Pumpkin Spice Crocheted Pumpkins

 It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post. I am sorry.  I have written some in my head but never got to the keyboard.  Life, you know?!  I expect you are just as busy.  Last week on The Country Wife From Vermont YouTube channel I spoke of things coming to a head with a need to let some things drop off.  I am sort of doing that.  At least I am deciding to let some things become lower priority. I feel like that will help me regain my sanity...and even improve my health!

In the meantime, it is now Fall.  Fall is pumpkin season. And apple season.  Here are some crocheted pumpkins I recently made.  They still need their stems but they will come soonish, I think.

These pumpkins have the same number of stitches in them, just different thickness of yarns  (worsted weight and super bulky weight) and different size hooks...5 mm and 10 mm hooks.  You will likely turn up your nose at the colors...I do. I don't know why I chose those yarns...oh well.  I think maybe crocheting with a single yarn might be better. I have one of those on the hook currently but I started with one size hook and then appear to have changed size hook...making a very funky looking piece of work.

This pattern is a Brianna K Designs pattern.  She gives it out for free on her blog but if you want the pattern stripped down to just the pattern and not a hundred advertisements, it is available on Ravelry.com.  If you go there you will note that it says the pattern is also available for free...info in notes.

For these pumpkins I crocheted 19 chain stitches  to start and went from there...with 9 of the wheat stitch panels.  This is a very easy pattern once you get the hang of it.  When working with one color at the beginning I did get off track but now having successfully crocheted two of them, I believe I will be able to stay on track with succeeding ones!  Give them a try.

Stovetop Lichen Dyeing!

 The last batch of lichen that a dear friend harvested for me has been used!  Since I have a jar of lichen fermenting in ammonia on the deck I decided to try stovetop dyeing with lichen.  I am so happy with the results!

Here you can see two bits of Lonk sheep fiber.  The one on the back was stovetop dyed with white mushrooms.  Made a nice light creamy beige color.  Not really impressive.  The front fiber, however, makes me very happy!  It was dyed with lichen.  I am pretty sure I mordanted with cold water alum then, after heating the lichen to simmering for an hour, letting it sit overnight to cool, then added the fiber.  I brought the fiber up to simmering for an hour then shut off the heat and let it sit overnight.  This glorious color is what I found when I pulled it out of the dyebath.  I think I will try again and see if an exhaust bath works!

The Finest Kind Sweater Designed by Alicia Plummer is Coming Along!

In a past blog post I think I mentioned that Dear One asked me to make him the Finest Kind Sweater.  I have been working two or more rounds a day for all summer.  Finally yesterday I finished the right front section and worked a three-needle bind off to put the two shoulders together.  The first try I managed to bind off both fronts together instead of binding a right front to a right back etc.  Oh well.  So I took that bind off out and did it properly the second time!

Next thing to do was to knit the collar which I did when we came home from the FamilySearch Center.  We had patrons in the Center last night and enjoyed helping them.

Here is a photo of the shoulders stitched together correctly.  Dear One tried it on and the sweater fits!

Here is the collar.  Not a great design in my view but that is what is called for so I did it.  Finished it late last night.  No ends woven in yet.  

Hopefully today I will start picking up stitches for the first sleeve...

Crochet with Knitted Borders Baby Floor Mat

 Lately I have been making baby floor mats.  These are "blankets" that are not large enough to wrap around a baby but which are perfect for putting on the floor and laying a baby down on to have a space between baby and floor.  I have made several.  This time I started making a crocheted rectangular blanket but found my hands wore out way before the blanket was big enough.  At that point I decided to add some knitted borders.

The first set of knitted borders was a disaster!  The first problem was that I tried to do a mitered corner.  It was late in the day and I was not thinking.  Mitered squared DECREASE at one corner so decreasing at four corners was the wrong thing to do.  Next I had added two stitches at each corner on either side of the actual corner stitch.  This made a TERRIBLE corner!  

After working five colors of knitted bands and knowing absolutely that it did not work, I pulled all those knit stitches out back to the crocheted rectangle and picked up stitches again.  This time I only added one stitch at each corner. It is not ideal but it worked out sort of okay.  Well enough that I am going to give it to the new baby this week.

Tomorrow I will make this baby floor mat one of the finished objects I speak of on my YouTube channel video. In case you are interested, that channel is The Country Wife From Vermont.  I will see if I can link the channel here.

As you can see from this photo, which is poor I will agree, but also there are issues.  One thing I did learn from this project is that when you are knitting garter stitch blankets and you are starting a new color, you absolutely must add the new color at the right side of the project.  Otherwise you will get colored blips where you do not want them! Oh, well. I have a pretty high tolerance for error.  Especially if fit is not an issue.  You can see the light blue blips on the first dark blue garter ridge round.

Who Is This Skeleton?

 The neighborhood skeleton has changed clothes again!

Who do you think he is this month?  I am thinking possibly back-to-school guard?  

Make a guess and let us know!  Thanks!

Mushroom Dyeing Results!

 The first part of this year's mushroom dyeing project is complete.  It is a complete success!  At least I am so happy about the results.

The quick story is that I put about 7 grams of wetted Lonk sheep fiber into the pot with the mushroom dye-bath and let it simmer for an hour then shut off the burner and let everything cool down overnight.  The gold-y orange color is beautiful.  Well, my husband doesn't like it but I do!

Since that worked so well I put four 7-8 gram pieces of Lonk fiber in a bowl with cold water with 10 percent alum dissolved in the water and let them soak 24 hours.  Some people say 24 hour, others say at least 4 days.  Well, I went with the 24 hours.

After rinsing the now pre-mordanted Lonk fiber, the fiber was put into the dye-bath and brought to a simmer where it sat for one hour.  Turned off and let cool down overnight.  This morning I pulled out the fiber and dried it off somewhat.  

This is the results:

The fiber on the left is the un-pre-mordanted-with-alum fiber; the one of the right is mordanted.  There is a difference.  The fiber with mordant is a brighter color.  I am so pleased!

So pleased that I went back out to the new fairy gardens on the lawn and picked a bag of white mushroom tops.  They are Agaricadeae mushrooms according to Picture This app. Since they are white I have no idea if they will do anything but I am going to put in a plain piece of fiber and a mordanted piece of fiber tomorrow, simmer one hour, then let cool.  I will let you know if we get different colors!

By the way...I believe the orange mushrooms are Suillacaeae.

Those Orange Mushrooms As Dye...

Today was a very busy day.  Those orange mushrooms in their own fairy garden that I showed you yesterday were calling to me.  I was so afraid the weather would change again and I would be unable to harvest them and turn them into dye....so after supper I went out with my stroller (to keep me upright!), a cardboard box, a 5 gallon paint strainer bag, and a pair of garden gloves that I put on before I picked even one mushroom.  

Since I do not know specifically if these mushrooms are safe to handle, I felt very strongly about not touching them.  When I got to the lawn I found that multiple mushrooms had already started molding and going by.  I did not collect them.  I will let them go back into the ground from which they sprang.

Even though these mushrooms are on our own lawn, I still did not harvest them all.  When I had about as many as I though I should collect, I went back into the house, emptied one of our dye pots--a nice stainless steel pot with a glass cover that is ONLY USED for dyeing, even though it is only natural dyestuffs I am currently using--and after cleaning the pot I filled it about 2/3 full of water then set the bag of mushrooms into the water and set the burner heat to medium low, covered the pot, then went to my wonderful VERY elderly blue platform rocker to do some knitting for a while.  (After about four rows I realized that I had forgotten that I was supposed to be decreasing every other round.  Rats!  So I took out those rows and decided to check the dye pot until I recovered my equanimity after that faux-pas...)

The wool fiber I used to put in the pot as a sample was 5.6 grams of Lonk Wool.  Yes, Lonk!  Look it up.  ("The Lonk is a British breed of domestic sheep. It belongs to the group of black-faced hill breeds of northern England.)". 

So I lifted the bag out of the water to see if there was any color.  About 30 minutes had passed so I was pleased to see a sort of dark brown-y orange liquid...SO I put the bit of Lonk fiber in the pot.  In another ten minutes or so I will turn off the heat and let the mushrooms and wool sit together overnight.  I look forward to morning!!

This is the pot with the paint strainer bag and in the top of the pot, that little non-bag hump-y looking thing  is the fiber.  I repeat: I look forward to the morning.

++++++++++++

On a totally other subject:  today I was serving with a friend in the FamilySearch Center.  I spent most of my time learning rather than forwarding our family history.  I started with the front page of The Family History Guide. There are a number of short videos that I watched then moved on to click on a link, then another, then another.  THERE IS SO MUCH THERE! (Actually thousands of articles and links, etc)  If you think you don't know enough about doing family history research, this is the website for you.  If you think you know all there is to know about doing family history work, this website is for you!  You are wrong!  There is so much more.  SO MUCH.

I won't tell you about what I learned because it is all still swirling around in my brain.  Suffice it to say that this website is a wonderful blessing to everyone who goes to it...from the rankest beginner, even if you have not even begun family history work...on up to the most certified credentialed researcher.  Later on this year I believe we will begin holding The Family History Guide workshops...not classes because no one can know all that is there.  We will work on family history together starting with projects and goals, and moving on one step at a time.

By the way:  The Family History Guide is not an app to download; it is a free website accessible via your own device.  The Family History Guide also allows you to work through the projects, goals etc with the focus you want.  Let's say you have an account at FamilySearch, a totally free global family tree website....you can focus your work and projects on FamilySearch.  Perhaps you have purchased an Ancestry.com account, or acquired a free account...you can focus your learning on Ancestry.  You can also focus on FindMyPast or MyHeritage.  So great!  I am so enthusiastic.  I was part of The Family History Guide many years ago when they first started (2015!) and even then I knew it was a good thing.

That is it for today!  Mushroom dyeing and The Family History Guide!  Two very different things but both a big part of this day.

Best wishes to all.