Superhero Knitting, and Other Stuff I Rock At: Things I love for February

February has been a pretty busy month for me!

Remember the list I posted back in January? I wanted to see how much progress I had made on it, so I took a look at it.

Here goes:

I took a class on Double Knitting this month. This technique is awesome, and it challenges me to think in different ways, especially when reading a chart and knitting flat. Here is some evidence of said class, I give you Puff the Double Dragon!

They are mirror images of each other, but they are knitted at the same time, and are actually one fabric. Not blocked in this picture, which makes them look wonky, but I am quite pleased with the end result. I made a small mistake, but opted to maintain sanity and not tink back to fix it. I can see the error, but I didn't feel that it ruined the piece. I guess I can cross double knitting off of my list!

I also toyed with dyeing wool this month. It all started with a bargain book from Chapters. For $5, how can you go wrong? Spin - Dye - Stitch was on sale, and it is worth the $5 for me. It is a very very basic book on spinning (wheel and drop spindle) but does have great pictures when it comes to how to ply and fix some common errors. The back has a couple of easy knitting patterns that can include hand dyed and/or spun wool. The most interesting part to me, however was the middle: the portion on how to dye yarn. Several methods were explained, again with great pictures illustrating what needed to be done. And so, off to Safeway I went to procure my supplies: Kool Aid, and some white spoons (to see if the dye bath is exhausted) Here is what I ended up with:

Dyed with Kool Aid (never drinking that stuff!) and a few experiments with food colouring and vinegar. I used a plastic bowl and the microwave to dye these experiments up. I got some cheaper Patons wool as my base and made mini skeins out of it with my niddy noddy. Light is not great on some of those shots, but it was fading fast, so I did what I could. Overall it was a fun experiment, and even the kidlet got in on it (she had earlier proclaimed that this endeavour would be "boring" Ha!) She even vowed that Kool Aid would never again enter her body, as if this is what it does to wool, imagine what it must do to your insides!

On the eve of Valentine's Day, I was asked by the kidlet to buy some Valentines for her friends. We embarked on an epic journey to Superstore and eventually found some to her liking. Since we were there, we decided to buy the Madhatter some flowers (we are, after all, equal-opportunity over here)

Also, on our epic adventures, we spied a few new friends that were destined to come home with us and live on our couch and chairs. They are as yet unnamed (although I think the big guy is begging to be named George) but they helped to model some of the recent knits that I have finished.