Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Knitting for Mom

Both my mother and I have our birthdays in September. This year, I wanted to do something that would combine knitting and natural dyes, so instead of dyeing the yarn first, and then knitting it, I reversed the process.
I started with this, 100% BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) in an Aran weight, 200g of it to be exact.



I chose size 9 needles, a simple lace pattern with clean edges, that would be easy to memorize, perfect for knitting while homeschooling the children.
After a few hours of relaxed knitting, I had a lovely scarf.



My mother's favorite color is blue, so I decided to play with indigo. I did not want to do just a blue scarf, but rather decided to create a gradation of blues by immersing the scarf once all over, and then repeating the immersion process over gradually smaller sections of the scarf. I chose to make the center the darkest, with the blue getting gradually lighter toward the edges.



I always find it amazing that out of this odd scented mixture can come the most beautiful blue!

After washing, drying and blocking, the scarf was ready.



And here it is worn by Miss SockPixie. I had a really hard time getting it back from her in order to wrap it and give it to my Mom!



P.S.: My Mom loved the scarf, and is already enjoying it as the weather is cooling down fast out here in Boston.