WAYLAID, SIDELINED, AND BAMBOOZLED

A little more than three weeks ago I was cheerfully playing computer games working hard when the husband turned up at the front door. At 10 am. He was laid off. WHAMMO!

 It was a shock at first, but also it was kind of fun. We went on picnics, slept late. We took turns using key word searches on Craigslist. He applied for jobs, and so did I. Something better would come along.

 Then Big State Health Insurance sent us a letter- CANCELLED unless you pay a million dollars for COBRA. I figured we could keep them, and just negotiate for less coverage with a lower premium. Wrong! They are completely inflexible. It's all or nothing. SOOOOO frustrating! I guess it will have to be nothing, but I am looking into alternatives. I'm not young any more, but still too far from Medicare to feel safe going without anything. Plus I have three dependents. And a long list of middle-aged pre-existing conditions.

 Time passed, and nothing happened job-wise. Absolutely. Nothing. I began to pull out some old and very dusty HATS. Hats so old that I kind of hoped that I could have left them in the attic forever. Long ago, before children, before marriage, before knitting and Sara's Colorwave Yarns, I was a Geology professor at the local college. It was a fun career, and I enjoyed it very much. When the marriage came along, followed quickly by three babies in five years, I knew it was time to change to a new career: Mommy At Home. I don't regret it for a minute! It was certainly less lucrative, but far more rewarding. Two of those three babies are going to be in college this fall. I had hoped to wait to send the youngest one off before I began work again, but I'm afraid it is not to be.


Now there are so many questions:

 1. If I get full time work in my field, it will very likely mean moving to a different city or state. Is this worth losing the in-state-residency college scholarship for child #2? Is this worth uprooting child #3 from his (excellent local) high school and putting him in a possibly sub-standard one somewhere else?

 2. If I do #1, will my not-very-flexible and genius-but-socially-awkward child #3 ever get over it?

3. Can I even do #1? Will anyone even hire a middle-aged woman whose knowledge of the field is 20 years out of date?

 4. If I get full time work in my field, will my husband feel like a failure?

 5. If I get local part time work doing anything, can we survive?

 6. If I get local part time work doing something menial, will I feel like a failure? Should I do it anyway?

 7. Can I ever get health insurance again? Do I ever WANT health insurance again? Dealing with health insurance is right up there with getting a root canal, or worse.

8. Will I have to give up Sara's Colorwave Yarns? The horse? Knitting?

Stay posted!

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SOCK FLATS

My previous post was all about patterned sock yarns, but a few years ago some yarn manufacturers came up with a new cool idea for getting colors and patterns onto hand knitted socks. White, undyed sock yarn was machine knit into a little scarf-like affair called a "sock flat" or "sock blank". It was then dyed into interesting patterns and colors at the factory, or you could buy it undyed and color it yourself any way you liked. Then the "flat" or "blank" was unraveled and re-knit into a pair of socks. What fun!

 The top photo shows a commercially dyed sock flat by Conjoined Creations, and the sock resulting from half of it. Truth be told, I was pretty disappointed. The colors on the flat were rich and lovely, but the dye didn't really penetrate deeply between those stitches. The resulting sock showed plenty of small white undyed flecks, and the colors seemed pale and washed out in comparison to the flat. The yarn was also stiff, inelastic, and scratchy, and not much fun to knit up.

 My next attempt was with an undyed sock flat. These are still available for sale, and can be purchased HERE.

The flat was fun and easy to dye up.

I unraveled, then wound one of the balls with reverse colors just for fun.

The resulting socks were (naturally) fraternal twins, but fun to knit up. The yarn was soft and pliant.

Sock flats were, for a few years, the only way to get long gradual color shifts onto socks. But ultimately I lost further interest in them because it seemed no matter how wild you made the patterns on the blanks, the results in the sock were stripes or flecks. Or flecky stripes, or stripey flecks. The flats were far prettier and more interesting than the socks!

If you would like my free generic pattern for all of the socks shown in these photos, go HERE.

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PATTERNED SOCK YARNS

I'm on a sock jag again. Maybe I've been on a sock jag my whole life. I always have at least one sock on the needles, and often have three or more going at a time. It got me to thinking how much I love patterned sock yarns. It wasn't too long ago when sock yarns came in solid colors only. BORING! The only way I could stand to knit up a sock in only one color is to make it in a complicated stitch pattern. I've done it more than once, but still find it boring. I NEED COLOR!!!!!

First there was sock yarn dyed up with short color changes, known years ago as "variegated", but commonly called "hand painted" nowadays. These were fun to knit up, and usually resulted in random stripey patterns. At left are socks from Mountain Colors Bearfoot.

It frustrated me that the color changes occurred randomly, sometimes forming stripes in one sock and puddles in the next. I devised a way to puddle the colors in every sock (top photo)-- and Sara's Colorwave Yarns was born. Details are in a previous post HERE.

The yarn for the sock shown at top is available for sale HERE.

Next were yarns which knit up in stripes and small checks- these were wildly popular when they first came out! The sock in the photo is an older version of Regia 4-ply, but there are still many colors and styles available HERE and HERE.

Then came sock yarns with longer and slower color changes. I love these! There are many brands available now, but these happen to be Fame trend.
You can get self-striping yarn with sharp color changes now too! Check out these from String Theory and Knitpicks!

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FRATERNAL TWINS AGAIN

This is my favorite trick to use up one ball each of two complementary colors. The yarn is Koigu KPPPM.

HERE is a rather different way to do it, from an earlier post.

Below is my daughter proudly wearing her Haruni shawl (previous post) on prom night.



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THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM, BUT I'M OVER IT

I love this pattern! I like the ferns in the central part, but mostly I love the leafy border with mossy lace panels in between. This is my third "Haruni". The pattern is available HERE, and there are previous posts with the first two projects HERE and HERE.

For this one I used Debbie Bliss "Angel", a lace weight silk mohair blend. The yarn is delicious, but very slippery. I was shocked to discover that if I started in on this project early in the morning my fingers were too clumsy to work this! I also found it somewhat of a burden to make a big project with plain white. Easy on the eyes, but boring. I need color!

This one was a (very belated) birthday gift for my daughter, for her prom night. Maybe if I live long enough I will get to see her wear it for her wedding. Maybe.



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T SHIRT EXPERIMENTS

I have always been a big fan of tie dyed T shirts. I absolutely admire the wonderful artists who can make these. The photos above show three of my favorites that I have acquired over the years. I wish I could say that I made them myself, but now that I have tried to make some I can really appreciate how difficult it is to get patterns and colors like these.

Whenever I dye cotton yarn or crochet thread, I always put dye on a blank T shirt or two just for fun. The results have been spectacularly boring! The colors run together in unpredictable and unflattering ways, and the patterns usually result in simple blotches. Here are the latest two attempts at T shirts. One failure...



...from a distance it looks like I rolled in the chicken coop! Close up it has interesting speckles (click the picture to enlarge). I made this one by scattering dry dye powder on the wet shirt, then rinsing it off. If you do this yourself, please be aware that the dye powder is extremely dangerous stuff to inhale and take appropriate cautions!

And one modest success, made by pleating and banding the fabric. The white circles were made by tying the fabric around small pebbles.


If you would like to try your hand at tie dye shirts there are inexpensive kits available at any craft store. Make sure that the shirt you purchase is 100% cotton or the colors will be very pale! With some simple precautions this makes a good summer camp project for kids.

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DYEING DAY: MORE INSPIRATIONS

These and more beautiful crochet threads are now available here:

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