September, 2017 - Daniel Kenneth

September 20, 2017

Oh yes, more socks

Are you sick of socks yet? I kind of am! I should say, I am kind of sick of writing about them. I still find it enjoyable to make them.

I took a picture this morning of another custom order going out. These monsters are another pair of size 16. The last pair was reported to be slightly short and an additional inch was requested.

I also dyed these as well. Dyeing seems to be a little hit and miss for me. These are brown, sort of. They’re supposed to be chocolate brown but in person, they look almost purple. I also dyed some yarn “true black” the other day and they came out almost navy – dark, but not black. Maybe I’m not using enough dye.

But, aside from those issues, I seem to be getting better at some of the dyeing methods. This is one of many skeins I did last weekend.

You may see some strange out of place threads in there, but those are just extra ties I hadn’t cut off yet, so ignore those. But pretty decent, right? I was at least encouraged to keep trying, so you may see some more skeins pop up if there is anything worth showing. At least it wouldn’t be socks, right?

September 7, 2017

September 2017 YarnBox Socks

I was excited to open the mailbox again yesterday when I saw my YarnBox bag waiting for me.

Then, I opened it. :/

I don’t mind pink, I’ve gotten several pink skeins in the last few months. But they were always something funky, like pink with chartreuse, they weren’t just pink. This has some notes of other colors, but they’re all muddy colors, and not enough to be interesting.

I looked at Apple Tree Knits and they have some beautiful yarns. Now, if I would have been sent the ‘Jimi’ or Zigi colorway in their Purl Jems line I would’ve been ecstatic. But this solid-ish pink just isn’t for me.

So, I emailed YarnBox because their site mentions an exchange policy, which I could not find anywhere. To their credit, they responded pretty quickly, I just didn’t happen to like their answer. Basically, if you don’t like what you get you can join a forum and attempt to trade it with other YarnBox people. Not much of an exchange policy, is it? They have an overstock section on their site that you can buy previous yarns at a discount, I don’t get why I can’t just exchange for one of those.

I updated my preferences on the site for NO PINK but I am still trying to decide if I will continue buying. I accept I won’t always get something I want and several times I didn’t, but there should be options when that happens. I’d rather just hit Etsy or find a local dyer and splurge on something pretty once in a while and actually get something I want. It won’t be a big surprise, but YarnBox’s support is on this issue is very meh.

It looks like I’m stuck with this one. I may have to do a giveaway.

September 6, 2017

Trying my hand at self-striping yarn

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I did it again. I stuck myself with a bunch of custom work for friends and family. And, of course, I said they’d go out this week. I’m really good at setting myself up like this. They didn’t even ask, I offered. That’s how good I am at sticking myself with work.

I decided I was going to attempt to make self-striping yarn. It started off pretty well. I prepped my yarn by creating a makeshift warp board with some clamps so that I could organize the skein of yarn into stripe sections. I dyed them in colors close to what was requested and then set down to wind all the yarn back into a ball so that I could knit with it.

And, that, is where the problems started. It didn’t occur to me how hard it would be to get it all back into a ball. It took me hours for each skein. So many knots… so many…

I tied it all up like I had previously, but I must be missing something that would make this easier. I’ve watched plenty of videos on it but no one ever shows the last part, they just set it all up and dye it… those sneaky bastards. They could at least warn people.

Regardless of my troubles, I finished the socks and now they are hanging to dry before being shipped off.