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.

200 Blocks in 200 Days

Published on by kountingsheep1 Comment

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I’ve been crocheting for a long time, which means that I have some finished projects that I am not especially fond of now years later. Some are because I don’t like the color combos I originally chose, some are because I wasn’t the best at finishing and weaving in ends in my early years of crocheting, and some were projects that I just never liked the finished result. So I decided that I wanted to reclaim the yarn from some of these projects and create something new that I will love. And that is how this new project was born: 200 Blocks in 200 Days.

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I have had this book, 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton, for many years now and have made a few blocks from it. However I tend to pick and choose my favorites and ignore the rest. In order to push myself to use every pattern from this book, I want to challenge myself to crochet a block a day, starting with the first one and going straight through the entire book. I will be using mostly scrap yarn, and I anticipate making one possibly two blankets from all these squares.

I would love for others to join me in this adventure. If you are interested in joining, click “Follow This Blog” in the sidebar (or if you are reading this mobile, scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Follow button), and then feel free to post your progress in the comments of my weekly update posts. You can also follow me on Instagram, as I will be posting my progress there too. Feel free to use hashtag #200blocks200days to share your progress on Instagram! You can find a copy of Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks on Amazon here: 200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws, and Afghans: Crochet Squares to Mix and Match

Photo Friday: Fiber Frenzy

Published on by kountingsheep

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It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Photo Friday, so now that I’m getting back into blogging, it’s time to resurrect this feature. For those who are new followers, Photo Friday is basically a mini blog post that just focuses on one photo from that day or week.

For today, my photo shows the white wool that I dyed four different colors that will now become colorful rolags. I can’t wait to see how these will blend together.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Tour de Fleece 2013

Published on by kountingsheep

I wasn’t sure if I was going to participate or not this year in the Tour de Fleece. Last year my plans got interrupted when I started dating this one guy, who, you know, became my husband. I guess that’s a pretty good excuse not to spin. But this year, I didn’t have any excuses, so I’m using this opportunity to finish up some languishing spinning projects.

First up was some black merino lace singles that I had begun spinning on a wheel at the yarn store that I was trying out for an afternoon. I plan to get some more merino so that I can get another bobbin full and then 2-ply this lace yarn. For now, I have one bobbin finished with 2 ounces of fiber.

The next one to tackle was my project from last year’s TdF, my Tea Party Phat Fiber samples. Surprisingly, even though I had forgotten what my original plan was, when I read last year’s post about it, I ended up doing exactly what I had in mind. I was able to finish the singles today and I will be Navajo-plying this up tomorrow.

I can’t wait to see how this Wonderland Tea Party yarn turns out, especially since it looks like 3 different yarns as I took progress pictures while spinning; this aptly-titled yarn will definitely be quite the mix of colors and fibers.
 
I’m hoping to finish out the Tour by working on the natural-colored Jacob fleece that I still have half of the hand-carded rolags left to spin up. Pictures of finished yarn to come soon.