Birthday Sweater time is almost upon us!  This year the decision was an easy one, as I was the winning bidder on  a sweater kit at the fund raising auction for my son’s middle school. Now this was not just any sweater kit; this kit was going to include custom dyed yarn by my friend and fellow soccer mom, Kate.  I looked at the kit as any knitter would.   Needles:  Got ‘em. Pattern: Own it. Yarn:  Two big hanks of bare Cascade Eco-Wool: Easy enough to find on my own. Custom-Dyed? Now, which kidney can I hock to get my hands on that?  Fate and an apparently knitter-free crowd of bidders combined to make the kit mine, all mine! It has been such a fun process. Here are my color inspirations:

This is Kate, who let me photograph her for the blog like the great sport that she is:

This is Kate’s book of samples:

Kate uses Dharma Fiber Reactive dyes on her fibers, including wool. I am very new the dyeing lingo, but my understanding is that acid dyes are often used for wools, and the fiber reactive dyes are used for plant-based proteins, such as bamboo and cotton. Kate makes adjustments and uses the fiber reactive on both kinds of fiber, and I must say the intensity does not suffer at all.  Voila’!

Kate teaches dyeing and weaving classes at Multnomah Art Center and I am hoping to take a class from her soon.

As for the Birthday Sweater, I was thinking of keeping it simple with a top-down raglan sweater to highlight the wonderful colors. I am also looking at Shalom (Rav link), which I think will also be a good choice for this yarn. Here’s the Non-Rav Shalom. Either way, bring on 44 – I can’t wait!

More blog fodder…

Saturday was the Tigard Knitting Guild Shop Hop. It was also my mother-in-law’s birthday, so we celebrated by hopping all over the west side, visiting Molehill Farm, Dublin Bay, Knit-Purl, Northwest Wools, and All About Yarn. They are all great shops and we had a marvelous time. How could we not when every shop offered us 20% off on everything? The raffle and goody bags were a delightful bonus.  I won a $25 gift certificate to Molehill Farm five minutes before we pulled into their parking lot.  I felt like it was my birthday, too.  Next year, we want to go on the east side tour, and that should give me enough time to save my spare change. Here’s the loot.

You can click on the links for more information.

1. Knitting 2009 055, 2. Knitting 2009 054, 3. My first Koigu, 4. Spinner’s Web laceweight, 5. Sea Wool sock yarn, 6. Ty-Dy sock, 7. IK swag – I have felt this way at times, 8. The rest of the TKG Goody bag

Still cheaper than dinner and a movie!