The Yarnarian Plays With Dolls.

Did you play with cutout dolls when you were a kid? I loved them, and to this day, can't pass a cutout doll book without wanting to open it up. You don't see many of them any more. They're available online, and in all sorts of other formats. Those little tabs may have bitten the dust. It's too bad. There was something so satisfying about punching out the doll and then cutting out the clothing.

I'm a war baby, and there were not lots of toys to play with as I grew up. I had a Betsy Wetsy doll, but not much else. Metal for carriages and such was not readily available in the late 40's. And Barbies were not yet around. My sister came along in 1952, and she had the Barbie collections. I used to knit doll clothes for her.

So when the American Girl Doll came out, my jaw dropped both from wanting the thing and from the exorbitant prices of the doll and the goodies. This is not a doll for the millions but for a select few. However there are knockoffs, and people sell adorable dresses at street and craft fairs and such, and I'm sure that Target has lots of pretty clothing.

Well, as a gramma, I have been wanting to get an AG doll for Miss P since she was 3 hours old. After all, Grammie has someone to spoil, and she's such a good kid when it comes to toys; not grabby and her parents have her donate toys in good condition to charity. So, when Miss P called up a few days ago and asked if she could have one and told me exactly what she wanted in the way of an outfit and doggie, i said of course. She was so excited, and kept asking if it were too much money to spend. I said that ordinarily it would be a great deal of money, but she rarely asked me for anything and that yes, it would be a Chanukah present for her.

So, now, boys and girls, we get to the meat of the matter. Ahem, there are AG clothes begging to be knit. Hee hee hee. And I own Sweater Wizard and there are sweaters specially formatted for an 18" doll. And I have lots of stashed yarn, and own lots of undyed sock yarn, and you know where this is going. Gotta knit!

Pssssst: I ordered a cheapie knock off for me. I get to play with dolls again. And being grandiose, I envision lots of little sweaters and maybe matching ones for the kid and doll.

Second childhood, here I come!

Mystery Sock news: Don't forget to post your pics of the Mystery Sock on Ravelry. Yeah, I know it's only a cuff, but out of cuffs grow socks.

Some purty pics of yarn coming up for sale at some point:






KV - I made my own paper dolls and clothing too, and I wanted to be a fashion designer in the worst way.

Bad doll enablers, you know who you are! - Thanks, I think. I feel a new obsession coming on! ;-D

The Yarnarian Dyes With Much Philosophy.

I was in a brown phase on Monday, and had a wonderful time playing around with the various brown bases that I own: Mahogany, chocolate, chestnut, plain brown (this one has a greenish tinge to it). I love the richness of brown in any form or value.

Most of the time, brown is such a warm color, but when I use my plain brown very diluted, I get almost a bronze color. And chocolate diluted produces a brownish pinkish beige. Browns can contain lots of red or green. In my early dyeing, I tried to reproduce the colors, but finally got smart and just bought a few. I don't need to reinvent the wheel all the time.

I love to take brown and add orange or red or chartreuse. Wow, what a difference those additions make. And take a pale brown and add blue or violet, and you get these very complex colors without names.

Usually I just pick a color and then explore it in a couple of skeins. Now I'm thinking of choosing a color and then dyeing all the skeins of the day with it and see what I can produce. That's the excitement of dyeing for me: playing around with color to produce still more colors. I love to overlap colors; you can get the most fascinating third color here. Even when the colors together produce mud, you can still get neat variations. Try dyeing a section of yarn in violet, and then an adjacent section in pale yellow and overlap them. Yeah, the overlapped part will probably look pretty ugly by itself, but when it involves two wildly divergent colors, the ugliness goes away and your eye picks up this neat interaction.

Here are some of the skeins I did yesterday. They are all still pretty soggy, but when they dry, I'll list them for sale on Etsy.

This one is Cafe au Lait, a mixture of 4 colors:




This one is Woodwork with lots of colorwork in it.



I did a few more skeins for the Winter Mystery Sock, but I won't post them here. If you want to see them, check Etsy later on today. 2 are a soft bronze, and one of them is the most beautiful brown going. If nobody wants this one, I'm keeping it for me. Like I need more stash!

Here are a few more skeins. The red and black on is for DragonYady on Ravelry. Everything else will get on etsy.






Mystery Sock Knitters: The previous post has all the beginning work to do. Have fun!

How are you all doing with the cluster stitch? Need help? Go to the PennyRoses forum on Ravelry, and we'll give you a hand. My sotm people are old hands at this one.



pencraftco and all you wonderful responders - Have fun with the sock. This week is easy. Next week we revv it up a little.

Mystery Sock - First Clue

Mystery Sock - Clue 1

Click on the chart and instructions for a large, readable version.


Size: Small – Medium: The pattern is nice and stretchy, so a medium foot should be fine. If you’re not certain, go up a needle size. Graph for the large size is at the end of the pattern.

Style: Cuff to toe

Gauge: 7.50 sts over stockinette

Needles: size 2.50mm (size 1.5); 2 circulars, or whatever you’re comfortable with. I used a size 0 because I have a slender leg and foot and I knit very loosely.

Yarn: 350-400 yds of sock weight yarn

Pattern repeat: 30 stitches



Cast on:

Cast on 60 stitches loosely. Divide your sts up as follows: 30 on needle one, and 30 on needle two.

Ribbing: Work ribbing pattern on each needle. Repeat ribbing for as long as you wish, ending with round 4. (I made 4 repeats of the ribbing.)

There is a special stitch, the cluster stitch, in the ribbing and in the sock pattern. Here's how you make it:

On the left hand needle, slip the 3rd stitch from the point over the previous 2 stitches. Then k1, yo, k1: 3 stitches made.







The chart is accurate. I know that it looks odd with that first st a knit and then a purl instead of k2, but it's correct. It's part of a pattern. And yes, it's a cluster followed by p3. Just go with the flow.

How are you all doing? I just finished dyeing for today, and maybe I'll have time to knit with you.

Yay to all helpers here!

I have my graph solution, thanks to Linda, Lynn, Priscilla, BadCat, and anyone whom (who?) I've accidentally left out.

So here's the solution: Photograph the graph, save as a jpeg, upload to Flickr, and there you go. I tried it out and by golly it works.

When the entire sock is done, I'll do a PDF of it, nice and clean and post on Ravelry.

You guys all rock! big time!

I just did it even easier: Copy the graph to Paint Shop Pro, and save it as a jpeg. Thanks again you geniuses!

Update on KAL

Update: Blogger will NOT let me upload my graphs, so initially this will be instructions only. Bad point - No graphs until we're finished; good point - this will be a complete surprise. However, I might just be able to load up PDF files onto Ravelry as we go along, and those would have the graphs. And the final pattern will be a full PDF and available on Ravelry. I'll post all this info as I we go along.

That was a surprise for me. Sigh.

Yay, helpers and suggestions! What would I do without all of you? I'm going to try out some of the ideas tomorrow. Today, I rest!

The Yarnarian Does a Mystery Sock KAL.

What's a KAL, for those of you who don't know? It's a Knit-a-Long. And I'm in the process of designing a sock KAL. A Mystery Sock, if you will.

When? Starting Monday, Oct. 27, and then every Monday until we're finished.

Materials? Sock yarn in almost solid colors. Needles in anywhere from 0 to 2.50mm; you know your gauge already.

Experience? Intermediate.

Name of Mystery Sock? I don't know; I'll let you help me come up with one.

Sign up? You don't need to!! Just join in.

Sockpuppet on Ravelry will host all the discussion on her forum: PennyRoses. If you're on Ravelry, come join in the fun. We are a very chatty group, just so you know. If you're not on Ravelry, what are you waiting for? http://www.ravelry.com Yup, there's a little wait for getting on, but it's worth it.

Boys and Girls: You don't have to sign up!!! Got that? Just knit along. some people are not reading this accurately, and you know who you are. Evil laugh.

Update: Blogger will NOT let me upload my graphs, so initially this will be instructions only. Bad point - No graphs until we're finished; good point - this will be a complete surprise. However, I might just be able to load up PDF files onto Ravelry as we go along, and those would have the graphs.

Hey, all you responders, both here and on my email - Hi, and welcome.

I've been tagged.

Bad MamaMay! She tagged me and I'm supposed to find the 6th picture in my 6th folder. Oh, lordy, here goes:



That's me working on my Ogee Sock. You asked, MamaMay, you got.

Back to rinsing yarn. I am only a bit overwhelmed. I could go for just plain whelmed.