Make It With Wool and a few other things...

As promised here are the results from the Colorado Make It With Wool 2018 contest.

Glory and I started out early, 0545 am on our way to the Adams County Fair grounds in Brighton, Colorado.  I was about a 2 hour trek from Deer Trail and it was raining.  Thankfully we made it to the pavement before the dirt road became muddy.  There were breakfast pastries and juice awaiting our arrival.
We were ready.  The others arrived and Gloria gave us the run down for the morning.  Get dressed and while you wait your turn for judging please work on the puzzle and take the sheep test.  I learned a lot from the sheep test and the puzzle was of gummy bears which we all received a packet of.
Here is Glory all ready for judging.  She had a low number so got to be done quickly, but she did have to go in front of ALL the judges because she entered a knitted piece.

I got ready and was in the middle of a pack of 12 ladies.  Talking to the judges was so much easier this year.  I don't have a picture of just me in my outfit, but here is one of both of us in front of the restaurant, Senior Ric's in Aurora.

Neither of us placed to go to Nationals.  I did get 3rd in my group and was top knitter.  We received some great flowers and gift certificates for participating.  As top knitter I received a $25 gift certificate to Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder.  I plan to go there later this month.  Look at this rose, isn't it amazing!

These last 2 weeks I completed my sweater, the leg warmers in the picture, 2 dishcloths, socks, did some dying and killing.  I will go step by step through the killing processing that I did, but I am going to save everything else for future posts.

Killing is the process for blocking acrylic items.
You will need either a steam iron or garment steamer, blocking surface, tape measure and rust proof pins.
Spread out the item on the blocking surface and pin if needed into the desired finished size and shape.

This is a finished blanket that one of the ladies in my crochet group asked me to finish for her.  I decided it needed killed before I did the embroidery.  I have spread it out on my blocking surface, which is a child's play mat covered with a sheet.

Here is a shot of my steamer on the stool so that the hose can reach farther.
Do NOT touch the piece with the iron or steamer as it could burn it.  After you have passed over a section do NOT touch it at all as you could squish it completely.  Acrylic is a type of plastic, so killing partially melts the fiber into its new shape and as it cools it will stay forever; even after washing.  I did wash this piece before I began, because any dirt on it when you kill could become permanent,

Here you can see how close I am to the surface of the blanket but not touching it.
After you have steamed the piece, leave it to cool for at least an hour.  It can then be handled and used.  Killing often makes even the softest yarns even softer.

Here are some pictures of the shark blanket I finished a couple of weeks ago.  H Bomb was much happier to pose for this than the unicorn.

I have started to crochet a doll, which I am proofing the pattern for as I go.  I have also started Robbie's gloves for his birthday, again another pattern and tomorrow I'm hoping to jump full into Mom's birthday shawl.  Yes maybe another pattern.  It has a symbol in it that is possibly copyrighted and I'm not sure what to do with it, we'll see.

In my next post I will share about dying, both wool and cotton.  In the wool dying I will be discussing how to use acid dyes, make notes and get repeatable results.

Happy Stitching!