Author: kountingsheep

Jenny is a mother of 3 living in sunny Arizona, where it’s often too hot for all the knitting and crocheting she does. She’s been playing with yarn for over 20 years, and not a day passes that she’s not working on a project. She has a passion for designing and seeks to make patterns that provide creativity and comfort through handmade.

Dyeing News

Published on by kountingsheep

It’s my birthday this Friday, and I have been having fun dyeing stuff lately! I recently finished dyeing my first three batches of hand-dyed roving. The new colorways include Marsala, Royal Tuesday, and Old Flame.

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I am excited to be able to hand-dye fiber now, and I can’t wait to start on my next batch, which leads me to my next project. I have two pounds of unprocessed wool that I will be working on in the next week.

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These locks have been waiting for over three years now in my stash, so it’s time to starting washing and carding. The lighter colored locks I’m probably going to dye different colors to create colorful rolags. The darker colored locks I am thinking about keeping natural. Check back soon to see my process of turning these locks into beautiful rolags ready for spinning.

How I Kettle Dyed My First Roving

Published on by kountingsheep2 Comments

I have been wanting to try dyeing yarn and roving for a long time, so I picked up a bunch of Kool-Aid in different colors, pulled out some undyed Corridale roving I’ve had stashed away for awhile, and got to work. I looked up some different techniques online and decided to do kettle dyeing since it was the least messy option.

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First I picked purple (grape) and blue (tropical punch) because I knew that they would mix together well. I put 3 packets of each in two separate measuring cups of 2/3 cup of warm water and set aside. To prep the roving, I put two 2.5 ounce bundles in my crockpot with warm water. The biggest thing to remember is not to put the fiber through any extreme temperature change or it will start to felt.

I let the roving heat up on the “hot” setting for an hour in the crockpot covered. Then I took the purple and added it to the water first. The roving immediately starting soaking up the color. I carefully flipped the roving in the water (again, don’t agitate too much or it will cause felting) and then added the blue to where I could still see white. I gently pushed the roving back down into the water so it could get completely saturated with dye.

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After another almost 2 hours of heat-setting the dye on high in the crockpot covered, the dye was exhausted (meaning the water was clear and all the dye was soaked up into the fiber). I let the roving cool back to room temperature and then dumped the water and gently rinsed the roving in warm water. A quick squeeze in a towel and a few hours outside to dry, the fiber was done! 

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I call this “Royal Tuesday” and I was shocked by the color depth that I was able to get from just a few packets of Kool-Aid. I am excited to spin this up so I can see if I should keep dyeing fiber (I can guess the answer will be “yes!”).

Redo

Published on by kountingsheep

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Several years ago I made the above pictured hat out of my handspun yarn, and as soon as it was finished, I knew it was the wrong pattern for the yarn. The complicated cables got muddled in the self striping sequence and the softness of the yarn didn’t lend well to the structure this hat needed. When I wore it, the hat constantly slid down my head and was too floppy. I loved the yarn but I didn’t love the hat.

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Fast forward to last week when I decided to frog the hat (and matching fingerless mitts, which also didn’t work for the same reasons and had developed a hole needing mended) and make something that I would love to wear. I knew a simpler pattern would help showcase the yarn, so I decided to knit a garter stitch hat instead. The finished hat is perfect now, sitting just right on my head and not sliding off, not too slouchy, and the garter stitch gives the soft yarn just the right structure it needs.

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The handspun was one of my most favorite ones ever so I couldn’t stand to have a finished object that I didn’t love to wear. Now I am super happy with the new hat and so glad that knitting can always be taken out and redone.

An Update

Published on by kountingsheep

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Wow, it has been a long time since I have written a post, but I have had a very good reason: my husband and I welcomed our first daughter, Elinor Sadie on August 10th, and I have been adjusting to my new role of mommy.

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Ellie came two weeks early, and was itty bitty for awhile, not even fitting into a “newborn” hat I knit for her. Now she is three months old, and I can’t believe how much she has grown!

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As you can see from the pictures above, my little girl has no shortage of handmade items in her life. I have slowly been getting back into crafting, and just now feel as though I am nearly back up to my usual speed, especially since Ellie has finally outgrown her colic and has a regular naptime and bedtime. I have been taking orders, mainly for Elsa and Anna hats (available here), and I will be participating in my first ever Craft Fair on December 6th (more details on my Facebook page here). Now we’ll see if I can get back into blogging.

Vintage Circus Nursery

Published on by kountingsheep

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Yesterday my husband and I put together the crib for our little girl, which means the nursery is now complete! I’ve been working on putting together this Vintage Circus Nursery since the beginning of this pregnancy, so I’m excited to share the official reveal.

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My main inspiration was a clown and circus animal mobile that my Grandma crocheted for my nursery when I was a baby, and I was thrilled to be able to use it for my baby.

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In the first trimester I got into an embroidery kick and made these two hoops. The designs are freehand and now hang above the crib with some other hoops with colorful fabric.

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The quilt hanging above the chair was hand-quilted by my great-grandma, and even has a few scraps included that have happy little clowns on them. I love that I was able to include handmade items from 4 generations of women in my family.

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I had leftover yarn from the rainbow blanket, so I was able to wrap the wooden letters with yarn and make the granny square bunting that hangs above the shelves that hold books and toys from my childhood.

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I was able to find a vintage circus valance on Etsy to hang above the window and matched the bright primary colors I used for the rest of the nursery. And of course no nursery is complete without a handmade sock monkey.

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Lastly, the blankets displayed on the front of the crib in the first picture were crocheted by my mom (the daisy one) and myself (the pink lace one; I couldn’t just make one baby blanket for her). The pink blanket I made will be a separate post because there is a backstory.

Thanks to generous hand-me-downs from family and friends, as well as the numerous handmade items, the total cost to set up this nursery was right under $100! We can’t wait to bring our baby girl home to her vintage circus nursery.

Rainbow Baby

Published on by kountingsheep1 Comment

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I’ve been working on a very special baby blanket for a very special baby: mine! That’s right, my husband and I are expecting a baby in August. We are hopeful this is our “rainbow” baby, since I’m almost halfway done with my pregnancy and baby has been doing great so far. For those who may not know what a “rainbow baby” is, here is a great description:

“A rainbow baby is a baby that is born following a miscarriage or still birth.

In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison.

The storm (pregnancy loss) has already happened and nothing can change that experience. Storm-clouds might still be overhead as the family continue to cope with the loss, but something colourful and bright has emerged from the darkness and misery.”

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The first handmade object I finished is this rainbow baby blanket. I wanted something bright and cheery to greet our new baby, our rainbow after the storm. We find out next week if we are having a boy or a girl, but we decided to stick with a gender neutral themed nursery, because we hope to have more than one baby someday. The theme is vintage circus inspired, so I’m using lots of bright colors and vintage handmade pieces from my grandma and great-grandma, as well as favorite books and toys from my own childhood.

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Our other big news is that we now have a furbaby: an 8 month old black lab/border collie mix named Rosie. She’s a good little dog who keeps me company during the day and seems to really like blankies (likes to chew them too). She even shows interest in crocheting by trying to take my hooks and play with yarn. I’m happy to have a new crochet buddy (wink, wink).

New Website

Published on by kountingsheep

Welcome to the new Kounting Sheep Website.

If you are seeing this post, then you are in the right place. Yes, my website is still kountingsheep.com but things might look a little different. That’s because I have completely moved to a new platform, WordPress. I have been using blogger/blogspot as my main blog since 2007, but as I start to expand Kounting Sheep, I figured it was time to move to a platform that will grow with me and give me more control over my website.

You will still be able to find all of my old blog posts both by scrolling through the main homepage  and by the clicking on the archive drop down menu in the sidebar. And I will be posting new blogs from now on over here. If you had kountingsheep.blogspot.com bookmarked, please make sure to change it to kountingsheep.com, as I will no longer be using blogspot.

Thank you to all of my followers and enjoy the new website!

A Book and Some Mittens

Published on by kountingsheep

I have another pair of finished mittens to show off. These ones should look familiar because I’ve made them before, but this time they went to my mom for her birthday. So far, I’ve been giving away Christmas gifts for the intended recipients’ birthdays instead, so I have to come up with a new plan for Christmas gifts.

 
{Strawberry Mittens by Spilly Jane
US Size 1 needles
Scrap fingering weight yarns
Mods include changing thumb pattern}

My mom has several out of state trips planned this fall and winter, so I figured she could put these to good use now rather than waiting until Christmas. When I made this pattern for myself awhile back, my mom wanted them immediately. Unfortunately, it only took me a year and a half to make her a pair for herself. Better late than never, I guess!

Besides celebrating my mom’s birthday this month, we are also celebrating the release of her first published book, My Porcelain Doll. This book is special to our whole family because it details the cancer journey of my sister and how our family fought alongside her. This week it is finally available on Amazon (My Porcelain Doll), so if you are interested, you can buy a copy now.

Lobster Mittens

Published on by kountingsheep
 

Yes I did finish the Lobster Mittens. Although it seems weird to be knitting mittens in the summer, they are actually an ideal project because they don’t take up a lot of space or cause heat stroke to work on them. Also, mittens make me look forward to cooler weather (which won’t happen until November), although it did strike me this week that since I won’t be getting up every morning and driving to work, I may not get as much use out of mittens as I’m used to, since my hands won’t be exposed to the cold morning air as much anymore.

Regardless, I still love mittens, so here are my new ones for this year finished:

{Lobster Mittens Pattern by Spilly Jane
Size 0 needles
Started 22 June 2013
Completed 23 July 2013
Modifications include shortening for my small hands
and doing a plain thumb because I like plain mitten thumbs.}

I’m taking a break from knitting mittens for a few weeks probably, and then I’ll be back to knitting them again to continue preparing for Christmas gifts. Also my husband will be getting a pair of gloves before the weather turns cold, since he will actually be getting up in the early mornings to work, so stay tuned for when I begin knitting my first ever gloves with fingers!

Photo Friday: Lobster Mittens

Published on by kountingsheep

 I can’t explain why I love these mittens so much. I don’t even like lobsters, either to eat or as cute companions. But when I saw the pattern for these mittens, I had to make them for myself as my new pair of mittens this upcoming winter. First mitten is done, and I’m about halfway through with the second one. Sometimes I just can’t explain why I knit what I knit.