I think it’s been awhile since I last posted, but I have been VERY busy. Busy dyeing all the yarn I ordered, mostly.

I still have 5 more skeins to go, and today I dyed a skein that’s part silk and drying in the other room. And check this out:

This is the last part of my Christmas present from my sister who just went to Rhinebeck! Wow! That’s 4 skeins of Sanguine Gryphon yarn, 3 bags of roving for my new drop spindle and a niddy noddy. I squeal every time I look at it all!  Thank you Shelly! So now I’m going to re-skein all my skeins on my new niddy noddy and make them look even better, and I already started working on spinning yarn on my new spindle:

How amazing is that? You can’t tell from my picture but this roving has some sparkly thread in it and it’s gorgeous. It’s not that hard to do but it hurts my back, so I’m going to have to limit myself. With all this fun going on, my Christmas knitting is suffering, and I’m going to have to really put in some knitting hours this weekend.

In non-knitting news, my son banged his face against the coffee table table last night and split open the section above his lips. It was small, but deep and after it had stopped bleeding and he calmed down, we dragged the poor kid to the hospital and ended up getting a stitch in it. He did soooo good. He didn’t make a peep during the whole procedure. When I told him how proud of him we were for being so brave, he said, “I’m not brave, it just didn’t hurt.” Haha! Thank God for Lidocaine.  As if that wasn’t a bad enough night, when he finally got to go to bed, he started coughing. It got worse and worse as the night went on and I immediately recognized it as croup. He sounded just like a barking seal. And when I went to check on him at 3am, he was so hot with fever and uncomfortable from the coughing. Sigh…it was a looong night. But today, when I was trying to take a picture of his wound, he posed for me and asked that I take his picture like that, because he looked so cool:

This is Emmet looking cool. (See his cut?) And that is the stupid hat he insists on wearing everyday. He got it from his daycare and he loves it.

Well, enough typing. I’m exhausted from a long night with almost no sleep at all. Goodnight everyone! I promise I will post more pictures of the newly dyed yarn as soon as I figure out how to get an accurate photo of each skein.

And I’m including Friday, because even though I was working, I was dyeing yarn at the same time. Here’s some sneak peeks of the making of  Autumn Leaves and Midnight Sky :

The first picture is the more accurate one. Tomorrow I hope to take some better pictures, when they’re dry. It takes days to dry. It’s very hard for someone as impatient as myself.

I finished these:

They’re called Easy Handspun Mitts. Just click on that if you’d like the free pattern on Ravelry. They weren’t lying…they were definitely easy and fast, and the Noro yarn makes them sooooo addictive to knit…I’ve already started another pair for me! (These are for my niece.)

And the boys were productive as well:

Mike did all the work and Emmet supervised.

Well, it’s almost 11pm and I still have 2 more skeins of yarn cooling down in the pot. I think they’re going to be stunning. I will post their picture soon. I’m going to throw them on the drying rack and go to bed!

After the grape Kool Aid bath and a couple days spent drying over a chair, we ended up with this:

I can’t seem to get a completely accurate picture of the color, no matter what kind of light I hold this in, but this is pretty close. I’ve named the color Raspberry Dusk. I immediately wanted to see what it was going to look like knitted into something, but what? Shelly thought I should do another Star Crossed Slouchy hat, and since it’s such a quick pattern, I agreed. I really felt the need for some instant gratification. So here it is! The finale of my very first yarn dyeing experiment.

I’m ready for the big league now. I’ve ordered some yarn and some dye and I’m waiting for it to arrive. This weekend I’ll hit some more garage sales looking for big pots and crock pots and see what I can come up with. I’m ready people!

So in the post previous to this one, you saw what happened when I dyed pepto pink yarn with turmeric.  I liked it better, but didn’t love it. So I finally was able to snag packets of Kool Aid at Walmart (thanks for the tip Mom!) and I used the Grape Kool Aid for the final dye bath. I was a little skeptical at first…Kool Aid doesn’t come across in my mind like a serious dyeing tool….but I must admit, I was impressed with the results!

Above you can see the yarn getting cooked. When I saw how purple it looked in the pot, I was thinking I might end up with some very purple yarn. But nope, here’s what happened:

I’m quite happy with it! This was the best picture I could get today, with the clouds and rain, and (on my computer at least) it’s a pretty accurate picture. It turned into a more adult colored yarn,… less fun, more sophisticated. A mixture of pink, purple, brown and small, dull orange flashes. (Ignore the yellow ties holding it together. I probably should have removed those before taking the picture.)

I’m going to make something with this one. I’ll knit it up and make sure I post it here for you all to see…I know you’re super excited to see what this will turn into and see how the colorway works up! Well fear not! I will not disappoint.

BTW, I went to several garage sales today looking for large pots or crock pots to use with the acid dye, and had no luck. Then I went to Salvation Army and found a crock pot for $20 and a large pot for $10. I think that’s a lot for a used and rusting crock pot and a slightly dirty, used pot, don’t you? I decided I could get a better deal elsewhere and came home with nothing. Sniff.