Sunset Baby Jacket

The last pattern that I used to make baby jackets for, the one where I dyed one of them, actually had two designs.  This is the other design.  Its not lace but it does have a honeycomb texture to it.

I bought this yarn about 5 years ago when I was on holiday in Weymouth, on the south coast.  It just called to me and its really soft and squishy.  Its a long colour change double knit weight yarn which is 75% acrylic, 10% wool, 10% mohair, 5% metallic.

Because you knit the jacket from the bottom up and then just work on small sections up to the shoulders I tried my best to make the colours 'flow' and match for the main part of the body upwards from the 'orange' garter stitch border separating the honeycomb pattern from the plain knit.  The sleeves took some a lot of work make them match, trying to find the right place within the long colour changes to cut the yarn and start work, lots of cutting and winding of the yarn to get what I wanted.

I decided to add three matching buttons and luckily I had just the right colours of the same button style.  Another non-traditional baby item from me but its still pretty.

Pretty in Copper - Design LF433

I'm making another of the Twilley's Goldfingering shawls from one of the 1970's pattern that I have.  I do like them, I have a bit of a 'thing' about Goldfingering and memories from childhood of shopping in the haberdashery department of a big department store in Birmingham City with my late Mom, strange I know, but there you have it.

So, this one isn't made from Twilley's Goldfingering though, except for the flower centres.  I've mostly used an almost identical thread which was made by Anchor (part of J & P Coats also known as Coats Crafts) that has since been discontinued.  In fact, Anchor as a brand no longer manufacturers threads or has any offices here in the UK anymore.  It was bought out by an American company years ago and after about 20 years or so they have decided to move business back to the USA entirely and this announcement was made around the same time that we had the Brexit vote, although the two are not connected, apparently.

I have used Twilley's Goldfingering in Gold for the centres, Anchor Arista in Bronze for the petals, which is kind of black with a bronze thread, and Anchor Arista in Copper for the main.  I actually started making this over the Easter Holiday way back in April when the kids were not in school but I didn't get very far and it got put to one side for a while.

I thought I had better crack on and get this one finished as its been lingering around far too long.

I fear this one may be in my shop for some time though as it is kind of a mundane colour combination, I hope not but I just get the feeling that it may well be there a while.

Baby Jackets made with Eco-Friendly yarn

Some time ago, when mooching through the "end of line/end of batch" baskets at House of Fraser on the rare occasion that I travel into Birmingham City Centre, I came across an interesting yarn called Rowan Purelife Revive and I bought a few balls of it in two different shades.

From Rowans' website : Recycling is becoming increasingly important in a world coming to terms with the challenges of environmental, economic and climatic change. Rowan Purelife Revive is made from used garments which have been selected according to the silk, cotton and viscose content. These are then carded to make regenerated fibre, which is then spun into this beautiful, high quality yarn, which gives life to new hand knitting designs.

I like the idea of this yarn because I recycle as much as I can myself.   The yarn is 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton, 28% recycled viscose and is a double knit weight yarn.

 

The pattern that I chose to use with this yarn is a vintage Wendy Peter Pan pattern and I got started on 28th June with the first one.  It wasn't until I had finished and sewn it up that I noticed that one sleeve was darker than the rest of the jacket.  Not knowing what to do at this point I carried on with the other colour yarn and made another one.

As you can see, the sleeve to the right in the picture is darker than the rest of the jacket.  Meanwhile, the jacket made with the darker shade has turned out lovely.

Because of the varied fibre content of this yarn and the fact that I only have dyes intended for use with animal protein fibres I was not sure what to do with the first jacket.  Do I bin it, do I dye it, if so what dyes do I use?  After much deliberation I decided to just try dyeing it with the dyes that I have and see what happens and if it goes wrong it can't get any worse than it already is.  I made up some dark blue dye and just went for it.

I have to say that I am seriously liking the result.  You can no longer see that the one sleeve is darker than the rest of the jacket and because it has only dyed the animal protein fibres in the yarn it has created a marl effect.  Fantastic!

If I ever have a problem like this again, or fall out of love with a yarn colour that is a mixed blend or don't like the way it knits up I will have no hesitation in getting the dyes out because I really love this effect.

Produce from the garden

I've been harvesting the beetroot for a few weeks now, pulling up a few at a time, cooking them and dicing them to be used on salads and in wraps etc but its time to harvest some of the carrots.  Hmmmm, they are interesting aren't they?  I've never seen carrots like these in the shops, they must be a new variety that we've discovered.

They are full of Celtic knots and big noses.

Which came first, the chicken or the carrot?  Ooooh, Ooooh, Ooooh, I need a wee, carrot and them we have a weird little fat one that looks like a dolls or a babies hand, we had a few hand shapes ones actually.

Aye, aye, what have these carrots been up to in the garden then eh?  These are the naughty boy carrots.  Despite their weird appearance, the carrots are actually very tasty.

We're not doing any good with the beans this year, not enough for a meal from them this year.  Very disappointed.  Tomatoes aren't doing great again either as the insects are getting to them again.  Potatoes will hopefully do better this year and I'm hoping for a better crop from those. 

The carrot tops have been chopped up and soaked for three days in preparation to be boiled up and then the tops scooped out and the liquid kept to make a natural dye.  Beetroot is doing really well and I've been keeping the water from cooking those to use as a natural dye too.