Woolybuns

Wednesday WIPing 7-2-08

Will ya looky here!  Two corrugated rib socks, knitting all done. I can even put them on.  Heh.  The feet fit but the rib is a bit of a stretch.  Well.  No.  It's not, and that's the problem.  They just barely squeak over my heels with a bit of cussing persuasion.  But, once on, I love 'em!   Still have some kitchnering and end weaving to do but piece a cake.  That's the goal for next week. 

And then there's what happened in the dye pots.  I tossed several lengths of blue faced leicester in for some solid dyeing, and then combined them into this roving. I ended up with 10 ounces of this, with another ounce or so each of the blue roving and the black cherry roving.  I'm going to spin the multi as is, no angora blended in, then possibly three ply.  I may decide to foof the leftover 2 colors, just to see what I get.  Goal: get the singles spun.

While the rovings were drying, I tried my hand with more yarn, starting with more of the Just Peachy.  I now have probably 900 yards of this, but the intensity varies - different dye lots - so it will have to be knit as stripes to use it all in the same project.  Or I could use it as accent with natural brown.  Or make a several pairs of wristers.  

I'm very happy with both of these two yarns, but the photos don't show their full colors.  The lighter one has about as much aqua color as sky blue but on my monitor, it shows as a paler blue.  The same thing for the skein with dark blue in it. 

Peppermint Ice Cream, anyone?  Or Sky Blue Pink?

And then there is my favorite.   I don't  have a name for this one yet, but there will be more of this colorway in the future.

Goal for yarn dyeing is simple.  Do some more. 

All Clean and Dry

Daphne and Chloe are not so easy to catch with a camera.  They'll sit still nice and pretty for me but their dark coloring does not show well without careful lighting and I'm not skilled enough with digital photography.  I do know the best results I get are when I shoot them in the early morning shade.  Which means getting my feet and their whole bodies soaking wet.  I did get some good shots one day but apparently I wasn't paying attention when I loaded and deleted from the camera.  The pics are stored somewhere on the laptop but so far, I can't figure out where.

With the annoyance of the broken finger, the girls have spent more time in their kennel than I planned.  Two puppies twirling on their leashes is kind of hard on a fragile finger.  While they enjoy the romp time out there, they end up filthy because they have a swimming pool (Chloe swims in her water bucket otherwise) and the "flooring" is grass (well, ok, weeds, and that's mostly in the past tense now).  Which is to say, my sweet not so little puppies turned into massive mud bugs.  My kitchen floor - yuck!  On Sunday, the daughter washed the floor.  I couldn't bring myself to inflict more mud on it immediately, so Monday I took the girls to a self service dog wash.  What a great concept!  The store has individual wash rooms and separate dry rooms, with tubs built in about waist high and rubber matted steps up to the tub, flexible shower heads preset to dog comfy temps, and several levels of pricing.  They also have a "Pawstry" shop out front, along with select retail opportunities.  And the staff is friendly, helpful and wonderfully appreciative of the furry clients.  They set me up in a room with a puppy gate so I could bring both girls at the same time.  The girls and I actually had fun with bath time.  I put Daphne in first because Chloe is still quite free with pee and gets herself drenched.  I figured I might as well wash her second just in case.  So I popped Daphne in the tub, hooked her up to the wall and drenched her.   She was a bit ... hmmmm.  That ain't the swimming pool.  Chloe, on the other hand, tiptoed up the stairs and popped herself in the tub, repeatedly.  She is quite the water sprite.  When it was her turn, Daphne was more than content to hide under the steps stay on the floor.  We moved over to a drying room and they both enjoyed running up and down the steps of the drying platform.  Until I turned the high velocity dryer on them.  But they both survived in spite of their insistence they wouldn't.  And then they got liver biscotti.  Better them than me.  And now they are both clean and dry and sweet smelling.  And wonderfully huggable.

Duck Duck Garden

 Apparently, it is possible  to grow a green thumb where one previously  did not exist.   I had my very own first garden some many years ago while I was of grade school age.  It was a  strawberry garden and my biggest thief was not bugs, not my  father, nor my mother, not even one of those many sisters.  It was my duck.  (Didn't you have a pet duck?)  Mine was a Pekin duck, Paula (originally named Paul Drake until "he" layed an egg), a pretty white bird with such a long graceful neck that seemed to get much longer whenever she got near my strawberry garden.   Along with walks to the pond a couple blocks away (I put her on a leash and she followed me wherever I went), she loved strawberries.  I had a good wire fence around my strawberries so she couldn't get in, but her head and neck slipped easily through the wire.  She gobbled strawberries with such gusto, I usually let her get away with it for a little bit.  There was enough to share.  I had my garden longer than I had my duck.  Once Paula grew up, she liked to sit in the corner of the front yard, soaking up early morning sun, then stand up tall and flap those big wings and quack.  Quack, quack, quack, flap, flap, flap!  Loudly.  We lived in a suburban neighborhood, half acre lots or less, a typical sleepy bedroom community, so we got more than a few calls saying "you have a goose in your front yard!"  Not at all farm folk, the neighbors couldn't tell their ducks from a goose were not as amused as I.  And Paula got very good at hiding her eggs.  Dad feared a major sulfur bomb.  So the parents decided one season of duck was enough.  We delivered her to a farm with a duck pond and a whole flock. Paula waddled happily off without looking back.  I went back to my garden, and yes, tears were shed.  I've learned over the years that it was common for parents to give their children non-traditional pets, then take them away, but at least my parents didn't eat my pet.  I didn't have to give up my garden, though, and I've been puttering with plants in one form or another ever since.  I'm not an expert, haven't put as much study into it as I should, but I generally enjoy enough success that it keeps me happy. 

I tried to help my children find their own green thumbs as 4-Hers.  They did it, but never invested their hearts in it.  As young adults, the boys have no interest but the daughter is slowly coming around.  Recently, I guilt tripped her into joining me at the local nursery, and had her chose a few plants for the ugly neglected shady space under her bedroom window.  It's adjacent to a cement slab that she and her BF use as their own patio, so they'd really like to prettify the area.  After her satisfaction with the first few plants, I offered her a trip to White Flower Farm.  That is an amazing place, full of lush, weed free gardens to demonstrate the possibilities and inspire sales design.  She selected a few more plants.  Back home, I left her to ponder placement because, I confess, I can't keep my suggestions to myself (she calls me a back seat gardener) and this is to be her garden.  She proudly called me back once she had them all planted.  I think I'm seeing the hint of green to her thumbs, and another confession, inside I'm standing up tall, flapping my wings and quacking my silly head off.

Silly Childhood Memory

Evoked by Norma's peas.  Two memories, actually.  My own kids hate peas.  I happen to love 'em.  Freshly picked out of the garden and immediately popped in the mouth, lightly cooked with little pearl onions, part of a tuna veggie casserole - all good!  But the kids, every time I served peas as they were growing up, used to sing a little ditty we  might have read in a book one night.  Seems to me the book was by Judith Viorst but I can't swear to it.  That little ditty?  "Little green balls of mushy poison" sung at least 6 times.  I think I responded with 3 healthy bites or you clean the toilet, or some such.   I think even now that they are all young adults (huh??  how?  when??), if I serve them peas, they will sing "little green balls" with lots of gusto.  The other childhood memory comes from my own growing up.  I have 6 sisters.  Every Sunday, we'd have a nice mid-afternoon dinner in the dining room, using the good silver, good plates, maybe even the crystal.  I guess we were supposed to learn proper table manners.  Sometimes Dad couldn't join us because he was a doctor and emergencies happen on Sundays as well as on any other day.  On those occasions, Mom sometimes had no choice but to leave us rambunctious little heathens alone in the dining room while she fetched something we'd probably break if she sent one of us.  Left to our own devices, even for just a minute, mischief happened.  Always.  And once, that mischief involved peas.  Because, you know, they make wonderful little bits of armament catapulted from a spoon to splat so amusingly on the ceiling.  And weeks later, Mom staring up at the ceiling wondering what is that on the ceiling is even more amusing to a batch of little girls who obviously did not learn proper dining room ettiquette.  I think we didn't tell her until we were young adults and could get away with fessing up.

Late Night, Early Morning Does Not Lend Itself To Clever Titles

That late night, early morning sounds better than it was.  No hot date, then dash home before anyone here woke up.  Daphne and Chloe needed some play time well past my usual bedtime, but this morning, they still wanted to get up too damn early.  I'm sleepy.

Yesterday,  I threw some polwarth, silk, angora roving in for color.  This time I went for tonal variegation over natural color fibers.  I love these three colors for that.  That's just over a pound of roving.  I may do a three ply, one of each color.  Also into the pots went some white merino roving, 4 ounces of sapphire and 4 ounces of ruby.  Those will play with angora on my drum carder.  No photos yet because they are still in the pots, waiting to be drained and spun out in my washing machine.  I have another 8 skeins of SW merino 2 ply ready to dye. 

Why all the dyeing suddenly?  My fiber studio is not yet finished, but my tables are up and don't need to come down.  So.  I have work space.  With elbow room.  Wheeee!  One table is dedicated to my swift, ball winder, and drum carder.  Another has my dye pots and associated crap.  And the third is surface space for handpainting or felting.  And that closet works well for hanging stuff to dry. The closet still needs painting, and the bathroom attached to this room needs it's wallpaper dealt with.  But.  Once I get some drawer space and shelves in place, I can focus on the Big O. (I know what you're thinking!)  Organizing.  Not quite one of my strengths, but if I don't get organized at the beginning, there's no hope for it later. 

Baby buns are doing well at what they do best: defining cuteness.  Elke's babies are  13 days old now, eyes open and  ready to explore.  Identifying which one to keep is easy.  The only one without a white spot.  The white spots are really cute, but not so great in the breeding plans.  So the rest of them will be available cheaper as wooler  pets.  Over in Flower's hutch, the babies are demanding hands on attenItion.  Even Flower is settling back to her usual sweet self.  I may end up keeping the opal doe after all.  The little cutie I'm keeping from Elke's litter is a boy.  Pairing him with the opal doe woud bring out the chin pattern.  And otters and martens.  Without albinos.  I'm still planning to keep the blue buck, as he is perfect for the two black does who carry dilute. 

All of which means hutch space considerations.  So it's time for Chuck Berry to move to a new home.  He's a very sweet, easy to handle, 2 year old lynx German crossbred.  Lynx is dilute chocolate agouti.  In practical terms, though, his fiber color is essentially white, with sort of a tint of taupe to it.  if you're interested, contact me (hey, where'd the email link button go??  There's an email me link in sidebar).

Friday Flowers

 I'm building a garden around my big maple tree.  Last fall, I emptied several loads of under hutch stuff in a circle around the tree but away from the trunk (too much dirt and mulch against the tree trunk can kill the tree), then covered that with a good layer of bark mulch.  Then I transplanted several hostas in the mulch.   But I love color.  Lots of color.  Under the tree, it was just green, white and bark.  I briefly toyed with putting in some lily of the valley because it's a shade loving, wonderful and quick ground cover.  Actually, too wonderful.  I'd like whatever I plant there to stay there and good ol lily is a bit o' bawdy wench.  She likes to run free wherever she pleases.  I think she'd covet my lawn, and now that I have a lawn, I intend to keep it.  So I put in a couple of astilbe, which will spread in a nicely contained manner.  But the garden needs something with spunk.  Something cheery.  Something colorful.  The perfect answer:

Impatiens.

A Little More Play In The Pots

I used up the rest of the dyes I had mixed up.  And mixed up is exactly what happened to one skein.  I intended to dye it the soft yellow, peach and pink, but after dyeing the yellow areas, I plunked it in the wrong jar.  Not my colors again, but at least this one doesn't make me barf.  In fact, I sort of like it.  Don't know that I'd ever wear it as a knit because those colors would not be kind to my skin.  But I learned some color stuff from it, so all's good.

After that, I had to resort to comfort zone again.   I had Sandy's skies in mind, so I think I will call this Skywatcher.

And then I used some blue faced leicester like bread in gravy and sopped up the remaining color in a couple pots, one batch powder blue and celery, the other pretty much a solid sapphire.  I plan to card the sapphire with angora. I like  the colors but even more I like that the rovings did not compact and get cranky.

Wednesday WIPing 6-25-08

I did get some knitting in, despite the awkwardness of the splint.  Corrugated Rib, second sock is now in  the  home stretch, and I just want to sit n knit until it's done.  But.  No.  I can only do a few rounds at a time.  I either have to take the splint off, in which case the finger starts to ache and I'm not the least bit into discomfort, or I leave the splint on and the velcro band catches the yarn, and I end up holding the other fingers in unnatural separation and ache sets in and I'm not the least bit into discomfort. 

So I entertained myself with some future knitting, via the dye pots.  First up is a skein that falls into the WTF was I thinking category.  Reskeined, it's not so bad, but fresh out of the pot?  Yikes!  Yeah.  Not. my colors.  My other foray into a yellow combo pleases me.  I used a yellow that is brighter than what fits in my comfort zone, but I need to expand said comfort zone.  But I do like this skein and will dye a few more while I have some of the same mix left.  Maybe enough for some kind of wrap.

 I started my dye session totally in the center of my comfort zone, pacific ocean colors.   I dyed up 3 skeins in this colorway, so I have enough yardage for probably a scarf.  The yarn is a super soft superwash merino 2 ply. Very pleasing to my fingers.  I have an opportunity to buy lots more of this undyed yarn because it's being discontinued, in favor of a three ply, I think.  I might do it, dye up a storm and then test out the craft fair market this fall. 

Once I left the pacific, I headed straight to the Caribbean (why do i always misspell that with 2 Rs and one B??).  Another spot firmly centered in my CZ.  This is the same colorway as my Tranquility roving, so I'm not sure I'll keep this.  I may offer it for sale, or I might knit it up as a scarf for the craft fairs.

Knitting goals this week will remain fairly non-existent, that silly finger thing, ya know.  But the dye pots are possible.  Still awkward and slow, but fun.  My goal: dye up the rest of the yarns already skeined (the yarn comes on cones), and then dye up some rovings.

Sometimes The Strangest Things Make Me Laugh

Like Sandy's posting about some guy's missing shorts.  And Dave trying to pick his balls.  Or a Ravelry post about a woman lying in wait with a rifle in her garden for marauding woodchucks, who instead of shooting the offending critter shoots herself in the foot.

Or this, which you probably can't see.  That's insult to injury, aka my splinted broken finger with two tiny but distinctly poison ivy spots just about spot on the actual break.  Go ahead.  Laugh.  I am. 

Oh.  And forget about all your wonderful poison ivy remedies.  I do appreciate your collective wisdom on that, but my skin reacts with immediate intense burning to any type of medicinal remedies, so I am unwilling to try any more.  I tolerate the natural itch much more comfortably. 

Hey.  At least now the itch distracts me from the ache.

This Ain't How It's Supposed To Look

It doesn't take an experienced gardener to know this poor thing is not doing well.  Kind of on it's last legs, dontcha think?  This is a hot cherry pepper I planted for the daughter's BF and anybody else who enjoys searing the insides of their mouth.  I won't miss not having that opportunity, but I hate to see plant death, unless it's poison ivy or some such.  The rest of my veggies, both in the bed and in the containers, are doing well.  I bought this plant the same place and time I bought the others, and planted it in the same purchased organic matter rich top soil.  I don't know what's up.  It looks diseased, but I'm not experienced in dying veggie plants.  Habaneros are not affected,  Something munched a bit on the frying pepper, but it's still growing well. Any thoughts?