Announcing the new Complements Collection

You know Kristin Omdahl… crochet and knitting designer extraordinaire. She’s been published in Interweave Crochet, Crochet!, Vogue Knitting, Crochet Me, the Vogue Knitting on The Go series, and much more.

Kristin has just released a new collection titled Complements Collection: featuring 13 designs in knit and crochet featuring yarns from Bijou Basin Ranch.

I’m delighted to take part in Kristin’s blog tour… and am happy to have snagged an interview with the fiber-artist-queen, herself!

Scroll down to the bottom of this post to find out how to win your own copy of the newest collection… I’ve got one to give away!

Meet Kristin!

Your best known for your fabulous crochet designs… tell me, how long have you been crocheting? How long have you been designing?

I taught myself to knit and crochet within a month of each other 10 years ago when I was pregnant with my son and living overseas. Due to the lack of my access to patterns, I began designing shortly after learning both crafts. They say necessity is the mother of invention and I couldn’t agree more! :)

Your new collection is bi-craftual… both knitting AND crochet designs! When did you begin knitting design? How long have you been knitting for?

I’ve been designing in both crafts the same amount of time. The first two freelance proposals I sent out were of each craft. I wanted to see if I would be given a direction of which craft to pursue, but when both were accepted quickly, I took it as a sign I should pursue both. I have been designing and working in both ever since. More of my books are crochet (4 crochet and 2 knit) 2 of which are in production, but in the freelance area (magazines and yarn companies) and my own digital pattern collection on my website, Ravelry & Craftsy, my designs are pretty much 50/50 knit and crochet.

Are there certain types of designs/techniques where you feel more drawn to knitting? More drawn to crochet? What do you see as the strengths of each craft?

I adore lace in knitting very much. And I think knit lace is gorgeous in any weight yarn. In crochet, I am also drawn to lace, but prefer thinner yarns. I love crochet motifs very much and love them in any weight yarn.

How do you feel knitting & crochet has changed over the past few years? How does the strong internet presence of sites like Ravelry and Craftsy affect the publication process?

I entered this business in the onset of the online scene, so I can’t actually compare the before and after. However, I think the presence of sites like Ravelry and Craftsy are very powerful tools for independent designers. I am very grateful for their contributions to our industry.

What’s your typical day like? How do you balance ‘work’ crochet and ‘fun’ crochet?

Ha! Unfortunately, I very rarely have time for recreational crochet or knitting. I won’t call that ‘fun’ crochet or knitting, because I actually have fun with the work knitting and crochet, too. But, I do think it is important for me to have hobbies too, and that can be tricky because my work is considered a hobby. So, I find a small amount of time each day to play my piano or guitar, and exercise is an important part of my life, too.

Where do you feel most inspired while designing? What’s your workspace like?

I feel most inspired in nature, whether it’s my front yard, the beach, the park, walking down the street and admiring the landscaping in my neighborhood. Where ever – it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m outside, I’m happy and often inspired by something. My workspace is a very small part of my apartment. I don’t have a dedicated office, but due to the fact my work is so portable, I am able to change it up daily. Sometimes I work in my apartment, sometimes in my yard, and I often take it on the go.

What’s your favorite fiber to work with?

There are a few. My first ‘love’ was the first time I felt alpaca yarn. But I have also come to love silk, cashmere, yak, merino wool and mink. I am definitely partial to natural fibers.

How big is your stash?

My stash is several large rubbermaid tubs big. Unfortunately, it is the left overs from work projects so there isn’t much of any particular yarn. I should write a book of stash busting projects and use it up once and for all! I don’t like the clutter of having so much yarn around. It feels very overwhelming to me.

Any new fiber arts you’re itching to learn?

As soon as I have some free time, I’m itching to work in jewelry making. Anything from knit and crochet jewelry to beading to anything I can afford to try. Down the road, I would love to explore furniture making, too, because I have a strong urge to ‘paint a geometric canvas’ with mosaic tile. One of my dreams would be to make garden/patio tables and design geometric, mosaic tile designs on the table tops.

If you turned into a skein of yarn, what color(s) would it be and why?

I have no desire to be turned into a skein of yarn. LOL Sorry! I’d much rather be turned into a mermaid if I can make that kind of wish.

What’s the most yardage you’ve ever used in a project?

The most yardage I’ve ever used in a project is 2500 yards. I’ve done it twice – once for a gigantic knit lace shawl and once for the full length crochet gown in the current issue of Vogue Knitting Crochet May 2012. That one was with mercerized cotton and a 2.25mm crochet hook!

You can only eat 5 foods for the rest of your life. What are they?

Ooh, this is a tough one! Steak, chicken, good Parmesan cheese, red peppers (raw and roasted) and pink lady apples.

Want to catch more Kristin? Here’s the blog tour schedule!

May 1, 2012: The Yarn Thing Podcast with Marly Bird

May 2, 2012: Yarn on the House

May 3, 2012: Ellen Gormley, GoCrochet.com

May 4, 2012: Shannon Okey, www.knitgrrl.com

May 7, 2012: Carol Sulcoski

May 8, 2012: Carol Feller

May 9, 2012: Amy Shelton, Crochetville.org

May 10, 2012: Drew Emborsky

May 11, 2012: Wendy Bernard

May 14, 2012: Annie Modesitt

May 15, 2012: Robyn Chachula

May 16, 2012: Simona Merchant-Dest

May 17, 2012: Stacey Trock

May 18, 2012: The Sexy Knitter

May 21, 2012: Stephannie Tallent

May 22, 2012: Faina Goberstein

May 23, 2012: Romi

May 24, 2012: Laurie Wheeler

May 28, 2012: Rebecca Valasquez

May 31, 2012: Vickie Howell

Giveaway!

Want to win your own copy of the Complements Collection? You can!

Leave a comment (including a way to contact you) by Thursday, May 24th and I’ll randomly select a winner. Hooray!

Welcome to a new episode!

It’s been an eventful week for me… and a trip down memory lane! I spent last week at my grandmother’s house and inherited some lovely old crocheted afghans. They’re amazing and I want to care for them so they’ll keep lasting! So, this episode is dedicated to advice for taking care of heirloom crocheted items (plus some stories about my adventures!)

The Episode

Here’s how it works: Below, you’ll see the player that allows you to play the episode. Or you can Download this episode (right click and save) to listen to it on the go. If you’re an itunes user, you can also grab the episode on itunes.

Below the player is an outline and list of links to products/websites/things I chat about during the episode.

Hi! (00:00), How Stacey lost her desk (00:57), The Mission in Maryland (04:47), The Deer Head (05:34), My Crocheting (09:35), Merle’s Crocheting (12:13), The Dining Room Table (14:55), Photos (17:05)

Photos (no links, here!):

My Grandparent’s backyard when they moved in:

Merle’s Afghan:

Me and Merle’s Afghan

Great photo of my Grandfather:

Feature topic (19:13), Basic Steps for Caring for Heirlooms (20:34), Repairing Damage (21:32), Determining the Fiber and Caring (29:40), Storing (38:38), Wrap-up (39:58)

• Guide to getting rid of moths
• How to test Fiber (by burning)
• Eucalan Wool Wash

Please leave comments!

I want the Crochet Chat Podcast to focus on issues and items that you’re interested in… so talk to me about it! Please leave any suggestions, comments or ideas in the comments section of this blog post. I read them all!

Love Crochet Chat?

If you’d like to donate a little something to support the podcast, please do! There are monthly hosting fees required to keep this podcast running… so your help is much appreciated!

The Yarn

I’m using a superwash, fingering weight yarn that I bought from A Verb for Keeping Warm:

What drew me to this yarn is that it was hand dyed with mushrooms! Don’t you love that?

The Needles

I’m a huge fan of my the 9-Inch Circular Needle… so much so that I bought a size 1 circular to add to my collection!

The Pattern

I’m using Churchmouse Yarn’s Basic Sock Pattern, a well-written pattern that contains instructions for both fingering and sport weight socks.

It’s a lovely cuff-down version, which means I can work on the cuff while I’m out and about, without looking at the pattern!

I’m doing a 2×2 rib for the cuff, and I think I’ll keep the rib going down the top of the foot… I like that look!

That’s what I’ve been up to this week! Have you been up to anything exciting? I hope you have an awesome Wednesday, and get some great knitting/crocheting done this week!

If you want to check out more Work-In-Progress posts, please check out Tami’s Ami’s Blog, who’s been organizing a great WIP Wednesday blog theme! And, don’t forget to come back for FO (Finished Object) Friday!

Which one is my favorite? I can’t choose! I’m absolutely in love with snails, so Martin is a front-runner:

But… how can you not LOVE a ladybug?

I even had a little fun and crocheted a JUMBO ladybug (using the same pattern, but chunky yarn), and I’m smitten!

And of course… aren’t caterpillars a classic childhood favorite? I crocheted the sample in orange and green, but any color combo (or even a rainbow) would be awesome!

This e-book also includes the pattern for a super-cute mosquito:

And a slug!

They’re fun and require only single crochet, increasing and decreasing. And they’re sure to be a hit no matter where you take them (trust me, I know!)

So what are you waiting for? Grab your Cutie Crawlies e-book, now!

Did the tutorials about dyeing your own yarn get you inspired? How about winning some fabulous yarn that to can dye ’till your heart’s content?

The awesome folks at Knit Picks want to spread the love of dyeing yarn so much that they’re offering a fab giveaway!

You can win 3 skeins of Bare Gloss Fingering… that’s 1320 yards of merino and silk yumminess! (see below for details on how to enter).

The silk gives this yarn a fab sheen and the combo of silk and merino means it’s nice and soft. It’s from Knit Picks ‘Bare’ line of yarns, meaning they’re undyed and just waiting for you to add color! And with over 1300 yards, you’re only limited by your imagination…

In case you need some inspiration…

You can check out this week’s awesome Kool-Aid dyeing tutorials!

• Getting Started with Kool-Aid Dyeing
• How to Kettle Dye with Kool-Aid
• How to Dye Multi-color Skeins with Kool-Aid
• How to Dye Long Colorways (aka Self-Striping Yarn) with Kool-aid, part 1
• How to Dye Long Colorways (aka Self-Striping Yarn) with Kool-aid, part 2
• How to Ply Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn for a Barber-pole/Marl Look

How to Enter

To enter:

• Leave a comment on this post telling me what you’d do with this yummy yarn! Please be sure to leave an email/Ravelry name so I can contact you!
• For an additional entry, tweet: “I just entered to win some delish yarn from @KnitPicks with @FreshStitches! You can enter, too: http://bit.ly/Jvks3K”

The winner will be selected this Friday, May 18th at 11pm EST via a random number generator.

What are you waiting for?

You can’t win if you don’t enter! Good luck to you!

This giveaway is open to everyone… inside and outside the US!

And a huge thanks to the folks at Knit Picks for being super-awesome supporters of knitters, crocheters and dyers!

In case you missed it…

I’ve posted tutorials for quite a few ways of using Kool-Aid to dye your yarn! If you missed them, don’t worry… here’s a wrap-up:

Click on any of the following links to zip to the tutorial!

• Getting Started with Kool-Aid Dyeing
• How to Kettle Dye with Kool-Aid
• How to Dye Multi-color Skeins with Kool-Aid
• How to Dye Long Colorways (aka Self-Striping Yarn) with Kool-aid, part 1
• How to Dye Long Colorways (aka Self-Striping Yarn) with Kool-aid, part 2
• How to Ply Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn for a Barber-pole/Marl Look

Check out what I made!

While I made a few knitted & crocheted swatches for Dye Week, I couldn’t wait to get started on a project! And since my favorite technique is dyeing the long colorways, I started with that skein, first!

Check out my socks!

EEE! Don’t you love it! In retrospect, I might have dyed smaller sections to get narrower stripes, but I’m not complaining… I think these are super-fun!

Show me what you’ve got!

I wanna see it!

Share your experiences with Kool-Aid dyeing in the comments section!

Better yet, write a blog post showing off your awesome yarn, and share the link in the comments! Then we can all see what awesome work you’ve done!

Today, I’m going to show you how to get great barber-pole yarn by plying already dyed yarn!

Remember how we dyed multi-color skeins? Now we’re going to go one step further! I learned this technique in Spin Off Magazine, and had to give it a try!/p>

Materials

You’ll need:

• A ball of multi-colored Kool-aid dyed yarn (I showed you how earlier this week), wound in a center-pull ball
• a Spindle or Spinning Wheel

The Process

We’re going to ply our already-dyed yarn together… and it results in a great effect!

Step 1: Start plying!

Pull one strand from the center and one from the outside of your ball:

This way, you’ll always have two strands of equal length!

And then, begin plying! I’m using my spindle…

That’s all!

Swatches

This yarn is beautiful!

The advantage to this technique is that it obscures some of the ‘splotchy-ness’ that can happen with the simple multi-colored skein. Here’s how it looks in knitting and crochet:

Having fun?

I’ve been having a blast showing you new techniques for using Kool-Aid to dye yarn! I hope you’ve been enjoying it! Come back tomorrow to have a peek at some projects!

If you missed it, check out yesterday’s post to catch up. I’m in the middle of showing you how to get a fab yarn like this:

And we left off with our yarn in bowls, like this:

Okay, so let’s keep going!

Step 5: Completely dye each section

When you’re dyeing lots of pieces, you want to make sure each part soaks up the color. You might need to use a spoon (or your finger, if you don’t mind an orange finger) to press the yarn into the water:

Here’s where we are:

Notice that there are little bits of white yarn between the bowls? If you leave those, you’ll have white between each stripe. So, to get rid of those, gently dunk each bit into a color:

Step 6: Rinse

(from here on, the photos get a little crappy… since I had to re-locate to the bathroom. Sorry!)

Now you need to rinse and squeeze water out of your yarn. This is harder than it looks… you can not just dump all your yarn out, or you’ll end up with a tangled mess!

You need to lift out each section gently (this is the time-consuming part I warned you about!) and place in the tub (since it’s still soaking wet):

Remember, the goal is to avoid tangles!

Now, begin at the start (the center of your first ball), and wind your yarn around something large (I’m using the lid of a storage container). As you wind, you can squeeze the extra water out with your fingers.

If you’ve been careful, one ball should go right to the center of the next ball… and tangles will be avoided.

Avoid the temptation of using a ball-winder, here… the yarn needs to be in a skein to dry completely.

When dry, you can wind it up:

Are you going to give it a try?

Isn’t it fabulous? Don’t forget that we’re all going to be flashing our Kool-Aid projects on this Sunday’s blog post… so I want to see what you come up with!

Today, I’m going to tell you how to dye yarn go get long colorways, or self-striping yarn. It’s the technique I used to get the colors for this shawl:

Don’t you love the stripes? It’s a time-consuming technique, but in my opinion, well-worth the result! I’ll be showing you the technique over two days, since it’s a lot of steps… but follow along, because I know you’re going to want to try it for yourself!

Materials

You’ll need:

• yarn made from natural animal-fibers (undyed is best), wound into a center-pull ball
• a few packets of Kool-Aid (see yesterday’s post about testing colors)
• a glass bowl or dish for each different color
• boiling water

The Process

Like I said, this process takes quite a few steps… but none of them are very difficult. Besides, you already know all the basics!

Step 1: Add packets to your bowls

You’ve seen this step before! Add your color to your bowls… in this case, I’m doing orange and blue stripes, so I have a bowl for each:

Add boiling water to your bowls.

Step 2: Divide up your yarn

Remember I said to wind your yarn into a center-pull ball? (You may want to have a ball winder or read here how to hand-wind a center-pull ball)

That’s because a center-pull ball will make it super-easy to divide up your yarn into small sections. I’ve used dividers to mark off where I want each color to be, but you can eyeball it, if you’d like.

Step 3: Dye the first section of yarn

So, here’s what do to… pull out your first little section of yarn, and put it in your first color:

Keep in mind that the size of this section will determine your color repeat! So, if you pull out 20 yards, your stripe will be 20 yards long. If it’s bigger, your stripe will be longer.

Step 4: Continue dyeing each section

Now, pull out the next little bit and put in your 2nd color of yarn:

Continue doing this with each subsequent section of yarn.

And keep going…

Things to keep in mind:

• It sounds obvious, but the order that you put your yarn in colors is the order they’ll be in the yarn! I’m using 2 colors and want alternating stripes, so I’m putting a ball in blue, then orange, then blue…
• If you want do use more colors (like the shawl I showed at the start), then plop one ball of yarn in your first color, the next in your second color, then your third…
• The length of the stripes you want depends on what you’re knitting. If you’re making socks, then the color repeat doesn’t need to be as long as it does to get stripes on a shawl.
• It’s very important to not get your yarn tangled. Be careful, be neat… and just don’t get it in a knot!

Okay folks… we’re only halfway through. I’ll give you a sneak peak of the end result:

Come back tomorrow, and I’ll show you how to finish up!

Today, I’m going to tell you about how to dye those multi-color skeins you so often see from Indie Dyers! It’s a great chance to play around with color!

I’ve dyed my skein red, orange and yellow (and left a little bit white!). I’ll show you how to do it, plus show you how to calculate the length of the color repeats that you’ll get in your final yarn.

Materials

You’ll need:

• yarn made from natural animal-fibers (undyed is best), in a skein
• a few packets of Kool-Aid in any colors you want! (see this post about testing colors)
• a glass bowl or dish for each different color you’re using
• boiling water

The Process

Step 1: Prepare your color

Remember how I told you last time that you had two choices for setting your color? You could either use boiling water, or regular water and then microwave the yarn. Since this technique requires dunking sections of yarn in different posts of color, I’m going to recommend the boiling water technique. It makes life easier… and we all want that, right?

To prepare, mix your Kool-Aid packets in boiling water… one color in each dish.

Step 2: Dye your first section

In this technique, you’re starting with a skein of yarn (you know, that big yarn loop?):

Chances are, if you’re purchasing undyed yarn, it’ll come this way. If not, it’s no big deal. Just wind it around a box and make your own!

To dye your first section, dunk a part of the skein in your first color:

You can dye as much or as little of a section of the skein as you want, but keep in mind that the more colors you want to use, the smaller each section will have to be.

Step 3: Keep going!

Now, dip an undyed section of your skein in your next color:

In my yarn, I try to keep the dyed sections from overlapping- which will result in a nice, crisp color changes!

Keep doing this for as many colors as you want to use!

Step 4: Rinse and let dry

Hooray, you’re done!

Determining Color-repeat Lengths

This technique is great for getting lots of colors, but it doesn’t result in very long lengths of color. You can tell this when I wind my yarn into a ball:

So, how do you tell how long each color repeat is going to be? By measuring your skein!

Here, I’ve laid out my (dyed) skein, and set a ruler to the length of red:

My length of red is 12″ long.

I know from experience that when I single crochet, I use 1.8″ per stitch. This means that using this yarn, I’ll crochet about 6 stitches before the yarn turns to a new color.

This is helpful info to know when planning a project! It means that using this technique, you won’t get stripes, but small puddles of color. (Tune in tomorrow, where I’ll show you how to get stripes!)

You can alter the length of your color repeats either by dyeing larger/smaller sections of your skein, or by winding your skein into a larger/smaller loop. The possibilities are endless, so give them a try!