DYE DYE DYE!!!!!

DYE DYE DYE!!!!!

I have been doing a lot of dyeing to build up inventory for my March show and the remaining February shows here in Southern California. Here's one of the new colors and fibers, Black Cherrie. I love this color and the fiber. It is a combination of 70% superwash merino wool and 30% SeaCell. I have put a couple of skeins in my Etsy shop. Getting this rich and intense of a color took a little extra work and time. I used 3 different colors to make this color, and 3 different dippings.

I can't wait to knit or crochet something up with this. Right now, I am working on a new crochet fedora hat pattern. I will be hopefully rolling out a nice colleciton of hats for spring. I really want to do some larger pieces, I have designed a caftan for lounging around in the house, but I don't know how long that will take to do. Here are a couple of other items from the dyeing session this week.

Broomstick Lace Crochet

Lately, along with the other millions of things I have been doing, and research with regard to my shop, I have also been working on some new crochet designs. For me, that means also researching techniques and scouring old bookstores for "vintage" books, which has uncovered a forgotten and super simple crochet technique: broomstick lace.
Broomstick lace is a crochet techniques that involves yarn, a crochet hook and a large dowel or knitting needle. After a foundation row of single crochet, a large loop is placed on the dowel or knitting needle and continued across. The work is never flipped in broomstick lace, it is worked back and forth as in Tunisian Crochet.
Broomstick lace is great for sweaters, shawls, scarves, hats everything. And once you get the hang of it, you will realize how quick it is. It provides a nice stretchy fabric with excellent drape which a lot of people don't expect with crochet. I prefer to use thin gauge like fingering weight or sock weight yarns for crochet, dk weight at the largest unless I am working on an afghan.
Above is a quick pictorial/tutorial.