Easygoing Knit Swoncho

I saw the Easygoing Swoncho online recently and love how this looked. It is a combination of a knit poncho and sweater (hence the name, Swoncho). I like the look of most ponchos, but they just don't look or hang right on me and I tend to fiddle with them as they slide off my shoulder or twist somehow, ugh! Plus, how to you carry a bag/purse with a poncho? Under the poncho? It won't fit over one very well, at least not on me. This Swoncho looks a bit like a poncho, but behaves more like a pullover sweater and I love that! It has normal sleeves, not those sleeves at the forearms with the huge gap under the arms! I don't think I would like those, even though I never ever tried one on before.

This was an easy knit too, a huge bonus for me! The only thing I had to change is the length of the sleeves and only because I knew I didn't have enough yarn to knit to the wrists or even 3/4 sleeves, which is what I prefer. I wasn't sure when to to stop knitting, since I had to knit 2 sleeves and didn't want to run out of yarn on the second sleeve. I ended up with a small amount of yarn leftover, but it would have only added 1/2"+ to each sleeve if I had known in advance that I could have knit a bit more on each sleeve. I need to try this on now that it has been blocked and see what I think of the sleeve length on me. I quickly tried it on before blocking it and it hits about my elbows on the sleeve length. I used my hand dyed yarn that I dyed myself years ago. I used a double strand, since this was thinner weight yarn than the instructions called for.

If I love how this looks and feels on me (and that still needs to be determined), I might try making another one with the longer sleeves and using up a lot of my various leftover yarn amounts, blending them in as I knit.

Knit with 2 yarns held together throughout that I hand dyed myself.

Center stitches down front (back and sleeves also have this same stitching).

Bottom edging closeup.

Sleeve closeup.

Find the FREE pattern on Cascade Yarns HERE.  Thank you Cascade Yarns for this free pattern!

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Herald Knit Shawl

I knit this shawl/scarf a few months ago. I purchased the pattern on Ravelry during a Black Friday sale. It is called Herald Knit Shawl, designed by Janino Kallio. It was easy to knit and I enjoyed knitting this while watching movies or shows on the telly. I used some Merino wool sock weight yarn that I had hand dyed several years ago. I knit until I ran out of yarn, so my shawl might be a bit shorter than the pattern. Merino is a soft wool and the only wool I can wear against my skin and not itch. Most wool I itch from, but Merino is the only exception I have found that I can wear.

Fanny here is modeling the many ways to wear this shawl~

Worn like a scarf here.

With a shawl pin.

Bandanna style.

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Hand Knit Socks Made From My Hand Dyed Yarn

I dyed several skeins of sock (fingering) weight yarn last year. I knit a scarf using some of the yarn I dyed that you can see here. I just finished knitting these pair of socks. They came out great and I love how they feel and fit. I knit the cuff first and then I added a nylon thread along with the yarn and held them together to knit the heel to the toe. The nylon gives added strength to the sock yarn in those places that might eventually get holes. I used a gray nylon thread so it makes the rest of the foot look kind of heather looking.

The entire foot is knit with the added gray nylon held together with the yarn. The foot looks a bit lighter because of the addition of the gray thread. At least it does to me in person, lol!!!

I knit the cuff with the yarn I hand dyed. It's a rib knit of knit 2, purl 2.

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22.5 Degrees Knit Scarf

I knit this scarf using the fingering yarn (from KnitPicks) that I hand dyed myself at the end of summer. The scarf pattern I used is called 22.5 Degrees and is a free pattern on Ravelry by Martina Behm. It was easy to knit. I am currently working on knitting a few different scarf styles using different yarns.

The knit edge is knit on after the rest of the scarf is knit. There is a link to a YouTube video on how to knit the edging and I found it helpful to watch the video first and then it was pretty easy to knit.

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Hand Dyed Yarn

I dyed several skeins of fingering (sock weight) yarn. One skein was 100% wool, the rest were 75% wool 25% nylon. 3 of the skeins were superwash, meaning you can machine wash the yarn without it felting and shrinking, 5 skeins were not superwash. It was interesting to see how the different yarns took the dye. I added yellow dye first, then turquoise dye, next magenta dye and finally royal blue. I used a squirt bottle to squirt each dye in random places over the skeins of yarn that were lined up inside a plastic tub. As each dye was applied the colors combined to also create some purple color, green and orange. Most of the yellow disappeared as the other colors were added. I should have made sure the dye absorbed all the way through the skeins, because I ended up with quite a bit of white yarn that the dye didn't reach. Overall I am pleased with how the yarn dyed. It's always a gamble when dyeing yarn or fabric. The yarn really drank up the dye very quickly too. I see a sweater, some socks and a scarf in my knitting future using these yarns.

This yarn is 75% wool 25% nylon. It is not superwash.

All 8 skeins of yarn that I dyed.

This yarn is 100% wool and not superwash. I don't remember if this skein was on the far end of the plastic tub that I used when dyeing the yarn and took the dye differently because of how I applied the dyed or if it's the fact that it is all wool?

I dyed 2 of these skeins. It's a superwash 75% wool 25% nylon blend and there are little flecks in the yarn.

This is 75% wool 25% nylon superwash yarn. It's like the one above only no flecks.

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