I’m taking part in another spinning challenge

on Ravelry. The second annual Yarn Everyday Challenge started April 1. I was premature in getting all excited to spin on March 30, thinking it was April 1. By late that Friday evening, I’d lost all the excitement…I was tired from the work day, lol. But I did manage to eek out the ounce of butter yellow roving sent as a sample by Extreme Spinning. It didn’t want to cooperate with my hurried attempt to spin it up, so I tried making it a nice blob of thick, followed by a regular thin spin. It didn’t like that either. It did make me more determined to spin when I really felt like it instead of forcing the issue, even if I miss a challenge day.

Yesterday (Saturday, April 3), I finally finished up the Enchanted Knoll roving by tightening it up to what I wanted. It looks really good now, and I am calling it Wild Streak in honor of the sections of brownish gold throughout the skein. I think it may actually turn out to be 300 yards, and I intend to make socks out of it.

I still have to soak this skein of blue-green roving spun from fiber given to me by Melanie. I’m letting some spin jobs rest and then I plan to set and wash the skeins all at once, or at least 2 or 3 at a time to save me a whole bunch of processing.  (I hope all the colors are set and don’t bleed out. ) I just had the brilliant thought of winding them all using the swift, tying them off  and spinning them all in the washing machine. I used the washing machine spin the last couple of times I set or dyed yarn…they dry so much faster that way!!!

Jen named the yarn fail I dyed for her sister  “Cherry Harvest.” It’s an awesome and quite appropriate name. She better watch it…I might have her name all the other stuff I can’t figure out a good name for. It’s pretty yarn, just not what I was going for, which totally pissed me off for a couple of days. I think it looks much better in the swatch she made for me. In this picture, it had just been taken out of the spin cycle on the washing machine.

I have another couple of Jacquard dyes coming in a joint order placed by the amethyst cottage group. Hopefully the pink I ordered will be the Neopolitan ice cream pink I was trying to get. (This is Jacquard vermillion, kelly green and “some kind of brown,” chestnut I think.)  I also ordered black, because how could I not, seeing how it’s mostly what I wear? I should have ordered two, because I know I will be trying to achieve the magenta yarn of my dreams. :-)  Plus, if it’s not greenish toned, it will help me darken colors that are too light for what I want.

I had a thought that I could dye and spin goldish colored roving to finish up the black and gold Taliesin scarf.  It’s crazy, but the roving is on hand, lol.

I wonder if Extreme Spinning has some gold firestar I could buy. I probably don’t need to start with that. I’d have gold firestar in everything that wasn’t nailed down, and probably glue it to stuff if I had to. I don’t have an old jar of Modge Podge for nothing!

There’s a “Golden Yellow” in the Jacquard dyes that Melanie gave me and Melissa, but when I was getting ready to mix it into a skein, I added water and vinegar to it and it looked  orange. Really  orange. Like way more orange than yellow, so I totally nixed adding it to anything I dyed that night.  Maybe it dyes much lighter than it looks. There’s only one way to find out.<p>

That night I was dyeing yarn (For Melissa’s birthday, at her house, on her stove) kelly green and a blank silk scarf blue, spruce and teal. I poured a bit of spruce to the kelly green yarn, but when I poured it over the top of the kelly green skein in the pan, it went down the side of the yarn and soaked in just enough to let me know that method wasn’t going to work for me. I think I would need a bigger boiler and some explicit instructions. I think I have a file saved on a thumb drive that tells me how CTH or someone does it. It’s not my favorite method though. I want my yarn to be exactly colored here or there, not whatever  happens happens method. WHH is great when I’m in the mood for winging it, but not when I’m going for a good-looking end result.

I kid you not though, that yarn was GREEN. It was a bold, in your face Melissa kind of green. I made sure she liked it before I gave it to her for her birthday that night. “You sure you like it? You’re not just being nice?” “Fine, can I borrow that” then? Do I have to steal it?” “Happy belated  birthday.”

On the knitting (and crochet) front, I have been having several episodes of cast on and attempt to knit, frog, cast on again, attempt again, frog. Yesterday I was working on a shawl and knit the wrong row, frogged back to the beginning, realized that I was knitting the right ROW, and put it down in a small huff of exasperation. I started back knitting it and am halfway finished with that row.

I had a final “I hate this yarn” this Friday at night knit. I was going to totally pitch it but I put it back in my bag today. Showed it to Jen yesterday and she took it off my hands. I think she’s going to use it in a sock yarn baby blanket she’s making. She needs leftover sock stash; she’s got about 15 pieces of yarn from her sister. I didn’t think to tell her to go on Ravelry and ask for some. I better go do that now while I’m thinking of it.  :-)

The toilet lid is coming along. I think I am 2/3 through making the base. I decided making it the way the patterns calls for the smaller original toilet lid to be crocheted would be crazy making for the larger size. It’s more oval shaped than the rounder original. So I decided I was going to knit it as a rectangular strip from the outside edges in.

I wasn’t thinking it through properly though. I got 1/3 of the way done, tried it out on the cardboard template, and realized that it is now puckering in a not very attractive way. I should have gathered stitches after the first 2 or 3 rows. I am thinking I will do some more gathering stitches so that it will fill out the narrow tip, then crochet horizontally to fill in the rest. I don’t know. I will have to think on it some more. Yet another snag in the long saga that is the bathroom project.

I was just taking pictures to illustrate the problem when I thought, too bad I can’t use the original lid I’d finished crocheting when I found I’d need a narrower lid.

I figured that to keep from frogging  what I most recently finished I could make the edges wrap around the new  lid to ease out the puckers.

If I do that, I can use the old crochet work to fill out the rest of the lid.

So now finishing the base of the lid will be that much faster and I can start the crochet loops this week. Yaayyy!  You don’t know how happy coming up with this idea makes me. I am really, really glad I didn’t frog the old piece when I realized it wouldn’t fit.  I am starting to feel much smarter than I look today now.

Active projects list:

Luiza shawl     Dianna shawl

bathroom set

Soon to be started list:

nutkins toe up style

fair isle purse kit from knitpicks

The knitting for Taliesin is done

All that remains is embroidering stripes into it and finding some buttons to set it off.

I had another late night last night making a plastic canvas liner for my straights needle holder. Not bad for a first-time make-it-up-as-you-go-along knitting project.

I’m working on the Luiza shawls and apparently finding more trouble to get into:

• I ordered the East Meets West satchel kit from Knitpicks, and it’s taking everything I’ve got not to cast on. I’ve also been checking out the EMW KAL board at the Knitpicks Knitting Community. (It’s in the Colorwork KAL thread if you want to look it up as well.)
• I keep wanting to work on the Celtic stole, but never seem to set enough time to do it in. Maybe I can convince myself to start using that 5 a.m. wake-up time for the knitting I want to do instead of spending the next hour or so thinking I will actually get more sleep if Ilay there and pretend I’m sleeping. You’d think after a week of that I would realize that it doesn’t work and never will.
• I could be knitting a swatch for the Evenstar KAL that’s about to begin on Susan Pandorf’s blog, http://www.afewstitchesshort.blogspot.com. She’s writing a whole series of patterns based on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, using movie, book and everything else she can find about it. Evenstar is the first one. There will also be a One Ring shawl, a Ring Wraith shawl (CANNOT WAIT FOR THAT ONE!) and quite a few others.
• I think I am going to spend a few hours tightening the twist on the Enchanted Knoll yarn so I can soak it and block it. That’d be one more thing I can check off the list.

Last weekend, we held a surprise 70th birthday party celebration for my mom’s brother, Uncle Maxie. One more day that everybody was gathered in one place. I think he enjoyed himself. He was smiling and talking to everybody, and had no idea we were there to celebrate him. It’s amazing that nobody spilled the beans.

Also, my friend Melissa was holding an all-day knit in at her house the same day. I made it over there after 8 p.m. Melly came up for the knit in and left us a gift: a dyeing cabinet with several bundles of roving and a set of Jacquard dyes! She had said earlier that she had a surprise for me that afternoon…she wasn’t kidding! Just like Uncle Mike, I had no idea what was coming!

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Things I love (and their prices too):

She also bought a tower of Paradoxicality merchandise. It’s a line of skincare products including sugar scrubs, moisturizers and lip balms at www.paradoxicality.net.

I love the Plain Jane version of the Shea Hand Smoother sugar scrub so much I want to marry it. When I wash my hands with it in warm water, the vanilla smell hits me so hard I want to bake things. (It’s a little more brown sugary looking than this.)

Then there’s the Shea Mousse, a moisturizer good for all kinds of things. I love that it’s unscented and not stinky. It has this awesome texture in the jar, where it starts off as a solid and starts melting with your body heat, becoming an oil mixed with talcum powder. I’ve been using it on my hands, but most especially my feet. That with a pair of socks, day or night, is good stuff! It softens calluses and everything.

I think she made it mostly for spinners so they don’t snag their yarns and what not. I don’t  care. I might not marry it, but I’d definitely consider a little something something on the side.

Oh, the lip balm. I forgot to mention the lip balm. This stuff is amazing! I don’t think she should call it lip balm, because when I hear lip balm I think Chapstick, and that is giving the Shea Suppletint short shrift.

Chapstick’s all waxy. I only like it when I have a split lip and I want a barrier between the split and stuff that burns. But the Paradoxicality lip balm is more like lip moisturizer (I know I’m repeating myself, but I’m apparently short on descriptive words this evening). It doesn’t have a flavor to it, but it moisturizes your lips really quickly and slicks them without being greasy or sticky.

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LSG charm bracelet. If you’re a ravelry LSGer or even if you’re not, go here: http://amethystcottage.com/shop/extra-lsg-charms-p-3426.html and get your attitude on. Some days, these little charms say it all without me having to say a word.

Melissa also does knitting charms and bracelets (Kitchener stitch instruction charms are on my list) and can customize each charm with your own personal pictures or favorite saying. (Note to self: My “Can I borrow that?” saying is going to have to be added to my list also.)

We have been dyeing yarn

My friend Melissa and I got our yarn dyeing creds last night and early this morning.

Her main job: She is the master color mixer. She actually measured things. She then, wait for it, wrote the measurements down. I was in awe, as I am the queen of the rush job. I tend to just dump this and dunk that and hope really really hard that things are going to look okay, and most especially not be ugly).

My main job: last night was being the “Oh, go ahead and do it – it’s not our yarn” person. I think I was more supervisor than anything else lol. I flipped the yarn over, suggested color additions to make variations of the dye, oversaw the microwaving (you know how it is working somebody else’s microwave — “This always worked at my house, I don’t know what’s wrong with your microwave”), and pronounced it done.

The best thing ever: She worked out a sort of cranberry-colored dye for me to tint some laceweight I’d been obsessing over. Woo hoo! Thank you Melissa! The Mama Llama vino laceweight now has a sister laceweight with a cranberry base. It’s still variegated, and just a little deeper in tone than the original. I will do a bit of a swatch when it dries to see how the two skeins go together.

I had massive fear of failure for that particular dye effort going on. The first thing I tried to dye half blue half purple came out so blue, it hasn’t lightened up one bit. No matter what I add to it, it is still blue. Add some yellow. Blue. Add some more yellow.  Blue. Oh hell, since it’s blue, let’s try for purple. Add some blue violet. Navy Blue. Add some more blue violet. Blue. Screw it. I give up. lol

So Melissa took it on and got it to where I wanted it to be. She did a great job. I could totally see her giving a class on dyeing and color mixing. I am going to use the leftover dye on a skein of Bare Knitpicks laceweight sometime next week.

The second best thing ever: It is way cool how the color takes after you microwave yarn that’s been soaking in color for a little while. I thought more would end up going down the drain than staying in the yarn, but I was wrong. Again.

It has been washed, dyed, rinsed, scolded, scalded, drained, squeezed and hung to dry. In a few hours, it will be completely dry and I will do whatever it is you’re supposed to do to finished yarn. And post pictures later when the person we dyed the yarn for gets it.

This is more yarn I dyed last week, April 29 or so. Bare laceweight merino. I have to be a little more careful about temperature changes and how I get the dye on it; the merino really does stick together and felt if you squeeze it too much. This is seriously hard to separate. I want to get another 10 skeins or more so bad I can taste it; there are so many colors and styles I want to attempt.

Now just a quick look to make sure I typed dyed, not died, and dyeing, not dying,  all over this post like I keep doing on Ravelry. Those words may sound alike, but they are so not the same thing.

“All the Things That I’ve Done” this past weekend

Dyeing, spinning, knitting, and watching the TeeVee…

Before and after dye tests:

acrylic dye test

variegated acrylic loop

unidentified loop yarn

dyed wool

In a quick, excited dyeing job, I put way too much blue dye into a bowl with a shot of violet dye, synthrapol and citric acid, and submerged some yarn samples (I even threw in some eyelash yarn – not shown). I let it sit for a while.

I squeezed it out and put it on a plate and let it dry for a few days until I had time to continue. A few days later, I microwaved it a few times to try to set the color. There was so much blue dye (and so much acrylic, I’m thinking), that it kept rinsing blue 3 times in a row. I soaked it in some vingear water to set it. I was too lazy to microwave it again. There was some rub off, but I am pleased with how the loop yarns looked. I wasn’t expecting purple, but I’m happy with it.

I spun the purple wool into what I spun for the Yarn Everyday challenge on Sunday night/Monday morning:

purple dyed next to kool aid dyed

I am eventually going to ply these two with another solid-colored kool aid dye, hopefully in the next couple of days. Here’s a pic of where it’s at right now:

purple covered in kool aid

Here is a shot of koolaid dyed next to the Juliespins roving I bought. The JS lavender had shots of turquoise added as well, but it looks good with the koolaid. That said, though, I don’t think I will spin them together. I have nowhere near enough koolaid yarn to go with it. I’m a little worried about fading, as well.

koolaid and juliespins

The predominant purple of the juliespins and the turquoise portion:

predominantly purple

turquoise julie

There’s some black spots mixed into it as well. I love it, but who knows how it will end? Either I will ply it with solid black or leave it as is and knit it into a shawl.

KNITTING
On the actual knitting front, I put a couple of inches of a dent into a soldier sock. I have been slacking on it a little because I don’t think I have quite enough yarn to make a pair. I’m also a little scared that the ankle is going to be too tight. I sent emails asking for another ball of yarn, but the first pair has to be completed before I can get more yarn. Catch 22 for me.

So now my options are:

• Bite the bullet, put on the big girl panties, and say the words, “I think I was accidentally shorted a ball of yarn. Send me another one or Sock Leg #3 gets it.”
• Unravel one of the remaining three sock legs and use it to finish the first pair, so I can order some more. Quitting entirely and sending the sock legs back is not an option. I will not quit.

Ordering the yarn elsewhere is not an option. Even online stores that say they have the yarn in stock don’t have it.

I made another dent in the Concertina lace socks I’m making for a friend of mine. Finished the 1 1/2-inch ribbing I knit for the second time because I lost my place in the pattern. Will I ever beat the laziness and learn consistency when it comes to knitting from a pattern? I tell you one thing, I was smart enough to put a lifeline in immediately after the ribbing so I never have to do it again! lol. I think I will do the same as I finish each repeat on the socks.

“ALL THE THINGS THAT I’VE DONE”

From a song by The Killers. I love their music. New faves!

Aarrgghhhhh!!!

beginning of the BBS

This picture represents about 6 hours, 2 1/2 made-for-tv movies, and 1/2 a sitcom of my life. I feel like I’ve been working on these socks all freaking day and have nothing to show for it. Even stacked vertically they don’t look like much.

I’m trying to get them done in a week, but I think it’s going to be more like two.

Plus there’s a beret to be done with the remaining balls of Knitpicks Essential that I have left. Here’s hoping the pattern calls for size 6 needles, because i want to get them done quickly so I can mail the whole remaining batch of Essentials off, since it’s been banned for any further Socks for Soldiers projects. I need to check my stash and verify that that’s all of it.

Lace Rows are from Hell, the Weekend

Saturday…

You know those days when you congratulate yourself for finishing that previous row because you were bored stiff before you even got halfway? You do the crazy grin of joy and your heart leaps because that’s one more row you no longer have to worry about, and that’s one row closer to the end?

Pattern reads, “…single crochet in next two single crochets, chain 3, single crochet in next two…”

So I crocheted the row, did the crazy grin and the heart leaping, and then started the next row. “Chain 3, double crochet in next single crochet, chain 3, double crochet in next two single crochets….”

Me to the pattern: “What next two single crochets? There’s no next two single crochets here. You’re trippin’!”

The pattern to me (after a check of previous row, a double take, and a reread of the previous row): “Is it my fault you can’t follow a written pattern? I think not.” Then it turned its snubbed little nose up in the air and walked away.

Me to myself and screwed up rug: “Damn!”

I gave up and went to bed.

Rug: 1,005 plus a 5-year “Why didn’t you finish me five years ago?” guilt trip.
Renee – 0.

If the set wasn’t so pretty, it would have been thrown out with the baby’s bathwater a LOOOONNNGGG time ago.

Sunday…

I tried again this morning, and read knitting blogs as I went to alleviate project boredom. This is what I got.

Me to myself and screwed up redo rug: AGAIN: “What the??? — Damn!”

Make that Rug: 1,007 + 5-year guilt trip

me: -2.