Saturday, July 31, 2010

Fun with yarn

A couple of weeks ago, I got itching to dye some yarn again. I started with my second ball of Very Pink yarn. I wound it into a hank for dyeing and soaked it in my crockpot with some vinegar.


I wasn't kidding about the pink

I mixed a heaping 1/4 tsp of delphinium blue Wilton icing dye into a couple of cups of hot water.



Then poured it into the crock pot.



I mixed it around


Whoa, it looks pretty dark

And let it cook for an hour or so.


But it lightened up a bit

I had read that the delphinium blue was one of the Wilton colors that "breaks" when you used it to dye yarn, meaning it separates into it's component colors. You can see how some of the yarn looks a bit more pink. If you click on the picture below, you can see the pink line around the top.


Love the guy who invented crock pot liners!

After the yarn was dry and wound, it looked like this



I'm not sure how much of the pink in the yarn is from the dye breaking and how much is my inability to tie the cotton yarn loosely enough to allow the dye to get mixed evenly. It doesn't really matter, it looks pretty cool anyway. It has more of a matte look than the other yarn I overdyed, which I haven't decided if I really like yet. That's okay. I'm sure I can find someone who loves it when I'm ready to knit it up, if I don't fall in love with it by then.

In other fun with yarn, look what I finished!


Oooooo... swirly!

I wish I could take credit for the swirling colors, but it was pure luck. I think they look pretty cool, though.


They're really comfy, too.

Blue kept me company while I finished the socks


"Your socks match my eyes, Mama."

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Playing catch (up)

Once again, I've been lazy about blogging. I guess I just haven't been feeling it lately. So this will be a long-ish post with lots of pictures. Those are the best kind, right? ;-)

I was really busy last weekend (July 9-11). On Friday, I went to Akron to pick up my mom and headed down to St. Clairsville, OH, where my aunt Karen lives. My cousin Annette and her son, Tim, were in Ohio, visiting from Maine. They had originally planned to stop by my house, but she's highly allergic to cats and figured my five furry children would be the death of her. My hair disclaimer for the next couple of pictures is that it was a very humid/rainy day. Here's me with cousins Amy and Annette.


Me, Amy (with baby Josie, due in Oct.) and Annette

And here's the whole group, minus Annette, who's taking the picture and her son, Tim, who was crashed out upstairs.



It was really nice to see everyone, especially since I normally only get to see them every other year at Thanksgiving.

Saturday morning, Mom and I headed back to Akron, then I headed to Kent to see my friends from KSU. Sarah's hubby, Mark had driven in from MA, so the gang got together for dinner and s'mores. We neglected to get a group picture, but we did get pictures of all of The Ugly quilts!


Fronts


Backs

I think I went a little overboard on size and ugliness of the back. But Sarah has *four* Elvis-in-a-blender stars on hers, so maybe it's a draw. :-)

I've been working on some other crafty things I haven't blogged about yet. I made some bracelet and earring sets.



And a boatload of stitch markers:





No, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all of those stitch markers. Maybe I so need to open an Etsy shop.

And lest you think I've completely stopped knitting, I've made significant progress on the Laughing Matter socks:



I'm hoping to have them done by August 1, so I can start a knit-along/read-along on Ravelry. The plan is to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and knit the Karira sock. I'm going to listen to the audio book, since I picked it up at the library last week.

Also, I took another mystery sock class at River Colors Studio. This pattern is called Politically Correct, because there are lines of purl bumps on each sock, one twisting to the left, the other to the right. You can't see the twisting lines in this picture, but you can see the bobbles! I'd never made bobbles before, so now I know how.


Bobbles!!

In other news, Max would like to say that the fur on his leg is growing back nicely after his surgery last month.


"This is an old picture. It's even longer now!"

Monday, July 5, 2010

Nine years later.....

Remember that picture of me and my friends from 2001? Well, here we are, nine years (almost to the day) later.


Ann, Sarah, Julie and me
(I stole this picture from Sarah, because it was better than the ones on my camera)


Shockingly, we're in front of a fabric shop again. That's Country Fabrics in Shiloh. Inexplicably, they have a palm tree out front.


Outside a quilt shop. In Ohio. Sarah's mom said it's usually inside.

Also, remember that stack of bag pieces from my last post? I finished them.



And the insides:


Clockwise from top left - Ann's, mine, Sarah's and Julie's

After shopping, we went to a quilt show in Ashland, but I didn't get any pictures there. I did run into a lady from my quilt guild there. And saw that one of my guild friends had quilted a few of the quilts in the show.

On the way home, I stopped at That'll Do Farm. I was greeted by the chickens.


Later the brown one and several of her friends were pecking at my sandals and toenails.

I also got to meet the new goats. There are five of them named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Fred. :)


Donatello


Raphael

Here's a news flash - cats can't read. I got up one day last week and found Emma nose-deep in this, which someone (probably one of the boys) had knocked off the top of the aquarium.


Bottom Feeder = Catfish = Cat food? Maybe they can read.