Hardcore knitting!

[Annchen]

I don't know about you, but I'm a little hesitant to knit without a pattern... Well, other than scarves and such things. 3D-knitting is a bit scary and I'd rather have some guidlines to help me.

Well... I overcame that fear. After knitting Death of Rats I felt a bit more comfortable. I wanted to make a dormouse for a craftster swap and the DoR pattern seemed like a good enough starting point. I ended up modifying the head and making it shorter since I wanted a rounder, cuter look. The body was entirely free formed, I think I casted on the same number of stitches as in the DoR pattern, but that's it. I used shortrows to make it curl up a bit and just played around with increases and short rows until it looked right and then decreased for the bottom. So much fun!

The arms, legs and tail are i-cord, the ears are knitted wit tiny needles, the eyes are small black beads and the whiskers are black thread. She's tea dyed to get that great orange brown colour.



Some pictures from when I dyed her is in my journal.  

[augusteir]

thats really cute!!!  

[Rune and Raccoon]

Man! I wish I had something as cute as that to share...but alas I do not.  

[knitting_needle_ninja]

Adorable!  

[Delirium K]

that is cute >w< good job  

[AriRashkae]

Cute mousey! He wouldn't last here. wink  

[DecemberFlower]

Tea dyed? Tell me more. :O  

[caffinated_tulip]

Adorable!  

[Annchen]

Thanks! redface I'm glad you like it.

Tea can be used to get a antiqued look on lace and things like that, but it also works to give a bit more colour (apparently). I joined a tea swap on craftster and that's why I even thought to try.

To do this you'll need to waste some orange pekoe ceylon tea. wink It has a lovely orange-brown colour and will look very nice on the right fiber (I have no clue what I used, but I think it must have had wool in it). Black tea could work too, but green is probably too weak.

What I did:

I took some leftover tea from the day before (I think it was different kinds of green tea most of the times I tried) and heated it in the microwave oven. I then added 2-3 heaped teaspoons of orange pekoe. This was very fine tea, almost a powder. Bigger leaves would work, but I'd rather drink that actually.

For the body and head I soaked the top/back part in tea overnight or at least a couple of hours. I made sure they were damp before I put it in the tea. I've got pictures in my knitting journal if you're interested.

To dye yarn I used a shallow microwave safe container and placed the wet yarn in the tea. I then nuked the entire thing and left it for some time. Less time than for the body and head. Nuked things got a much darker colour, and much faster than the soaking method. See teh difference between the head and the paws? Yeah.

The dye is not set at all but stuffed animals are rarely washed anyway... The colour will probably be bleached if she's left out in the sun too. I'm a bit of a novice so I just tried soaking yarn and knitted items in tea and crossed my fingers. There's probably a better way to do it mrgreen  

[Annchen]

teaneko

Let me get this stright, you dyed the yarn with tea?

Yup. Really, really, REALLY strong tea blaugh

Oh wait... I also got some tea dyed yarn in that swap. It's dyed with tea and hibiscus tea (or hibiscus infusion since there's no real tea in it).

Here's a picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apchen/1673618707/

I think it's cotton, but I'm not sure. It really depends on the yarn how much colour it will take. You can get everything from a slight hint of beige to rich reddish brown.