Colorways of My Own Making

Stitch Markers

I recently thought I would try my hand at stitch markers. They came out pretty well if I do say so myself...and I do :-D. Pictured here are 8 different kinds, I made about 12 kinds, with 4 to 10 in each set. I forgot to take a picture of all the others I made...I have shared some. No fun making something cool if you don't share it.

Now for the Yarn:

All of these are destined for specific projects. The purple and the green are going to projects from "Victorian Lace Today". I purchased all of this yarn from Knitpicks "Dye Your Own Yarn" line. The swatches knitted up really nice and are very soft, so I know that the lace pieces are going to come out nice. I do have a little bit of a problem with the yarn however. I did not ball up the yarn prior to dyeing it (of course)...it came already in hanks so I do it as it came. After it was throughly dyed I then wound it from Swift to ball winder. I was a bit upset when I did this...I dyed two skeins per colorway so that I would be sure to have more then enough with left overs for each project...almost each skein was cut in pieces...no it didn't break it was clearly cut in pieces and the pieces were wound into the hanks. So of course I did not realize this until I wound them into balls. So now I am not sure if I will have enough of each colorway for my projects. Sigh...cross your fingers for me.

As for the dyeing of these: I did something a little different then when I dyed the first group. I first soaked each skein in Kool-Aide (Cherry, Grape and Lime Green) so that I would get an over all even base color. I then laid them out and "painted on" deeper colors with Wilton's Food colors. The pictures really don't show the color variations. The colors really came out the way I was hoping. My favorite is the green. The purple still smells like grape Kool-Aide lol.

In this set the first one is Brown Sheep's "Lamb's Pride". I have to say that I REALLY loved the way the dyeing came out with this yarn. The dye laid the mohair down in the yarn...so that it now seems to have a tighter twist, but it is still soft. It also gave it a really nice sheen that makes it look like some of the more expensive yarns that are out there. The second one is Cascade 220 and the colors really came out bright and deep. It doesn't show up as well in this picture but the dark color is brown and there are shades going from brown, red to yellows; fall colors. I have already made something with some of it and will post the pic soon.

Well there ya go...a bit slow in posting my pics but here it is. I have more yarn to dye but will concentrate on knitting for a bit. It was a lot of fun dyeing the yarn and making the stitch markers. It was more fun sharing what I made with my yarn addict friends. :-D It really made me happy to give the stitch markers to others and see them enjoyed.