Singin’ those Forest Canopy Blues

Not because I’m unhappy–

but because my Forest Canopy is now blue!

Here’s your regulation blocking shot:

(just for Cookie, the dimensions are 68 inches by 36 inches; definitely no Icarus! but substantially bigger than the original Forest Canopy shoulder shawl)

and another Preteen modeling shot.

(She may be 12, for a bit longer, but she’s 5 feet 4 inches, so makes a good model when I can get her to acquiesce. Sometimes…. )

It’s not quite as vivid a blue as it looks in some of these pictures; the photo below is perhaps a little more accurate. A little.

The green stripes certainly don’t stick out any more!

Though, in the light, you can see the green, but it’s subtle. It looks almost peacock-like, in a way.

So, here’s the story.

Being lazy efficient in my actions, I did not block the shawl first as so many of you very sagely advised me to do. I pinned it out firmly as if it were blocked, in one area, and still saw only green stripes.

Right about then, I got an email from ISE 6, looking for angels for a few people who had never received scarves. I have three scarves on the needles right now, including the one you saw the other day, which is going fast when I let myself work on it. So I volunteered.

The person I got assigned to ‘angel’ is a crocheter, who however loves knit items. She admitted in her questionnaire to a longing for lace, and in fact shyly asked for a lace shawl if there was any chance of such a thing. Her favorite colors are jewel blues and purples, and she doesn’t like too much variegation.

K. I don’t QUITE need to be hit with a bolt of lightning to get it! Let’s see — should I overdye the lace shawl that I’m about to cast off, overdye it blue as I was fretting and fussing about doing anyway, and make someone who’s been waiting way too long for their swap scarf, very happy? Or should I knit a scarf from (almost) scratch that won’t, given the interests of time, be a lace scarf or shawl? Remembering that Forest Canopy was started primarily to use up this raffle prize yarn, and keep Nora company, and had no designated recipient (it was probably going to be for me, but Wendy’s Kay’s shawl is DEFINITELY (I think) going to be for me, so how many shawls do I need?)

So, decision made. I dyed it perhaps more of a jewel sapphire blue than I otherwise would have (I otherwise probably would have re-overdyed it with a bit more green or black to tone it down a bit; I did put in a bit of purple with the sapphire blue); had to do Jennifer’s cat p— trick (read halfway down in the link to find out more!) to get the excess dye out, then stay up way late last night blocking; but I think and hope it will be just what the jewel-tone lace-loving scarf-lacking swapper will like.

Now to find a couple other treats to send her, but that’s the easy part.

Boy, am I happy to have that decision made, and the shawl all done! Not all blues are sad blues, you know — and the blues are one of my favorite things to play and sing.  Get out that big dreadnought guitar, a nice low key like A, and I’m good.

Here’s to singin’ the blues!

A Thousand Comments are Worth…

. . . a lovely skein of hand-dyed yarn?

(Somehow, I’m not sure that’s quite how the saying goes.)

Anyhoo, Astrid is the lucky 1000th commenter, and let me tell you, she knows from lovely skeins of yarn; go check out her etsy shop, Damselfly Yarns, with wonderful hand-dyed yarn and roving.

So, although it seems like mailing coal to Newcastle, Astrid will be receiving a skein of hand-dyed, hand-painted yarn; and although she likes all colors, as befits a yarn aficionado, she expressed a current desire for the green/blue/purple end of the spectrum.

Since we here in Wisconsin are suffering from a serious green deficit, I opted to select a skein from the WonderStash in greens with a bit of blue (for good luck, hoping to see some of both here some time this year). And I wanted to send Astrid something she couldn’t get just anywhere, so she’s getting something different and unique (here you go, this will surprise her as much as anyone, she doesn’t know yet):

A skein of yarn from a fellow Etsy artist but with an entirely different dyeing style, Meg of Twisted Fiber Art; Colorway “Karma”, a Mutating Variegated pattern, in “Playful” yarn base, superwash Merino fingering weight yarn. Meg’s yarn and colorways are SO much fun to knit up that I keep knitting to see what’s going to happen next!

I hope you enjoy it, Astrid!

Wheere Be Dragone?

Did you notice what wasn’t there in my epic weekend account?

I had planned to cast on for the intriguing and complex “Heere be Dragone” shawl, for the Gothlet, on her birthday.

The sad truth is that, not only was the day just packed (as several of you commented! and that was leaving out skiing with the church group as the Gothlet also wanted to do!), but I awoke with a migraine which got worse with the day and the driving, so by the time the birthday dinner was done, all I could do was lay down with even more drugs on board. It hung over into the next day too, part of why I feel so far behind, I suppose. (I didn’t miss work, but I left all things that did not HAVE to be done, undone. But they have to be done sometime!)

Perhaps I’ll start the shawl next weekend, when I have a knitting weekend planned (yes, yes, I know, didn’t I just have a knitting weekend? Well, not really, it was a talking to knitters and talking about knitting and letting the Gothlet play at the MOA and driving around weekend! Very little actual knitting happened, unfortunately!)

But I can show you the yarn, having finally gotten a decent picture of the result of overdyeing (which I’m happy with).

First, before:

Kind of a muddy purplish-brownish-reddish color.

After:

This is just what I hoped for, a semisolid saturated purple, so dark that it’s almost, but not really, black. I’m happy, and I should have more than enough of this lovely suri alpaca laceweight. Now — all I need to do is start the shawl!

In other breaking news, liquid water was spotted in the wild yesterday.

Alert the media, if you would be so kind.

ClearAndCold

…go together this time of year like knitters and cats, like books and tea, like cocoa and peppermint schnapps (okay, maybe that last is just a Midwestern thing).

Not that I approve, you understand. It’s frickin’ February — time for a February thaw! But around here, you know when the snow rolls through, that there’s a good chance of a cold front right behind — with some accompanying sunshine, at least. I had to take a picture just now, because I may have to remind myself what blue skies look like again soon.

You can see the chimney smoke going straight up from the house across the street; a good sign; the wind has died down so the wind chill warnings have been downgraded from this morning, when I walked to church in -31 degrees F windchills (colder in Minneapolis, though, it usually is). It never did get above -3 today, though.

So a good day for drinking hot beverages and knitting! There were a few other things to do, but I did make visible progress on my brother’s Printed Circuitboard Fingerless Mitts (that’s the name of the Yarn Nerd colorway, in case anyone is wondering!). They should achieve FO status, or very close, tonight. Here they are, chillin’ on the front porch (literally chillin’).

I did a little yarn dyeing this afternoon too: some of the same sort of lovely suri alpaca yarn that became the Wedding Pi Shawl. It was a murky brownish-purple to begin with. (I’ll show you before and after pictures once it’s all dry and reskeined.) It’s for the Gothlet’s birthday next week. Since she appreciates hand-knit gifts, and lace, and soft, fuzzy, warm things (what a treasure of a daughter!), I am making her this very special shawl.

Since I think it would be impossible to knit something like this for someone you live in the same house with, when you are a busy working mom, in less than, oh, two years or so, the Gothlet already knows about it (I also decided before putting months of my life into it, that it behooved me to make certain it was really something she liked — even though I was pretty sure — so I showed her the pattern and asked). (Gulp! While Googling pictures to show you — the shop pictures are smaller — I ran across Fleegle’s blog entry that said, as she was starting this, that this was about the hardest lace project she’d ever knit. She’s a master lace knitter. Hooboy.)

So: I will ceremoniously cast it on, on her birthday! With the newly much more purple suri alpaca yarn. I’m excited about it. Not that I don’t have many other things on my needles and in my head (I have to sit down and chart my EPS cardi and watch Meg’s DVD, before that big project can get going, for example), but this looks like new lace techniques to me and is rated “challenging”, which I take as — a challenge! No promises, no pressure, about when it’s getting done, but this should be a fun ride.

(Fleegle said it was hard. Wish me luck…)

Loving the Mail!

No, not the mailMAN! (We have a female mail carrier these days, anyway, not my type; though the UPS guy that always used to deliver was a good-looking redhead!)

Here was my mail last night:

which contained this:

and THIS:

(knitted, beaded wire flower, artfully posed against the tree reflection on the hood of my car. Apparently, a blue-black Saturn is not a bad backdrop when needed!)

and most especially, the reason for it all, THIS!

Although a nice dramatic background, I know you want to see this gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn bigger, so here you go, briefly hanging out on what’s left of our snow:

Can you read the colorway names? Cranberry Sauce, and Brrrr! I love, love, love it! And them!

These are so what makes me happy in colors — rich, vivid jewel tones, mmmm.

Thanks so much, Bridget, my swap partner in the Hand-Dyed Yarn Swap!

What welcome color during this gray-brown, foggy, melting, weird January Wisconsin weather! Thanks, I definitely needed that. Off I go just to feast my eyes on it again.

Peppermint to Autumn

The Transformation of the Suri Alpaca Laceweight.

So I bought this yarn on eBay. . . .

Some stories that don’t end well, start this way. This is not one of those stories. Although it is not without its own drama.

Some Cherry Tree Hill Suri Lace mill ends were up for auction on eBay, about the time I was on a roll buying yarn on eBay (it can be addictive). Suri alpaca is the rarer form of alpaca, though becoming more common as this breed is increasingly being raised in the United States and elsewhere. Suri fiber is longer and more lustrous than the more common huacaya alpaca fiber. This particular Cherry Tree Hill yarn normally comes in 50g hanks, 440 yards for about $26. These mill ends were naturally less than full yardage, being mill ends, but respectable lengths, and totalled, if I remember correctly, about 7 oz (almost 200g!). They were, however, ‘potluck’ dyed in red and pink. Not perhaps the most alluring; therefore, I bought them for a relative song. I thought the colors might grow on me, or when I dared, I might try dyeing the yarn (I was a dyeing neophyte then).

Well, the colors did NOT grow on me. All I could see when I looked at the yarn was melted Peppermint. And I was not in the mood for Melted Peppermint Lace at that point. So, after some initial Kool-Aid dyeing successes, I dared to overdye the alpaca laceweight with fairly concentrated orange Kool-Aid. It turned out intense, but improved, to my way of thinking. Sorry, no picture, this was pre-blogging.

I put the red-orange yarn away, waiting for the right project. I did have my red-headed friend who loves orange in the back of my head. I did not love orange in the past, necessarily, but I really liked this deep orange interspersed with warm red. Is it that when you dye something, it’s kind of like your child and you can’t regard it objectively? Although I certainly am aware of those areas where my children may be less than perfect. And I would certainly hope if I dyed something truly fugly, I would be cognizant. I think so. But be that as it may, although the orange/red-orange thing may not be to all people’s tastes, or even always to mine, the yarn pleased me more than peppermint blotches.

When I found out about my friend’s engagement, I did think of this yarn immediately, as the suri is a special fiber and would be worthy of a wedding gift. But I also had started the Mystery Stole 3 in an off-white laceweight with pearly gold-centered beads, which would make a lovely wedding stole. And I didn’t know if she had a wrap already in mind/bought/on hand.

So first I asked if I could make her something of the sort for her November wedding.

Yes!

Then I asked if she wanted a stole — a narrower, more dressy wrap to go over her shoulders — or a larger shawl.

She would love a larger shawl, to cozily wrap up with in the future, so that it wasn’t a one-time only dressy sort of thing.

OK. White or off-white — or color?

In colors like the wedding colors — her favorite — would be awesome! Fall colors of orange/red/gold/brown.

I had already been plotting a Pi shawl in the recesses of my brain, so this clinched it — a large circular shawl in the Suri Lace, which I had plenty of, was destined to be. But as I thought about a wedding shawl, the colors seemed a little too brightly intense; and I didn’t trust the Kool-Aid not to fade or transfer.

So, now having dabbled in acid dyes, I decided to overdye the orange/red with a little subtle brown. I had Jacquard Acid Dye in Chestnut. I put what seemed like a small amount in my newly-designated dyeing kettle, along with lots of water and some vinegar, and plopped in the hanks.

Whoa! It started to turn significantly brown a little faster than I anticipated! It was in the dye bath all of about 60 seconds before I whipped that puppy out of there. It looked pretty good, maybe; hard to tell wet. Because it hadn’t had the simmering time to set, I microwaved the yarn a few times to heat set the yarn.

Then I rinsed the yarn. And rinsed the yarn. And rinsed the yarn. And rinsed the yarn. It kept bleeding color every rinse — hard to tell if it was red or orange (didn’t look chestnut). I microwaved a little more. And rinsed the yarn. And rinsed the yarn. I used up the brown dye bath on some KnitPicks Bare worsted, and filled the dye pot with clean water with vinegar and simmered for 30 min. And rinsed the yarn. And rinsed the yarn. Seriously, I must have rinsed 15 to 20 times. And every time, there was still red/?orange coming from the yarn. Was this Kool-Aid? Though typically, after microwaving, I had not had any color leakage. Was this the Cherry Tree Hill red, red being notoriously not colorfast? And — HORROR — those lovely long suri fibers were starting to mat together — the Yarn Was Starting to FELT!

(There’s the drama. Okay, I know it’s not what some would think of as drama. But imagine if you have almost 2000 yards of the perfect yarn for your friend’s wedding shawl and it all felts and can never be truly recreated — I can tell you, my heart rate went up!)

So I stopped rinsing and pressing, let it cool and hung it up. And brooded. Did I take the chance that the yarn might not be colorfast? The rinse water was a lot less red by the 20th rinse. But on top of a white wedding dress; maybe a little bit of perspiration bridal glow after dancing; can you imagine if my shawl turned the wedding gown orange?? What to do??

Well, not long thereafter, I had a passing correspondence (about yarn I had ordered) with Jennifer of VanCalcar Acres. I knew she had been so kind as to help Astrid with a dyeing question. So I ventured (a little reluctantly, I hate to presume on people’s kindness and professional time) to ask if she would be willing to give me any advice. She was and she did!

Give the yarn a bath with ammonia added to the water to flush out the excess dye; repeat if necessary; then rinse gently followed by a short soak with vinegar to neutralize the residual ammonia. (What Jennifer refers to as the “Cat P—” part of the dyeing process.) She also suggested re-skeining the yarn to separate the fibers that were starting to think about felting.

Ooh, just doing that (and I wouldn’t have done that on my own, I don’t think), allowed me to see how lovely the yarn was looking. The process was slightly involved and intrigued the cat greatly; first, winding from the swift,

to the ball winder,

then back to the swift.

Before re-skeining, again:

After re-skeining.

This is pre-ammonia, so a little redder than it turned out in the end.

Now the ammonia bath. Look at all this color coming out!

I did need to repeat the ammonia treatment, but eventually the rinse water was clear, Clear, CLEAR!

Hooray! I’m not going to ruin the bride’s dress after all!

Now, I could finally get designing and then knitting. And, as I said yesterday, this yarn is heaven to work with. It’s subtly lustrous, almost as though it has silk blended in (now I realize that that’s the long, lustrous suri fiber); soft, and resilient. And the colors make me so happy; rich, deep, toned down a bit by the variegated Chestnut, and blending beautifully as they knit up.

Autumn on my lap.

I am the Color of….

Corn?

Well, I can see that, and it’s very close, but that’s not precisely what the yarn is intended to be.

A sunflower?

Ditto!

How about straw at harvest time?

Close, but not today!

No, I, the yarn,

am

“‘the color of wheat, the color of corn’ . . . the pale golden amber of ale.”

I am BEER!

At least, that’s what the master dyer and the designer had in mind.

The yarn and project are for Oktoberfest socks! (Follow the link to see, I don’t want to borrow pictures without asking.)

This was the Perfect Birthday Present for my father, whose birthday always falls near the beginning of our local Oktoberfest celebration, who is German/Irish, and who loves beer!
Now I had every intention of showing you an FO (does one sock count as an FO? In my book, yes!) But as it is, I have only a WIP, and not much of one at that:

(My foot, not the recipient’s, hence a little big.)

You know, besides my eternal optimism, life interfered; for example, I had people over at my house this week, which necessitated hours of cleaning, which could have been spent knitting.

And I restarted the sock three times; once because I goofed up, next time after I realized the recipient’s foot was not as big as I thought it was. Third time was a charm.

And then I was e-conversing with the Tsock Tsarina, the designer of the sock, and mentioned that I was going to try to find a less lacey but still barley-cornish pattern stitch to replace the barley eyelet, since the recipient wasn’t an eyelet kinda guy. She returned with a brand new stitch pattern that she invented specifically! It looks great (well, the stitch does, my execution and photography may be a little lacking. You try doing a close-up of a sock that’s on your foot! Oh, wait; some of you have!) ; )

And this is the first short row heel I have been completely, utterly happy with (no holes!)

and it looks like grains of barley, too

which was the designer’s idea, I am certain. I have learned a number of things from this project, besides the un-holey short row heel, and I will pass them all on for your knitting enlightenment when I have an FO (or two!) to share.

Well, the last reason I don’t have an FO to show, or even much more of a WIP, is that not long ago I was putting dishes away, having just washed my hands, and a heavy bowl slipped out of my hands as I was putting it away. It apparently rebounded as it broke and sliced my knuckle fairly nicely. Fortunately, it just missed the tendon. I definitely need both hands to knit and to do what I do at work! And because I was busy holding pressure on the laceration, I couldn’t even take my knitting to the ER!! Talk about frustrating!

Before and after (I’ll spare you hand pictures):

The people in the ER were all very nice and quite efficient, considering, though (and I know the doctor who sewed me up), so I am all put back together with minimal restrictions. But the Manly Barleycorn (working title only!) stitch pattern requires some tension on the needles to do, and it was causing my cut to be unhappy in several ways, so I am going to stick to easy-peasy no-needle-manipulation-required for a few days, I guess; to whit, this:

I seem to be starting a tradition of not-quite-finished presents for my father, whose birthday it is today! A year or two ago, it was a cardigan which took a seemingly inordinate amount of time to finish. It was meant as a birthday present, then ended up as a post-holiday present. Then I had to take it back and re-do part of it to make it fit better. It would probably also help if I could stop being impelled to alter any pattern I come across. . . . there is a certain amount of frogging inherent in that approach.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Dad!

But my father is leaving today for a two-week trip to Spain and Portugal with friends, lucky retired guy, so after making him try on the WIP for a fit check (useful *before* finishing the rest of the foot and the other sock!), I now have a couple weeks to finish it. Good thing, too, being somewhat knitting-impaired currently.

Hope your weekend was less eventful than mine! Or at least in a different way!

Oh, before I forget, here’s yesterday’s Saturday Sky — before it Rained On The Parade (the Oktoberfest Maple Leaf Parade and my children, that is):

Hey, a few years ago it was snow on the parade, so rain is not so bad! (I can say that, of course, I wasn’t out in it. Though I did send my children with warm clothes and raincoats and an umbrella, despite the fact that the forecaster had apparently not recently glanced at the radar and kept denying the possibility of rain. Moms know these things. Or at least can read a radar image, eh?)

What Color Am I?

I have been musing about color lately, only egged on by Margene’s post today about the very same subject.

One of the questions in the color meme that she has posted, is whether your favorite color has changed over the years.

I may do the whole meme at some point to explore color more, but that particular question just played right into my musings already in progress.

My favorite color certainly has changed, but what I find even more interesting is that my color dislikes have shifted and greatly decreased. I am much more tolerant of many more colors than I used to be, and see beauty in almost all. I personally don’t wear pastels, but they can be lovely in the right combination, for example. Or brights, which I used to abhor, can really perk up a knitted object or possibly an outfit.

And my least favorite color of my past leads me to my ‘color object lesson’ and to the stealth knitting project on which I am currently working.

No detailed photos, therefore, for obvious reasons, but here’s the scoop.

I used to dislike yellow as a child. Pretty intensely, actually. I distinctly remember writing a poem about yellow in elementary school in which I described it as a “mean” color.

But, I ask you: how could anyone dislike this?

Rich, subtly variegated golden yellow. Mmm! (Well, I suppose anyone can dislike anything, chacun à son goût, but believe me, if you saw this yarn in person, you’d be mesmerized.)

So here’s a poll:

What does this make you think of?

I know what the fiber artist & designer intended it to evoke, so I’m biased; but I’m curious about what it reminds you of.

Leave a comment and let me know!

(P.S.: a couple blog readers MAY know the yarn and its project. If so, don’t spill the beans in your comment, the future recipient could possibly read this blog!)

Little Black Rain Cloud

OK, I totally blame Teej for putting this little Winnie the Pooh song in my head. It’s been an earworm ever since I read her post about the flooding in our corner of the world.

“I’m just a little black rain cloud, hovering over the honey tree; Only a little black rain cloud, Pay no attention to little me.”

It’s raining AGAIN. Houses have slid onto highways, gazebos out of back yards, the bluffs are trying to fall down, rivers are at record levels — and it keeps raining. The soil is so saturated that water is seeping in basements that it never gets into usually. My own family is fortunate at the moment, but not so for many friends, family and co-workers.

Here are a few snapshots of what’s been going on in Southwest Wisconsin and Southeast Minnesota.

Can’t Stop The Rain: All I can do is knit and pray for all the people affected, and those who have lost loved ones.

So here’s some rainbow knitting, for the rainbow we hope to see after the storm:

This is a ‘beauty’ dishrag for Dj, who sent me the lovely lacey circular dishrag I showed you a few days ago. Our DishRag Tag team wanted to ‘pay it back’ as well as forward to our wonderful Cotton Commando team members, so decided on our own to knit (non-competitively!) a second dishrag for the team member who knit one for us. So this is mine for Dj, which I will mail tomorrow along with a treat or two. Made with the famous ballband pattern and leftover yarn from assorted other dishrags. I do like it. I didn’t like weaving in all those cotton ends, but I do like the ‘end’ result! (Pun not originally intended, but hey, there it is!)

And some more color for you and me on this dreary day:

My fellow Cotton Commando, Marcia who has no blog, saw some of my experiments with Kool-Aid dyeing on these very pages and was inspired to try her hand at it. She sent me pictures. Oh, my! Her results are astounding! And she’s actually knit with her dyed yarn, which puts her ahead of me, other than maybe a skein or two. She gave me permission to share her photos and comments when I asked. Look at this!

Here’s details:

And here’s Marcia:

Here are all of the different samples of dyed yarn I have tried so far. A few are samples that were wound in a loose skein and laid in a 9×13 pan, then dye dribbled over the yarn. The small blue/red sock was done this way. The starting yarn was a heather tan. I got brave and decided to see if over dying would work on a darker yarn. I used a bright clear blue and used the lemon-lime and grape on the two ends. I also tried it on a burnt orange yarn by using strawberry and mango for a subtle change. I have yet to be disappointed.

The other pic is the small sunflower sock for Emily. The yarn for the flower was another experiment. I crocheted the yellow, then painted the dye on with a paint brush and set the piece in the microwave as usual. That worked too. I then took the yarn and frogged it for use on the flower. I knew that I was going to use it in very small I-cord and needed it to be colored close together in tiny spots. Dying a quantity of yarn for a sweater would be a different matter.

The scientist in me wants to explore all the possibilities, and I look at solid colored yarn in a whole new way. I feel freed from the constraints of what I have on hand to create with, thanks to you. I think I was afraid of the process. That it was going to be too involved, and maybe a bit hazardous. The best part for me is the surprise that happens when it is knit, and how it changes like your pair of socks. It is always a mystery and a motivation to keep moving on with the project.

That first pair of socks I knit in the pink and mango are on display at the quilt store I do samples for in a town not far from here. They carry some yarn and we have a knitting group that meets there on Wednesday. I had the privilege of teaching the entire staff how to knit when they decided to carry yarn in the store. My biggest thrill was sitting down with yarn reps and actually picking out the yarn.

We have been amazed at what Kool-aid can produce, and if it isn’t quite what you like it can be over-dyed. By the way, the bright red yarn was dyed on a Wednesday knit group day on an antique table at the quilt store. All the ladies and staff held their breath while I went through the process of changing cream yarn into bright red/pink strands (cherry-2pkgs on the bottom, pink lemonade – 2 pkgs over the top, and strawberry over the pink lemonade). It was like a magic show. Very effective for keeping everyone on the edge of their seat…daring too.

Paton Classic Merino Wool and Lion Brand Wool were used for all the samples. Lion Brand needs very little soaking in water and dyes very well. Paton Merino has to soak a bit for it to accept the dye. Colors used for base starters: Cream, Maize – a cool yellow, and light tan – heathered. All muted looks were made with the tan or the yellow. One more note…check out the way other dyed yarn that you like looks and try to re-create the look or the color combination.

Can you believe that’s all Kool-Aid dyeing?! It is just awesome. I just recently dabbled in ‘acid dyes’ (which sound awful, but are actually non-toxic, and are only called acid dyes because they require vinegar to set the color) to be able to have a wider color palette; and had an awful lot of fun. But I had blue stains various places for quite some time. Kool-Aid is definitely easier, stains not as long, and look at what someone like Marcia can do!

One more bit of yarn enjoyment:

Here’s the Yarn Pirate Booty I received Saturday, which I nobly refrained from tearing into immediately, until the dishrag was knit:

BFL! BFL! This month’s Booty Club Booty was Blue-Faced Leicester yarn, about the softest wool I know of, which reputedly does not pill like merino does, due to longer fiber length. Oh, I love the softness and the colors! Pet, pet, pet.

And precious little mints, too cute to eat, and a sticker which I am thinking long and hard about the optimum place for. Too cool.

OK, one last bit of color as it’s now dark out (boy, these days are getting shorter fast!):

Yesterday’s garden as the rain ceased for a bit.

This really is this purple, and a little beaten up from what it’s been through in the last week.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled yarn programming….

So, while I was blogging this week at length about our recent trip –

some fiber-related activity has been taking place behind the scenes!

First, I have knit here and there, though some of it has not been documented yet.

But I finished the Gothlet’s socks, which I’m dubbing the Jellybean Socks:

I gave them to her to try on, before even weaving in the ends. She didn’t take them off for the rest of the day. I guess she likes them! Now, as I wove in the ends, I realized the ‘wrong’ side doesn’t look too bad either!

We’re so conditioned to stockinette that this looks wrong, but it’s really kind of cool! And there are socks which deliberately place the foot in reverse stockinette, as it’s smoother to walk on with the knit side in. The Gothlet is my sensitive one, so perhaps she’ll like it that way. The socks are finished so as to allow either side out. Now I have to wash them, since they got a bit dirty from the extended try-on!

I knit away on the Preteen’s Fern sock, and am on the homestretch. Of course, that’s only with one; but I was working the kinks out with the first, as I designed it on the fly; now the second should be quicker. That is, if I can remember what I did. The Preteen asked if she could model them for the blog when they’re done…. oh, I guess so, if you’re good!

I was involved in yarn other ways than knitting this week: as part of the Hand-Dyed Yarn Swap, I have worked several days this week on a very special skein of yarn. I regret to say that some high-falutin’ ideas I had had, did not work out; though I will try again sometime. But I am very happy with the skein I dyed for my pal. I will wait to post pictures until she receives it, but it went out in the mail today!

So here are some other hand-dyed skeins; the first was my failed experiment, which I overdyed subsequently. When I have the emotional energy (it’s just all TOO much right now), I may tell the whole sad story. But the rest of the skeins are not mistakes, just dyed using left-over dye, and I kind like ‘em!

(Close-up)

Above, dark teal sock yarn; it’s just fine, rather pretty, but I had initially tried for something else.

KnitPicks sock yarn dyed using the leftover teal, for a pale turquoise effect, slightly variegated on purpose.

Worsted weight wool which originally was an eBay acquisition, a Potluck from Cherry Tree Hill, but was just very pale cream to slightly tan; not very distinguished. Overdyed with a blue/black, it came out really cool, I think!

And last, perhaps my favorite:

Bulky KnitPicks Peruvian wool dyed with some of the last of the dark blue. There are two skeins here which of course, given the erratic dyeing, are different intensities, but if I knit both in the same project, I will alternate skeins and I think it will look fine. This reminds me of winter here, on a cold clear day in January when the shadows on the snow are blue and so is the sky. (Brrr!)

Speaking of blue sky, there was none of that in today’s Saturday Sky; here it is, just about to rain.

Good day to stay inside and blog and pack.