doubled, tripled on its own.

We’ve canned even more tomatoes – certainly enough to get us through to the season next year – I think. Some of the heirlooms didn’t produce much, but I’ve been especially fond of the green stripey ones this year for eating fresh. The green beans exploded and have been eaten in all cooking methods liked by us as well as frozen and pickled – I put in another crop in early July, and I don’t want to say I regret that, because it’s one of the few veggies not being attacked by something or another out there, and the neighbors will be happy for more bounty, but I wish I’d put in a dried variety instead…

And the basement is coming along – the floor is now half teal. And I am an idiot and decided that the orange didn’t work after all, and have to hurry up and re-paint it with the original yellow, or a boring white, or more grey… (The pic above shows the floor color fairly accurately, but the walls are more grey-green rather than the yellowy putty they seem to be on my screen). So as long as I get on that soon, we’ll be able to finally install N’s library by the end of the month and unpack most of the rest of the boxes.

I’d like to overdye a large old cotton rag rug (old meaning faded and from the 1990s, not vintage) and a large old cotton sofa cover but not sure how to do that… I’ve only got a small front-loader washing machine, a well that is going a little precious this time of year, and I’m sure the laundromats don’t want me to do that there, but I don’t want to spend much to revive these things – probably be cheaper to get some cheap sisal/jute rugs in the end, unless there’s some sort of paint-on, no rinse or little rinse fabric dye out there…?

A time to dye

I had one of those stupid frustrating telecommuting days last week wherein I couldn’t connect with my work computer…

and couldn’t connect with a person there who could re-connect my computer to me…

So I couldn’t work, but I had plans to work so that I’d have time later in the week to do some non-work work, and I really couldn’t stand not being able to get the work work over and was frustrated and pissy and feeling like I didn’t exist – a feeling probably common to telecommuters, but I don’t know any others so it might just be me, and there are times when in fact, I do not exist…

So I did something I hadn’t planned on doing any time soon to ease my unease.

I thrifted some comfy but insanely red linen pants last year, and though I like bold color, I have a few red t-shirts, many green t-shirts, and most often wear a pair of yellow sandals, so I either looked like a cardinal (bird), Christmas, or condiments if I wore any of them with the pants.

(And I don’t really like yellow mustard, especially next to ketchup).

I also had a sorry once lavender t-shirt, and a commercially sewn floral canvas bag that served its purpose at the time, but I never use anymore and keep almost getting rid of it…

I also have a few old boxes of that powdered dye knocking about, so I simmered the threesome in teal (which really was more turquoise).

I wanted the pants to be anything other than bright red, and was hoping for burgundy, purplish, brown, or some murkier variation thereof.

And now all is well, except for the bag – I’m really ready to get rid of it finally.

I know the dye won’t stick around forever, and I know well enough to only wash these things with darker things, but since the pants and shirt were already old, the dye should hopefully hold up for the rest of their lifespans, or else the yellow sandals might wear out by the time the pants become red again…

And it also became evident that the pant’s manufacturer made no effort to match the inside button to the outside and/or made the inside button match the outside, but the outside button an odd beige (now pleasingly turquoise) accent piece…?

Or perhaps the original owner replaced it…

Either way, now I’m either a giant gradient when wearing a red t-shirt, pleasantly almost-complementary when wearing green, and let’s just say I’m enjoying a robust red with something mustard-schmeared…

2 Comments

Filed under dyeing, recycling, thrifting

Tagged as cotton, dye, dyeing, linen pants, renewing clothes, teal, thrift store clothes, turquoise

Tag Archives: teal

A call to arms; raise up your arms

Bite this three times

Catch-up, but no ketchup…

A time to dye

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta