Spring is Finally Here

Remember this pic (from my dye day):

Well, that turned into...this:


I whipped it out this weekend for a co-workers birthday today. Made out of Patons Merino Wool, originally cream, rainbow dyed in my dying frenzy. :-)

Well, I guess I am officially now a Reno resident. (What, the drviers license didn't do it for you?)Nope, it had to be the... Librbary card! Yep, I got myself a library card for the Washoe County system. And look what I borrowed...
I love this book!! I've been wanting to try my hand at fair isle for a while. The patterns in this book are both stitch (colorwork) patterns in black and white so you can imagine your own colors, as well as garments with set colorways (changeable, of course!) There is also a section in the back about designing your own. Very cool! :-)

Now that spring is here, I fall asleep to the chorus of frogs across the way, and wake of to the very loud chorus of birds. This weekend was absolutely beautiful! Lovely warm weather, sunshine, birds flying to and fro, gettting their nests ready. And look what came to visit my balcony once the kitties went inside for a nap...




Not one but two cute little birds came (several different times) to gather fiber for their nest. They picked at the blue rug, then moved up to the cat bed once they discovered the riches of kitty fluff. The bed itself is made of synthetic fleece, so there were taking some of that, too. I snuck outside in between trips and deposited some more fiber from around my spinning chair for them to take.

There is one plush nest out there. :-) It brings to mind the word "twitterpated!"

Imagine if...

I found this on another blog. Pretty right on. Find out about yourself.

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Miscellany

I am so glad this weekend is over. It was exciting and busy, but went entirely too fast, with not enough down time. So now, its "I can't wait for Friday to be here..." Although, I have cleared my schedule for most of this week, so I should have plenty of time to rest and relax in the evenings.

Before I get onto the knitting and fiberish content...Sunday was awesome!! There are not enough adjectives to tell you just how well the Easter presentation went! The church was packed (Thank you, Lord!) and the performance went off without a hitch. Here is a pic of the final scene:


It was the full Easter story, including Roman guards and Crucifiction scene. They taped both performances (Friday and Sunday) and will cut and paste and edit to create a nice DVD, which the choir will get to see at a party in a couple of weeks. I can't wait. From the comments and compliments it was truly awesome.

Now on to fibery things...

I dyed some more Saturday - straight BFL roving this time. It didn't felt or full at all, for which I am very please about. It was still very easy to spin up, as you can see in the second pic. (Nice sock yarn!) Very spring-like colors - very nice for this weekend. The orange I dyed by pouring in orange and yellow into the same pot and not mixing. I like the shadings that occured. Once I spin this up I'll see how it goes - maybe a hat or scarf.



Continueing my fascination with all shades of green - I started (yet) another (rolling of the eyes) project. Another shawl out of "Folk Shawls":

I know it's kinda dark - on my computer at home the colors are rich and fabulous. This is the Fir Cone Square, in Harrisville Shetland, color Emerald. This green is so rich and deep, in the sunlight there are blue flecks. I love how it knits up, pretty quick. The inch or so that you see there was done just yesterday evening!

And of course it wouldn't be a post with out gratuitous feline pictures:

While Kitty played with the camera strap...

Lexy snoozed at the top of the kitty condo!

Stash Enhancment (or S.E.X.)

As you can see - I've been shopping!! Trekking XXL, which I have heard soo much about lately. 1 ball will make a pair of socks - 1 in reds, and the other pair in grays and blues. It feels pretty soft, but is superwash with nylon, so hardwearing! I got all this at the Yarn and Fibre Co (thanks to Claudia lauding them on her blog.) And they are fast - I ordered this last Friday and got it Tuesday! The Cherry Tree Hill skein on the right is their merino sock yarn in color "Northern Lights." All sorts of colors from dark purple to green to light pink. Can't wait to knit this into another pair of socks.

Now for the best part. The dark purple hank at the bottom is as you can probably tell - "Helens Lace" form Lorna's Laces. 50/50 Merino and Silk - I can't wait to knit this up into a lacey shawl. There is even a free shawl pattern on the back of the label.

Kitty was feeling quite frisky the other night and had fun while I was making the bed! :-)


Happy Easter, Passover, etc - "He is Risen, He is Risen indeed!!" Amen and Amen!

Saturday Dye Day

(Warning - Picture Heavy Post Ahead!) ;-)

Well, I certainly had fun on Saturday! I tried my hand (for the first time - I might add) at dyeing. I had read in the spring issue of Knitty about dyeing with food coloring and somewhere else about dyeing with KoolAid. So I grabbed some cream wool from Michaels, along with some merino lace weight I have from KnitPicks, and a sample of unspun BFL (for non-spinners - Blue-Faced Leicester), and I got dyeing!

The red is cherry KoolAid and the purple is grape. When they were first done, and I had rinsed and hung to dry, I was kinda dissapointed with the unevenness of the color, but the I realized it looked kettle-dyed. Cool! :-)

These two pircture are kind of before and after shots. The roving on the top was grape Koolaid, and before dyeing I had let it soak in vinegar water. So it pulled up the blues and reds at different rates of the purple dye, thus the variations. It also fulled a little, but after it was dry I was able to spin it up without too much trouble. I navajo plyed it into the skein you see on the bottom.

Now for the piece de resistance:
I just love these colors. Rainbow-dyed with easter egg colors (food coloring). I wish the red were not so pink, but I really like the intensity of the green, orange, and yellow.

This is the merino lace weight from Knitpicks. I dip-dyed it in the purple from the easter egg kits. I tripled the dye so the intesity would be high. The yarn was also soaked in vinegar water, so there is more variation in the blues and reds. The process is this: I dunked the yarn almost all the way in then pulled it out a little, let is sit for about 10 mins, then pulled another little bit out, let it sit for 20 mins, and so on and so forth. So as you can see it gradually darkens the longer that part of the skein was in the dye bath.

Needless to say - I had a lot of fun. Fortunately, not a whole big mess to clean up, and no spills! I might not be so lucky next time with cats running around!

Speaking of which, Kitty and Lexy relaxing (as usual):

On a completely different note:

I know its kind of dark, but this is the set for the Easter performance at Sierra Bible. Very impressive! On the left is the tomb with a "rock" to roll in front at the appropriate time. In the middle (the hump with the cross atop it) is the "cave" where we the choir are going to be crammed into. And on the far right is the Jerusalem"wall". It is going to be an amazing, emotional performance. I don't expect that there will be a dry eye in the congregation near the end. With the choir stuck in the batcave, we will miss all the good stuff, but that is probably to the good, so we can actually get through the performance. Pray for many people to have a seed planted this Easter. God is so good!!