My Failed Experiment

Well, I guess it is only fitting that while being inspired by a failed experiment, I have my own failed experiment. I was sure that beets would yield a beautiful red on some wool yarn I had. I scoured all my dyeing books to find a recipe of how to dye with beets and not one book mentioned beets.

I should have taken that as at least an odd thing, let alone a big red flag. But no, I went ahead and boiled the beets to get a wonderful red dye bath. I put my mordanted yarn in and let it soak. The yarn turned a great vivid pink. Then when I began rinsing the yarn, every bit of red rinsed away. Apparently, beets are not colorfast no matter what.

See my beet dyed yarn? Just a dingy off-white (slightly more dingy than the off-white that the yarn started as).

So, I think I will have to give up on my idea of dyeing with beets and just use some great red yarn I have in my stash.

And in closing here is a drive by picture of another beet sculpture in front of our local library:

Sugarhouse

I live in an area of Salt Lake City called Sugarhouse. Sugarhouse is named because of the sugar beets that used to be grown here to make sugar. In 1853 a sugar beet test factory was created in an old blacksmith shop, hence the name Sugarhouse. In the early days of Salt Lake, Brigham Young and the Mormon settlers were trying to be self-sufficient and began manufacturing many things from silk to sugar. Alas, the operation was a failure and there are no longer any beets grown in the area.

Now, the heart of Sugarhouse is a shopping district with stores, restaurants, hotels, businesses and parks. Sugarhouse park is a large park on the site of a former prison. We go there all the time to play, sled, walk, and bike. I also knew about another small park in the area called Hidden Hollow but I had never been to it.

The other day, while eating at a restaurant in Sugarhouse (because I was lazy and did not want to cook), we realized that the Hidden Hollow Park was right behind where we were eating on the outdoor patio—right In the middle of the Sugarhouse shopping district. My two sons, husband and I decided to explore. It truly is a hidden gem in the middle of the city.

There was a stream and lots of trees, winding pathways, bridges and interpretive signs. I am sure that it will look better when the leaves all come out. There was also several giant bronze beet sculptures right in the pathway.

The sign by one of the sculptures told the story of Sugarhouse and the beet farming that took place. But it also told me something I didn’t know, that no sugar was every processed in the factory. The experiment was a failure from the beginning!

In honor of this failed experiment in Salt Lake and in my backyard, I want to create something inspired by the lowly sugar beet. I want to even try dyeing with beets – they are so red, it must make a beautiful color. 

Cricket Cardi

I finished the Baby Cricket Cardi and I love it. The crickets are as large as the seagull but I am ok with that. It makes them more menacing. I am excited to begin the second one in blue to see what it looks like. I tried the buttons that I made earlier but they just didn’t look right so I used a vintage button instead. Oh well, I might have a use for the buttons on another project.

So next up the seagull cardi in blue to test the pattern before I publish it. 

Topsy-Turvey

I have not forgotten that I said I wanted to try and make a toy. I definitely want to create something to go with the Miracle of the Gulls cardis. A topsy–turvey doll would be adorable – with a seagull on one side and a cricket on the other. A similar design to this wonderful Bird and Egg by Susan B. Anderson would work great:

I will need to elongate the egg shape and figure out how to do the cricket legs but I think I can do it. 

Buttons and More Buttons

As I think about the Miracle of the Gulls motif for the baby cardi that I am still designing, I am concerned that the connection between the crickets and the gulls will not be seen. I am making the pattern so you can either knit the seagull motif or the cricket motif. So in order to make the connection, I would like to have a seagull button on the cricket sweater and a cricket button on the seagull sweater. What a great excuse to shop on Etsy! But to my dismay, not many people make seagull or cricket buttons.

So I decided to make my own. I got images of old children’s illustrations and some fine art that has images of crickets or gulls. I then took the images and printed them on fabric. I just used the fabric printing paper found at most craft stores.

I think I want only one button on the cardi instead of several. And I made the images smaller or larger for different size buttons because I am not sure what size I will use yet.  I then put the images in the appropriate size circles in my page layout program. I cut out each circle and used a button tool bought at my local fabric store.

Ta da! Seagull and Cricket Buttons.

Now I need to decide which size to use and if I really only want one button. 

Worse Form of Hell

For this baby sweater, I would like to try and design a cardigan that has no seams. Like almost everyone else, I hate sewing up sweaters. But every pattern I see for seamless cardigans still has you picking up stitches for the button band. I think picking up stitches is a worse form of hell than seaming, so I definitely don’t want to do that. I am going to attempt to make a pattern with no seaming and all bands knitted in.

And here is my beginning attempt. The collar might turn out a little weird so I might need to tweak that. But so far it is going well. The yarn I am using is Handmaiden Camelspin. It is so beautiful and looks like ripening wheat.

I also have some Handmaiden Seasilk in ebony that I will use for the crickets.

I am sticking with Handmaiden yarn (it is incredibly beautiful!) for the seagull version and using Mini Maiden in Jacobean Blue.

The yarn is a bit expensive but so delicious to knit with and the cardis will hopefully only be one skein so you don’t have to sell your car to make a sweater.