Some reading is allowed

Of course, reading is too time consuming and shouldn't be encouraged amongst knitters. But what if the book is about knitting? In that case the occasional reading is allowed. Especially when the book was a gift from Sinterklaas! So mrs. T ignored her knitting needles and read 'De vrijdagavond vriendinnenclub' (a.k.a. The Friday Night Knitting Club) by Kate Jacobs.

In the Dutch translation the word 'knitting' is left out the title. The publisher must have thought the word would scare away readers under 75... This tells a lot about the way knitting sometimes still is regarded in this country.

Mrs. T. 's opinion about the book: "Quite nice, but somehow the characters didn't come to live...Still I would love to see the movie too. Then I can knit while watching!"

Another Capitán

Knitted on special request : a Capitán hat for Luca's little sister. Mrs. T. made it a bit longer than the pattern calls for, so the girl will keep her ears warm. It's the third Capitán on her F.O. list and she still wouldn't mind knitting it again. (But of course, there are so many other items to knit too!).

Hand dyed, hand knit mittens!

From the orange yarn mrs. T recently dyed, she knitted these warm mittens. There is enough orange yarn left over to knit a matching hat, which will follow soon (she hopes).

"It's the first time I knitted mittens in a grown up size, wíth thump. I loved to knit them and think I might knit a lot more mittens. But I'm afraid of the Second Mitten Syndrome...."

Mrs. T. used a pattern from an old craft book (simply titled 'craft book') written by Jutta Lammers, ánd a free pattern found on Ravelry somewhere, telling how to make mittens exactly fitting. (Yes, yes, she'll give the link when she finds it back again....).

Vintage yarn and pattern books

Mrs. T has been exploring her attic. She didn't only trace back her grandmothers (vintage) yarn but also a lot of vintage knitting pattern books.

This one (above) is great. It's a mail order leaflet for 3 suisess from 1959. (As grandmother lived on an island, she mostly ordered yarn by mail). The funny thing is, Mrs'T has got some of the yarns which are mentioned in this book!

Like these ball's of Cosy yarn. Not really a left over, cause there are 12 balls of it! "I think my grandmother must have been shocked by the bright yellow color. That must be the reason she never used it." say Mrs. T.

This packet was never even opened!

This page features the baby yarn mrs. T has dyed yesterday. No more baby yellow.

Not only sweet little babies show of in this leaflet, but elderly people too! It's mr. Sipkes from Eindhoven and his wife. Not the kind of 'young looking happy rich senior' that you see in modern advertisments. Mr. Sipkes has been a waiter for 45 years, and it shows. But fortunately his wife knits his socks with Suizanyl yarn - wool with a bit of nylon and therefor indistructable.

In one of the pictures we see mrs. Sipkes reading a magazine in front of the radio. The text tell's us she has lots of extra spare time now she doesn't have to darn mr. Sipkes socks anymore!

That's must have encouraged mrs. T's grandmother to buy a bunch of Suisanyl balls. Indeed, it still looks indistructable...even after 50 years on the attic!

Fifty years ago it was common to knit ones own underwear. This bont-jaeger was especially meant for it.

Classic sweaters were supposed to be knit from this fine Prestige yarn. Maybe mr. Sipkes would have liked it too...

"I love this Solaria yarn. My grandmother left me a few of these yellow balls. There are also some red ones, which look the same but have no wraps anymore. I don't know what to knit of it. The two colours don't combine very well." says mrs. T.

Knitters in the fifties and sixties must have loved Solaria too, because 3Suisses had this yarn for a long time. The wraps and the colours have changes a bit through the years:

Some more vintage knitting books and magazines:

Some very old knitting books and one crochet book (up).

"I love looking into these books. They must be from the thirties of forties. It's lovely to look at the clothes people wore in those days, but also at their hairdo, toys and furniture." says mrs. T about the books below.

"This magazine is a lot more modern. I guess it's from the sixties. Some patterns in it I like very much. One sweater for sure is on my To Do List. Some other are really hilarious!" says mrs. T.

This magazine (up) for sure is from the seventies. But like most others there is no exact year printed on it.

"Maandblad voor handwerken" and "Ariadne"

Very exciting too are these very old handicraft magazines. There are lots and lots of them in the attic. The oldest ones date from the fourties, the oldest are from the ninties. The magazine still excists in the Netherlands, but changed its name several times. From 'maandblad voor handwerken' to 'Ariadne' (195something) to "At Home" in the nineties. Unfortunatly it's not a real handicraft magazine anymore, but mostly about interior decorating.

How steam dyeing is done

Steam dyeing is not as easy as microwave dyeing. But it isn’t hard either. It is fun to do and you can influence the colours while steaming, by sprinkling more dye at the spot where you want it. Another good thing is that you’ll need only very little dye. It doesn’t get flushed away with the water. You put the dye directly on the yarn/wool which never touches the water. The colours just steams into it. After dyeing there is hardly any dirty water left, so it’s a clean way too.

How the dyeing is done:

You'll need:
- Yarn (or unspun wool)
- Dye (powder) like Colortex
- Enamel rice cooking pot or…
- large enamel pot and a cake tray that fits in it plus 4 small twist-off jars
- Spray bottle
- Vinegar
- Liquid wool wash
- Disposable plastic ice spoons (one for each colour)

Pour approx. 2 cm water into the pot. Add a cup of vinegar and a cup of liquid wash;
Fill jars with water. Put them in pot and place tray upon them, so the tray doesn’t reach the water. (Or hang inner pot in rice pot)
Spread about 100 gr. wool/yarn out on tray /bottom;
Sprinkle a half or whole spoon of dye over yarn of each colour you want.
Spray yarn and dye with the spray bottle and divide colour over and trough the yarn;
Put pot on stove. Let it steam;
Spray the yarn again every 10 minutes;
Turn yarn/wool after about 20 min. to see if dye has reached all the yarn. If not, add a bit of dye.
After 30 min. you can add a second layer of yarn/wool. Add as much dye as for first layer;
Let it steam for 30, 40 more minutes, spraying every 10 minutes. (Turn second layer once too).
Take care you spray enough water so the pot doesn’t run dry.
Put yarn on rack to cool;
After it’s totally cold, rinse it in water three times. Add vinegar in last rinse
Leave yarn to dry.

Dyeing yarns too

There was more yarn in the attic, begging to be dyed. Especially this baby yarn had been yellow for long enough!

It had probably been yellow for over fourty years. Mrs. T. guesses her grandmother bought it in the sixties, because in that decade all her grandchildren were born.

Yarnsellers really should put dates on their wraps!

Of course this time Mrs. T. checked the quality of the yarn first. (She had to wind it on skeins anyway) No yarn breaks this time.

This time Mrs. T. only used blue and yellow dye, in order to get a blue-green-yellowish result.

Dyeing yarns

About 10 years ago mrs. T. dyed her first and her last skeins of yarn. This week she cleared up a cupboard and discovered three little pots of Colortex dye. In a now-or-never mood she decided to start dying yarn right that minute. All it took was one skein of very old white yarn (her grandmothers, so 50, 60 or more years old). An enamel rice cooker. (Also her grandmothers so also very old). Wool wash liquid, vinegar and water.

With The Eagles playing Witchy Woman on the radio Mrs. T. really felt like making magic!

This white yarn is dyed with only three colors Colortex: a bit red, a bit blue and 2 bits of yellow.

Great autumn colors! What a pity this yarn is so old that it's broken into a lot of quit small pieces of string... The only thing it's good for now is knitting a project and felting it later.

This is what it looks like knitted. Below: single string yarn on size 2,5 mm; middle: 1 string combined with fine red yarn knitted on 3 mm needles; above: two strings, knitted on 3,5 mm needles.

Second shot

The yarn may be bad, but the colors are great and dyeing is fun to do. So mrs. T. took another shot at it. This time she used a skein of not too old yarn, some beige tweed of about 150 g. It has a nice natural look, but it's also a bit boring.

After dying (using only red and yellow dye) it's got a warm, passionate orange color! Pure witchcraft!