York and Edinburgh

We went to York on our way to Edinburgh, Scotland and it was one of the nicer towns we visited. I believe it was a Sunday and the only reason I knew that was because this was closed...

That's right, another yarn shop and I couldn't even go in. That was slightly upsetting because, judging by the window, they had some very nice yarns...

Tell me it doesn't look like I'd find something that I'd like in that shop? Even so, York was nice. We went to a "Craft Fair of Quality" I found it quite funny that they had to empasize the fact that it was of "quality" as opposed to what? Quantity?

"You know, we have a lot of stuff, but it's all crap, what you want is a craft fair of quality..."

For some reason though, I really enjoyed the craft fair and I think it's because it reminded me of home. It had the exact same feel as a craft fair here. I have to warn you I became slightly homesick about halfway through this trip. I can't say I'm all that surprised, after all D was home...

Anyway, we made our way to Edinburgh that afternoon. We had booked a hotel there so we could tour around Edinburgh the next day. A litte back story here, a friend of mine from high school has been in Edinburgh for the past two years on a sort of work abroad program. I had sent her an e-mail telling her where and when we'd be there, hoping that we'd possibly have a chance to get together. I had to leave it to chance after that because we didn't have an internet connection and I didn't have her phone number so the only contact that really could be made was if she called me at the hotel when we were there.

I didn't hear from her that night and I wasn't totally surprise because we didn't get a chance to really plan anything, but the next morning I got a phone call! We decided to meet around 1pm and spend the afternoon together. How much fun is that?

So that morning my parents and I did a little sightseeing at Edinburgh Castle....

(I'm telling you you're going to be sick of all the castles I'm going to show you!) Another great historical castle by the way. In fact, I'm really interested in reading up on Scottish history now that I've seen that castle.

After that we went to meet up with Kirsten. I had the best day with her. We walked all over Edniburgh it seems and she showed me where she works...Fettes College. She's teaching English there. Tell me it doesn't look like something straight out of Harry Potter? According to K, Rowling based Hogwarts on Fettes. After walking around it, I'm completely not surprised. She also said that Rowling used to write in some of the cafes around Edinburgh. Again, it's easy to see what inspired Rowling. It's hard not to get a very gothic and somewhat mystical feel when you're in Edinburgh.

Meeting up with Kirsten was by far the highlight of my trip.

In fact, I would have loved staying in Edinburgh, but other places were on the agenda so we had to get going.

Up next, Paris and why I no longer have any desire to return there.

Day two...or three... by now I can't remember

I tell you the days from the trip seem to be bleeding together. I can remember everything that happened, however, dates didn't mean much to me while we were there. Do vacations ever do that to you? You completely forget the date or even the day it happens to be because it isn't imperative that you know the day. That happened quite a bit to me.

So somewhere along the way in relatively chronological order we went to Warwick. Warwick has an extremely interesting castle there.

This was the first castle I've ever seen and rightly I was extremely impressed. However, it didn't feel very authentic because they had turned it into a tourist attraction by making it into a sort of Renaissance Fair with archer and jousts, etc. Also, it really threw you for a loop because the family that owned this castle kept it all through the Victorian period so there are rooms in the castle decorated in 19th and 20th century styles. I suppose I was expecting medieval decoration....

You'll never guess what else we saw in Warwick...

That's right. A yarn shop. We just stumbled upon it. To say that they had a good size selection would be something of an understatement. They had yarn in bags from the floor to the ceiling (and it wasn't a low ceiling either!) I was so overwhelmed with the selection that I didn't even end up getting anything. Shocking, I know.

There were also really cute streets there.

Why I'm showing you pictures of streets, I'll never know, but really, they intrigued me.

I think that same day we took the train to Stratford upon Avon (again, the days running together thing is going on). Stratford upon Avon is where Shakespeare was born and is buried. In fact, he was born in this house...

We didn't stay very long in Stratford only because we had already spent half the day in Warwick.

More to come and hopefully a couple of days at a time. After all I want to show you how much I knit on all these train rides!

Just the beginning...

Where do I even begin? I suppose the beginning would probably be a very good place don't you? First off, the day before I left I received a nice little package in the mail from Keri. Totally unexpected surprise there. Look what she sent me...

It is some delicious hand-dyed merino wool. Yummy! I obviously couldn't wait to do something with it. Just look at the colors... mmmmm

I first tried Branching Out, but the colors made it hard to even see the lace so instead I started a mini-Clapotis. Sorry, no picture there because I didn't get very far... I was working on my Dale sweater. I promise those pictures will be coming soon, it's just I have so many to show I have to do it in stages.

Well, we arrived in England and I can't even begin to describe to you how tired I was... I think I was up for about 30 hours with only about three hours of sleep on the plane. Ouch. But after a great night's sleep of about 13 hours (I never, ever, sleep that long and I'm shocked that I actually did) we were ready to actually start sightseeing.

First off, let me show you a picture from outside my window...

Tell me that isn't exactly what you would expect a London street to look like?

Our first day out we went to the Tower of London and toured around there a bit.

So it's not exactly a tower, more like a fort, but definitely interesting. This guy was our tour guide...

And this it what it looked like when you first walk past the gates.


Are you getting the historical feel yet? I sure did, it was like something straight out of the middle ages. Very cool.

Some of the other sights we saw that day were....


The London Bridge... I wasn't expecting the blue parts (if you clink on it to enlarge it you can see them) but the insides of the stone towers is all steal. They just built the stone around it to blend in with the London architechture.
Then there was...

Big Ben, who was every bit as big as you might expect. Notice the gray clouds. Yeah, it was pretty dreary. All of these pictures are from the same day so you can see how quickly the weather changes over there.

We also saw this from the river boat cruise we took...

It's the Globe Theater (or Theatre, whichever way you want to spell it) where Shakepeare's plays were performed (obviously reconstructed several times because those thatched roofs sure wouldn't have stood the test of time.)

And then there's this one which has a very funny story to it...

That's mom and me on the river boat cruise. Why is it funny you ask? Because this is about the tenth picture we took and the only one that came out because mom kept closing her eyes everytime the picture was taken. We finally figured out the reason. My camera flashes two times and she would close her eyes after the first flash... We had a good laugh about that one.

So that was the first day... More to come I promise!

I'm BACK!!!

Oh my goodness, I have so much to say and not even close to enough time to say it in! So this is just a quick post to let you all know I survived the trip and I'll be filling you in with pictures (more pictures than I'm sure you'd care to see actually) and stories very soon. Stay tuned! By the way, I've missed my blogging friends and can't wait to read up on what everyone's been up to!

England or Bust...

Tomorrow I leave for England. It's sheer crazyness that it's come this fast. I'm definitely excited but I've been so busy getting things ready for the trip that it hasn't actually hit me that I'm leaving. Does that ever happen to you? You get so wrapped up in preparing for a trip that you don't even realize that you're leaving for it? I'm positive it'll hit me like a slap in the face the minute I walk into the airport.

So get this. My flight leaves at 6pm or so tomorrow night. Guess what "time" we get to London? 8am..... Guess how many hours the flight is going to be? 8..... yeah, I'm going to be losing quite a few hours on my way over there. That sucks because the day won't even be starting when we get there. My parents have a bus tour scheduled for that day just to keep us awake and to get us adjusted to their time. Crap I'm gonna be tired. Ah well....

I was so productive this weekend. And it all has to do with getting things together for the trip.... that included my knitting that I wanted to bring. But I was bad... I couldn't just pack up all that yummy yarn I had to bring with me. Nope, I needed to do a swatch just to make sure it'll knit up right. And then knitting a swatch turned into casting on. Because seriously, who wants to cast on 216 stitches on the plane. I'll just do that and put it down. HA! Fat chance... I definitely knit a little more that I was planning and the worse part was I felt guilty almost the whole time!

I'm so bad!!!!

D's neglected scarf actually got worked on quite a bit because the guilt was driving me to work on something other than my England project!

I suppose guilt can be productive sometimes huh?

I wasn't the only productive knitter this weekend. Look at D's progress on his sweater!

Tell me that doesn't look like a professional did that? I'm so proud! And he's so excited!

And just because this is an extremely cute picture of Ramses I had to post it

He loves it when I scratch his chin. He's in kitty heaven I tell you!

Well folks I'm off. I hope you all have an excellent two weeks. I'll probably be checking in if I find a decent internet cafe, but I don't think I'll have the time to post anything but a quick hello! Cheers!

Has it really come to this?

When it comes to cars, I have come to accept that mine is less than straight-off-the-lot new. In fact, mine is falling apart. But it’s been a good car. It gets me where I need to go with little or no difficulty. However, its appearance is lacking. Quite a bit lacking in fact. When I took it in to have the oil changed I could swear I heard those guys laughing about that state in which my poor Jeep is in. I’d like to see them try keeping a car that’s 12 years old rust-free in Central New York where salt is a season all it’s own.

Anyway, the oil change went off without incident, or so I thought until I got to D’s place and noticed that one side of my hood wasn’t latched down. How I didn’t notice this on the ride there, I have no idea. So I lifted the hood to see what the problem was. Turns out that the guys were a little rough with my baby and broke the bolt that attaches the latch to the hood. Granted, that bolt was probably close to rusted through, but really, with a car this old, you have to be gentle.

I couldn’t really do anything about it at D’s so I ignored it until my drive home when it became more than apparent that it wasn’t exactly safe to have the side with the broken latch flapping in the wind. I had visions of the hood coming up in my face like in that scene from Tommy Boy. If you’ve seen Tommy Boy you know exactly what I’m talking about. Thankfully, those engineers at Jeep know a thing or two have a safety latch in the middle of the hood so I really wasn’t in any danger of this happening.

When I got home my dad and I had a little chat about what to do about my hood. Since it wasn’t the weekend and we didn’t have the kind of time it might take to fix this, he came up with a temporary fix.

Now I’m not one to care much about appearances. For instance, I can accept the fact that my doors are sort of rusting through…


I can even accept the fact that my wheels are not what you’d call shiny….


But when there’s a bungee cord holding the hood of my car down, I feel the need to hide my face with the embarrassment of it all…


I guess it could be worse, at least it’s not duct tape.

New York in the Rain

D and I went to New York City this past weekend. Though it wasn’t at all spur of the moment for him, it did take me up until Thursday to decide if I wanted to go or not. In hindsight, I gotta say it was a great decision.

We went because one of his roommates from college is moving from NY to San Francisco in a week. When confronted with the choice to either drive to NYC or fly to San Francisco, I’d say that driving the 3 ½ hours is probably the cheaper of the two. Of course, with gas prices the way they are, I might be wrong. Anyway, it was fantastic. We left Friday afternoon, stayed through until Saturday afternoon and then drove home. I never knew you could pack so much into just one day, but we did!

Saturday we went to the International Auto Show (see, I knew I’d be dragged to one of those eventually, though I have to say it wasn’t half bad.) I got to see the new Honda hybrids, which I covet. Someday, Honda hybrid, someday. D got to see the new Shelby Cobra mustang which he covets, and we both were happy in our own car heavens.

D had asked me before we left if I wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Seeing how I’d never been to the top I said sure. Unfortunately Mother Nature had it in for us that weekend. You couldn’t even see the top because it was so cloudy and oh, did I mention the rain? So we nixed that idea and decided to go from the auto show right to dinner and then home. The crappy part was the auto show was on the other side of town from the place he wanted to take me to dinner and there was a torrential downpour with gale force winds going on outside. Fun stuff.

Armed with nothing but our flimsy collapsible umbrellas we headed for the subway which was about halfway between the show and dinner. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so unintentionally wet in my entire life.

D stopped us on our walk (if you’d like to call it a walk, I’d like to call it the most exhausting trudge through the wind and rain. And wrestling a flipped inside out umbrella is a treat I can tell you!) I didn’t realize we were outside of the Empire State Building until he clued me in. Then he said “I wanted to tell you this at the top, but since we aren’t going up anymore I’ll tell you here…. I love you…”

*Swoon* - that was me by the way! At that point I completely forgot about the rain and the wind and the fact that my pants were soaked up to the thigh, if you think I’m kidding take a look, see that line, yeah that's a water line...

I was happy there in our little umbrella cocoon and I don’t think I stopped smiling for the rest of the night. And I’m not just talking the little smile either, I’m talking the grin from ear to ear, make your cheeks hurt smile. Maybe it was just my imagination but it seemed that the rain let up a bit then and it wasn’t nearly as burdensome to walk to the subway.
Here’s the subway shot, notice the soaked hair but just don’t give a damn smile?

Yeah, it was a great day.

What’s that you say? You came here for knitting? Oh, ok, I’ll show you some knitting. Here is Retro Prep #2 all finished…

Ok, when I say all finished, I mean, totally ignore the fact that there are ends to be sewn hanging down from the sleeves. Oh, and pay no attention to the grey turtleneck which obviously looks horrid and I’d never wear under it. I was at work and it seemed like a good time to take the picture.

I’ve also been working on a little something for D. I made up this chart while I was bored at work (bored at work? Psssha, that never happens…. Note the sarcasm) You just gotta love Excel…


And I started it in the car on the way to NY…

It’ll be a scarf when I’m finished, but I can’t guarantee I won’t go crazy when I get to the plain stockinette stitch part. However, I can’t really start anything that’s too involved before I go to England. That’s t-minus 7 days and counting by the way! I think this will probably occupy me until then, whaddya think?

Sometimes, I just don't get people....

Yesterday I had to call Animal Cruelty because some fucktard decided to chain their obviously unfed dog up outside and I happened to notice it. I’m telling you this dog didn’t look like it had eaten in weeks. Ridiculous. Seriously people, if you can’t afford to feed it, don’t freaking get an animal! It was a pit bull which some people equate with power but when your sickly looking pit bull can’t sit down because it hurts the bones that are practically sticking through it’s skin it doesn’t exactly convey a sense of power now does it?

Sometimes I feel more for animals than I do for people because most of the time people can do something about the situation they’re in and animals, more often than not, can’t. Anyway, that was a fun little ordeal.

On a much lighter and more cheerful note, I was googling yesterday (because my days have officially gotten so boring than I must google to keep myself entertained) and I, for the sheer curiosity of it, googled Skein Street. Do you know what I found? I found a link to a city council type document and it mentions a Skein Street. What’s this, there’s a real life Skein Street out there? And here I thought I was being original when I thought up a name for my blog! Ha! Apparently not. This particular document that I found was talking all about the placement of public toilets and that they thought a good location for one was on the corner of Skein Street. Weird, no? And would you like to know where in the world Skein Street is located? It’s in Aberdeen, Scotland. Maybe when I go to England I’ll take a little trip over there and have my picture taken under the Skein Street sign. Paassha! Ok folks, I’m cheezy, I’m just not that cheezy!

Speaking of England its t-minus 12 days and counting till I get on the plane and head over there! Can you believe it? I swear it felt like it was a long ways away and here it’s practically running me over! Good thing I’ve already bought the yarn for the project I want to work on. I find it funny that the first thing I thought about bringing was a knitting project so that I can knit on the plane and on the trains and in the Chunnel (cool huh? I’m taking the Chunnel to France!). I wasn’t thinking about clothes to wear, I wasn’t thinking about my camera, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that my hair dryer won’t work with the English electrical system…I was thinking about knitting. It’s a disease, one that there’s no cure for and I’ve come to accept that.

And while we’re talking about knitting, I’m nearly finished with Retro Prep attempt #2. Only a little bit of the neck shaping left, then I have to knit the collar and bind off the underarms and I’m finished. Except for the blocking, of course. And the sewing in ends. I chose not to think about the steps that don’t involve actual knitting. I’m a rebel like that…

Why I blog...

Recently I’ve been wondering why I blog. Mostly I’ve been wondering because another blog made me think about the entertainment value of my blog. Is it funny enough? Is it well written? Does it matter if it’s well written if the content is good? Does it have enough pictures? Are the pictures of anything that anyone else would care about? Why would anyone even want to read my blog? (Can you tell I was a Philosophy minor in college? Yes, I admit that I think too much, but admitting it is the first step to recovery)

I started getting a little self-conscious and thought that my blog isn’t nearly as entertaining as others. But really, is that why I have it? To entertain? The conclusion that I came to was, not really. It dawned on me that I have this for no other person than myself. It’s great that I do have readers (believe me I appreciate you all for your wonderful insights) but this blog is not for them. It’s for me. It’s for me to express my love of knitting and occasionally write about my life and what’s been going on in it. (I realize that recently I’ve been writing much more about my life than about my knitting and but hey, I’m knitting some pretty boring things at the moment) And I find that I like to read blogs that are more personal. Ones that do talk about life, rather than ones that are all knitting all the time. After all, how much knitting can one person read about without having anecdotes to go along with it?

I used to write in a journal. I say ‘used to’ here because as soon as I started my blog, my journal writing fell by the wayside. My blog is very much like my personal journal. Obviously I leave out the part where I talk about my inner feelings and perhaps the parts that are a tad bit too personal for anyone on the web to find. But, in essence, it is the same thing.

I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person who is drawn to things that are therapeutic. Knitting, as many of us know, is extremely therapeutic. I’ve heard it phrased “knitting is cheaper than therapy and you get the same results.” I’ve also read somewhere that people who write in journals tend to be more balanced (maybe that’s not the right word) than those who don’t because you write out what’s bothering you, you think through the problems, etc. I have found this to be so true. Even with the bad things that have gone on recently (for instance, my venture to the allergist, and me cutting my finger and needing stitches, etc.) they don’t seem so bad after I write about them and I can even find the humor in it.

I suppose my point here is, even if I had the most boring blog in the world and I mean so boring that it physically hurts to read it and you’d rather be poking yourself in the eye with your size two double points, it wouldn’t matter, because it’s all for me. And the most ironic part about it is even though it’s personal and all for me, I’ve met some pretty amazing people through it. The kind of people I’d like to know in person. And I feel like I’m a part of something great, like a community, which really is a nice feeling.

I think I’m going to step down off this soapbox now. And next time I start getting so long winded, somebody just slap me, k?

And the winner is.....

Keri!!! Hope you enjoy that beautiful roving. It's gonna be hard to part with it, but my mother always taught me that it's better to share!

I was going to take pictures of me pulling the name out of the hat, etc, but I didn't get home until late last night and sleep seemed a little more important at the time. Though ironically enough I didn't get much sleep because the cats decided they wanted to play all over my bed, while I was trying to sleep in it, pretty much all night long. I'm trying to remember the good things about having cats but they seem to be slipping my overly-tired brain at the moment.

D and I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday we bought him yarn for his new sweater. Despite the fact that he would have done wonderfully on the Knitty sweater pattern, we decided to go with something a bit simpler. If you scroll down to the bottom, the sweater name is Pete. I also think the fact that it's on size 11's and will work up relatively quickly helps. Gotta love big needle projects.

He's doing very well, by the way. Though I thought he might be concentrating a little too hard on the K2, P2 rib when I noticed the sweat starting to bead on his forehead. I had to assure him that he wasn't going to break anything if he messed up, that's the beautiful thing about knitting, completely fixable depending on how willing you are to rip. Which he did end up doing at one point. His tension was really loose so he ripped out the first five rows that he did. I think he's back to where he was and maybe a row or two more now, with much better tension. Woohoo for the new knitter!

We spent some of the weekend out in Rochester at his parents house. His mom was incredibly sweet and bought me Easter presents. She gave me some of my favorite teas and a very cute mug. Mom's are great aren't they? And I got to meet his grandparents and one of his aunts, all of whom were equally impressed that D was knitting.

His family is a lot like mine when it comes to big family dinners. Lots of food, good conversation (though theirs steered in the direction of brothels and hitch hiking; how it got there, we're still unsure, but it was funny none the less) and they had the game on in the background. Instead of the traditional Thanksgiving football, they had the Easter basketball. Too funny.

So that was my weekend. Nice and relaxing, a lot of knitting done, a lot food eaten. I'd say that was a weekend well spent. Congrats again to Keri!

Milestone Weekend Part III

I hope you all are ready for the final installment of Milestone Weekend. Some might say I saved the best for last, but I'd say the whole damn weekend was great!

On to Part III

I had the sneaking suspicion that I was one of those ultimate enablers. After all, I've taught roommates, aunts, nephews, brothers, mothers and pretty much everyone in between to knit. I loved teaching them because then they'd understand just a little bit why I'm so obsessed with knitting. It's a hard thing to explain to someone, better to show them. But there was one person that has always eluded me in my quest to teach everyone to knit and that was the boyfriend. Quite an elusive creature, I tell you. They'll stare for hours at your fingers working intricately on something as plain as stockinette stitch, but they'll never ask you to teach them.... That is, until now!

I finally taught D how to knit. And you know what? I think he's hooked, and quite proud of his neon orange swatch!


He is ambitious too! Would you like to see what he wants to do for his first project? Something like this. We scoured a bunch of my knitting magazines to find a sweater that really popped out at him, but unfortunately a lot of them were a little too "loud" for his taste. I never really noticed how hard it is to find decent sweater patterns for men. All we were coming across were Aran cable patterns or fairisle or weird necklines. There just don't seem to be a bunch of simple, plain sweater patterns for guys. However, the sweater from knitty is definitely a contender for his first project. We'll see if we come across any others that suit his tastes.

I'm so excited for him!

There you have it, now you know all of the "firsts" (get those minds out of the gutter!) that happened last weekend. It was definitely one of the more eventful weekends that I've had.

This week however, has been less than eventful. The only thing that happened was the fact that I got sick around Tuesday and ended up staying home on Thursday which pretty much consisted of me lying on the couch, watching movies and eating soup all day. Oh yeah, and using up a box of tissues. I'm feeling slightly better today, but definitely not 100%. Bring on a weekend of relaxation cause I'm gonna need it!

By the way, you still have a shot at the dyed roving if you're interested. The drawing will be this weekend and I'll reveal the winner on Monday. Good luck!

Milestone Weekend Part II

I know your hearts have been aflutter with anticipation of what other milestones (I'm cautious to use the word "first" now) happened last weekend. Your wait is over! I present Milestone Weekend Part II.

As many of you know D and I have gone bowling several times now, and each time I have tried to break 100. Well, I finally did it! It's quite a dramatic tale (more like melodramatic, but whatever). I was determined to do it. It was now or never. I strapped on those purdy shoes and stepped up to the ball return. I lifted my 8 pound ball (had I found a 7 pound ball with finger holes large enough I would definitely have chosen that one!) and I bowled the best game of my life! Did I mention I'm a complete weakling when it comes to bowling? My best game is usually my first game, then my arm gets tired and my fingers can't grip the ball well anymore, hence the dropping of the ball on the foot. Anyway...

Not only did I break 100, I blew 100 right out of the water!

116! Yeah baby!!!!

And not only did I blow that 100 right out of the water, but I also beat D!

I have a sneaking suspicion he let me win, remember when he had a score of 197, I even think he broke 200 at one point. You just don't go from getting consistently high scores to getting below 100. But hey, I was pretty happy, so I suppose I don't mind.

I got the 116 in my first game of the night.... I then went on to play quite craptastically the rest of the evening. That was fine. I got my 100, I'm all good!



In a totally unrelated story, I'd like to introduce you to my new purse:

In a moment of complete silliness I named it Pursey, not to be confused with Percy. Percy is a guys name, my purse is most definitely not masculine in any way.

I think it's my most favorite purse to date, and I'm not a huge accessory type person. Usually any old purse will do, but I became enamored with it the moment I spotted it! And at 30% off, you can't go wrong.


Yet another installment of Milestone Weekend to come... Stay Tuned!


Don't forget, if you'd like a shot at that dyed roving, let me know! The contest is on until Friday!

Let's Clarify....

It has come to my attention that something I wrote in my last entry is, ummmm, conveying the wrong message and evoking less than wholesome thoughts among my readers! Granted, when I realized this I laughed my ass off because, let's face it, that's funny. When I said it was a weekend of "firsts" I wasn't thinking about the first time I...well, you know. It didn't even cross my mind that usually "firsts" imply, ummm, happenings in the bedroom...Well, I assure you, these firsts have nothing to do with that. It'll all become clear when Milestone Weekend Part II and Part III are written. As for now, you're just going to have to wait on the edge of your seat in anticipation of what other "firsts" happened. I promise, they're good, maybe not bedroom good, but good.



P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment if you want to participate in the Dyed Roving Contest!

Milestone Weekend Part I

As the title implies this weekend was a weekend of milestones. Why you ask? Well because there were a lot of "firsts" and because there were so many firsts I had to break it up into parts...

Part I

I took the plunge this weekend and tried dyeing my own roving. I only did it in little bits because if I was going to botch it at least I was only going to botch a little bit of it.

First I started out by soaking the roving in a mixture of hot water and vinegar.

Kinda looks icky doesn't it?

While I waited for that to soak (they recommend at least a half an hour) I prepared the dye I wanted to use.

I know you all have heard of using Kool-Aid to dye yarn and fiber, but I tried something a little different. I just wasn't satisfied with the lack of colors Kool-Aid offers so I used Wilton cake dyes. It's basically food coloring paste. All you do is mix it with hot water until you can't see through the mixture, add a little bit of vinegar and you're ready to go.


I laid the soaked roving out on some plastic wrap and spooned on the colors until it looked like the dye had soaked through the roving. After that I wrapped it up, put it in a pyrex casserole dish and popped it in the microwave for two minute intervals. Two minutes on, two minutes off, etc.

When the liquid in the plastic wrap looks relatively clear, you take it out and let it cool.

I know it's hard to see, but here it is about to be rinsed.


And once the rinsing was done, I hung it to dry over night.


I know you can't wait any longer to see it when it was dry so I won't leave you in suspense anymore...

I could not believe how vibrant the colors came out. And of course I couldn't wait to spin some up...


Here are some of my other attempts at dyeing...




Because I have more little bits of dyed roving than I know what to do with I'm going to have a little contest here on Skein Street. Ok... less of a contest, more of a raffle... except you don't have to pay, so more of a contest, except you don't have to compete..... Anyway, moving on... Would you like to know what you're playing for?

It's an ounce of dyed llama/alpaca roving. I know it's not much, but it's certainly enough to practice spinning if you're just dying to learn! Just leave a comment saying you'd like a shot of this fine fibery goodness and I'll draw a name from a hat at the end of the week (very sophisticated-like).


Stay tuned for Milestone Weekend Part II...

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

I have been inspired by Michelle because I don't know about you, but I've been getting pretty freakin annoyed with the whole Blogger commenting system. Some days you can comment, other days you can't. Well no more of that my friends! Enjoy!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I hope everyone is having as exciting a holiday as I am. Of course I'm being entirely sarcastic. I'm just finding that I'm not getting into this holiday. You can tell I'm not. I'm wearing purple, mainly because I forgot it was St. Patrick's Day. Obviously the spirit of the Irish decided to pass me by this year. I think this partly has to do with having to be at work all day, and by the time the work day is over I'm going to be tired and I won't feel up for celebrating. And now that I think about it, celebrating is not such a good idea when I have a concert tomorrow night. I can just imagine trying to sing feeling as wonderful as I'm sure I'd feel having spent the night celebrating Irish-style.

That is perfectly alright though. I'll be home enjoying some much needed free time. I'll probably throw in a movie tonight and spin or knit. Though I've gotten to the point where the things I'm knitting are just not inspiring me anymore. Basically I'm knitting in the round and that means all knitting all the time. No cool pattern to follow, just knitting. It's ok in it's own right when you have a really complicated project that you're working on as well, everyone needs a mindless project every now and then, but right now both of my projects are plain knitting in the round.... boring...

I also think that part of it is I'm more used to knitting projects in pieces where there are definite progress indicators. For instance, you finish the front, then you finish the back then you finish one sleeve, then the other. With this stinking in the round stuff it just seems endless. Ok, maybe that's enough venting for me.

Some of you asked where the pattern for that blue sweater is from and it's in the fall 2002 Interweave knits. It's the same magazine that the Retro Prep is in. I'd just thought I'd throw that in here somewhere.

Oh! I have some exciting news that has definitely lifted my spirits from this funk. I talked to a college roommate of mine who lives in VA. Back in the day I taught her how to knit and she's never looked back! Anyway, we were talking about possibly getting together soon and through all this talking we've planned on me flying down there for Memorial Day for the three day weekend! How exciting is that??? And you know what else? D is coming with me!

We were even talking about some of the things we're going to do when we're down there and you know what we came up with? Check out this bad boy! That's right, we're planning on going to King's Dominion! I haven't been to that amusement park since I was probably about 11 years old, and I remember having so much fun! Hell, I haven't ridden a roller coaster since I was in high school and used to love, love, love roller coasters!

So, needless to say, with the Europe trip coming up and a trip to VA, I'm pretty eager for spring to come!

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY EVERYONE!

Productive Weekends...

I had quite the productive weekend in terms of knitting and spinning. In terms of everything else, I pretty much did nothing. I love how I have these grandeose ideas of what I'm going to get accomplished in a weekend and then I just don't feel like it when the weekend actually comes around. 'I'd rather knit'...That's what always pops into my mind. Or the other general neglect-everything-but-this thought is 'I'd rather spin' And let me just tell you I spun like a crazy woman this weekend. I plyed together the singles that I've been working on and this is what I ended up with.

This picture is extremely deceiving because it looks like a lot but really, it's not that much. Here's a closeup...

I just love the way it's turning out. Plus, now that it's been plyed (or is it plied?) and the twist has been set, it is so soft. I don't even know what I'm making with it yet, but I guarantee it's going to be fabulous!

I also worked on the wonderful Retro Prep attempt #2. I mostly worked on that in the car. D and I drove to Rochester Saturday night to go to dinner with his parents and his brother and then to their house to watch the SU basketball game. It was the final for the Big East tournament, which, I'm happy to say, they won in quite an entertaining game. I brought my knitting in so I could maybe do a couple of rows while watching the game, but I surprised myself and didn't touch it once. The game was that thrilling. Who knew I could be this into basketball? I did however knit on the way out there and this is about where I am on Retro now

Notice the one finger holding down the edge... That little turd wanted to roll up on me while I was taking a picture. I'll put it in it's place when it's blocked, don't you worry!

Sunday was the concert which went fabulously. However, I was stuck next to the tone-deaf woman for the entire thing... I actually had several people come up to me during intermission asking me how I was coping. Apparently everyone avoids her like the plague but since I'm relatively new to the chorus I was unaware that she could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and that you should avoid her at all costs.... I tell you, this concert coming up on Friday, I will NOT be standing next to her. I'm sure she's a wonderful person, she just can't sing and it was throwing me off the entire concert. Besides that, however, it went really well. D came with my parents because he wanted to hear me sing. What a sweetie.

Last night I finally got around to blocking Clapotis. I finished it last Friday night but was much too busy spinning, knitting and singing this weekend that I didn't get a chance to block it. But here it is all pinned out. For perspective, that thing is about as long as I am (5'4").

And here's what it looks like all folded up. Mmmmm, just look at those colors...

All I have left to do is sew in the ends.... I'm definitely not looking forward to that. If there is one thing that I dislike about the process of knitting, it's sewing in ends. I love to knit, I love to block, I love to sew knitted pieces together, I just hate to sew in ends. Oh well, just gotta suck it up.

So I was looking through my Interweave Knits book and I saw this sweater...

I think this is going to be the next sweater for me. However, I'm definitely going to shorten it. I swear the thing looks like it goes well past her butt and I'm not into sweaters like that. The only real modification I have to do is work out the side shaping so it'll still look good about six inches shorter. We'll see, it's just idea at this point...

It's Friday!

Pictures as promised... and by the way, aren't you excited that it's Friday?

So I was having, um, technical difficulties this morning (read: my stupid computer at home is old and therefore a piece of crap) so I almost didn't get these pictures up, but lucky for me it started working just in time...

Retro Prep attempt #2 is coming along nicely,

I have a pretty good feeling that this color will actually make it look like I'm wearing a sweater, what do you think? As with the last Retro Prep, god rest it's soul, this picture makes it look more like a hat than a sweater, but I assure you it will be a sweater and not an overly large tam. I'm finding with this sweater that even though I'm holding two strands together the stitches are turning out excellent. You can't even tell.

Like I said, I've been kind of working on my mom's Dale sweater, slowly but surely I'm making progress on that...

Sorry about the crappy picture, it was the best I could do when there's no natural like to show off the pattern.

Last night I was working on this...

I've been biten by the spinning bug again. I knew it would happen. This is the second spindleful of yarn that I've spun and I'm hoping to ply the two together this weekend sometime.

So I was there in the kitchen spinning and talking with my mom while we waited for dinner to finish cooking last night... this is sort of how the conversation went.

Mom- "So you're really getting into this spinning thing huh?"
Me-"Yep."
Mom-"I take it you want a spinning wheel for your birthday?"
Me- *jaw drops on the floor and eyes light up with excitement*-"Hell Yeah!!!"

The only drawback here is that my birthday is in August, however, my parents have been known to buy my birthday presents early and then when my birthday comes around I get taken to dinner, etc, but no big present. Ummm, yeah, that's how I'd like it to happen this year! I'm itching to spin with a wheel.

I'm already planning in my head what I want to do with it (because it's probably going to be an Ashford Kiwi) I've seen them painted beautifully and I'm thinking about how I want mine to look. Of course, patience may be lacking and I may just want to put the thing together before staining or painting it. I suppose we'll find out when I get one!

Not much going on here...

I'm beginning to wonder why it is that every time there's a dress rehearsal for chorale that I get stuck next to the woman who is tone-deaf. Did I mention I have a concert this weekend? Probably not. Well, I'm mentioning it now. I have a concert on Sunday, then another concert on the following Friday. This is why I haven't posted any pictures in awhile. I've been stuck going straight to rehearsals after work.

Back to the subject at hand...the tone-deaf woman. I don't know if any of you have tried to sing while there's a person who couldn't hit the pitch if their life depended on it singing into your ear, but I can assure you, it's difficult. The worst part about this woman is I don't think she knows she's tone-deaf because she sings with all the confidence of an opera singer, and all the volume as well. So I'm standing there trying my hardest to sing the right pitches into her ear so maybe she'd pick up on them... no luck there. I'm thinking I'm going to have to change my seating for the concert because it is just too hard for me to sing accurately with that in my ear.

So as you can imagine, not much knitting has been done recently. Oh wait, I take that back, I did knit on Monday night when my parents, D and I drove down to Binghamton to go meet my brother for trivia night! We had a blast! I just sat their knitting and answering questions. Did you know that India Ink is made in China? I did, but no one heard me when I said it so we got that question wrong! Anyway, I worked on Retro Prep attempt number two. I have to thank Michelle for sending me those links to where I might find some more in case I *gulp* run out! You're the best!

Tonight I actually may have some time to post some pictures for tomorrow so stay tuned!

OH! I forgot to mention my last skein of Odessey came for my clapotis! I'm gonna be finishing that bad boy sometime this weekend! Woohoo! Very excited!

Let's just say... it hurt a little...

As mentioned in my last post, I will one day break 100 when I bowl... Saturday, however, was just not that day. Though a ton of fun was had, it was just not meant to be... About twelve of us got together that night; there is just nothing like getting a bunch of people together to bowl because you all know that it's not about the score, it's about hanging out... and possibly a little bit about the blacklights...

There was one particular game that we all played and I almost got 100. You see, I was well on my way. I bowled a strike and a spare in the first couple of rounds and by round four or five I had already scored 60 or so points. It was a definite possibility. D did not fail to notice this and would tell me every round that I only needed so and so points each round to score 100. Granted, that kind of pressure can make a person crack but I don't think it was this that led to my demise... I think it was the fact that just as I was about to bowl on the sixth or so round, the ball slipped out of my hand and fell on my foot... Yep, that's sure to throw off your game... I've been assured that it was a hysterical thing to see, and that, for me, makes it slightly less painful because why else am I here if not to make people laugh? I hopped around a bit, waited for the pain to subside and finished out the game with a high score of 93. See, even with a bowling ball falling on my foot I still played the best game to date. That, my friends, is determination...

I have a very nice bruise developing on the joint of my big toe, but surprisingly enough, it really doesn't hurt that bad...Then again, I think I was only using an 8 pound ball. Were I able to lift and consequently use a heavier ball this story might be less humorous.

As for knitting, I been working on my mom's Dale of Norway sweater that I haven't picked up for a good month. I feel it's been neglected due to Clapotis obsession. Fortunately for my mom's sweater, the last ball of Clapotis has still not arrived so I will continue to work on that for awhile... Ok, so that's a bit of a lie, I had startisis and was itching to work on something that wasn't knit on size 3 needles and didn't take 15 minutes to knit all 260 stitches of one round. So I turned to my stash and found some yarn that I have had in there for going on three or four years. It's an old Rowan yarn that was discontinued even when I bought it. It's called Rowan 4ply Botany. I realize I'm playing with fire here because if I run out of yarn, I'm pretty much screwed, but I think I did the math right, we should be good. I am attempting to make yet another Retro Prep (because my failed attempt is laughing at me and I have to show it up). I think we won't have any problems with this one....

.... famous last words right?