Really, now, it's just a fancy way to say "I hate housework!"
Before I continue my Sunday rambling, let me introduce to you Leo's first skein of yarn. Last night, I was just exhausted after teaching a reflexology class for 7 hours, and so I took a nap for two hours. When I woke up, Leo was SPINNING! He had actually set up the Fricke himself and was spinning away. It was really cute. Then he said, "I ran out of string." String is his operative word for fiber, by the way, and so he wondered what he needed to do next.
"Why, ply, of course!"
Well, I had to do the plying because he had no idea how to do it and wanted me to show him - which meant that I would ply the entire thing because he was watching something on cable at the same time - so this skein is 80% Leo and 20% me...but I'll let him take all the credit!
Yesterday my order of Jacquard acid dyes from Dharma Trading came in the mail. I ordered a few of the primary colors and a few not so primary colors like Aztec Gold and Gun Metal. Leo took down the old crock pot I used to use for hot stone massage (yep, those expensive garden stones are now decorating my garden...so much for "hot stone", eh?) so I could start my foray into dyeing fibers!
First up are the cotswold locks I purchased from Homestead Farms. I didn't even measure how many ounces I had in my hand - just dunked the locks in water to soak and prepared the dye solution in the crockpot. This is one thing about me - I hate to measure when there's so much fun to be had at the end of the adventure. I loosely measured 1 teaspoon (0.333333 oz according to some website that did conversions) into the crockpot and mixed it in. Then the locks went right in.
I currently have it on High for 3 - 4 hours, and I'll just wait and see till the dye is "exhausted" and the water comes out clear. Then I turn it off, then let it cool for about 3 hours or so. Then we'll see if dyeing is in my future...or not.
The last few days I've been knitting! Yes, finally! I have stopped knitting my Ode to Summer scarf simply because I got bored, and also a few days ago I realized that my best friend Molly is having a birthday which year after year, I manage to always forget. So this time, I was determined not to. I have her birthday card and now I have to mail it to her.
But wait! I need to really impress, right? Especially since this is the year that I am not forgetting her birthday!
So upon also realizing that my stash of yarn was pretty substantial from the days when I was learning to knit (lots of Lion brand and Bernat stuff in the bins) and I wasn't about to do another Freecycle give-away (sorry, freecyclers!), I decided to knit Molly a quick and easy scarf.
I picked a ball of Moonlight Mohair in some kind of jeans colorway that would definitely go with lots of ... jeans, and set out to work on a Bias scarf that was on the label. It's a pretty easy knit and I followed the pattern - deciding not to add another ball of yarn which I had originally wanted to do to make it longer but because I know myself very well, decided to stick with the pattern lest the birthday surprise never make it because two weeks from now I would still be knitting the darn thing.
This is what the scarf looks like up front. The yarn doesn't really do anything for me on film but it's got a pretty good sheen to it. A little itchy and sheds like...well, mohair, but I think it'll be a good present. Here's what it looks like being modeled on some headless model who realized during the editing stage that she had more than 2 chins.
And this is Molly right smack in the center between my brother and I. And to think she was such a tomboy when we were growing up...
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