Working the Warp

I've dyed a few (6) hanks of yarn using Kool-aid and Acid dyes so the next step was trying to make my own self-striping yarn. I love the way the color changes when you're knitting it and it entertains me for hours. Before making my own warping board, first I did some research to see if it would be cheaper to just buy one already made. I couldn't find one available anywhere. So then I read Scouts Swag, saw her warping board that she made, and decided to try my own version. So I went down to home depot and got some supplies.

A Pegboard...


Some stuff to make the peg board last longer...

And the things to wrap the yarn around...

I used the anchors to push through the holes of the pegboard, then put the 4" long nails through. It's pretty sturdy. I decided to use the peg board because of the non-power tool factor it provided. I was able to use the neat little toolkit under my kitchen sink to put the nails in. One of the things I noticed when I was putting the nails through, was that they were very dirty and because of their composition, were going to get anything they touched dirty. It was a grey film-like substance that was left on my hands and towel. So I wrapped the nails in saran wrap before wrapping the yarn so I wouldn't have to worry.

I knit up a 1.5" long swatch in the round using 60 stitches and measured how long it took for one round of knitting. I used the rest of the rounds to double-check my work. So I put the nails exactly one round apart. So however wide I want my stripes, I just have to wrap the yarn that much around each time. I decided to go for 10 wraps around each nail for each stripe. I'm doing 3 stripes, pink, grey and charcoal. I'm not quite sure how the transition from each stripe is going to look because I have not had a chance to knit this up, but it's going to be one of the next things I do. I have more ideas about what kind of color combinations I want to try but I want to see how it actually comes out first when knitted.

This was the final product and I just can't wait to see what it looks like. It's Knit Picks Bare, Silk Fingering weight and I haven't used this before. It feels really nice.