Rainbow Sprite!

One day, in a small Gulf Coast town in Texas, when I was about knee-high to a gnat, I was colouring with my cousin Jeannie. I was jealous as all get out because she was easily chatting away while outlining pictures in dark crayon and shading the figures and mixing colours - I, on the other hand, had half a tongue hanging out of my mouth (Charlie-Brown-style) and sweat on my brow as I simply tried to stay within the lines. The whole way home to Houston, I dreamt about the day that I would use crayons to do outlining and shading in my Mickey Mouse colouring books.

Sadly, I am not the brilliant Crayola Shading Artist I dreamed I'd become. Crayons gave way to coloured pencils, which gave way to cameras, which gave way to blogging. (Jack of all trades, master of none?).
In an effort to amuse myself further with hues from the rainbow, I finally tried my hand at dying wool. Last night's results weren't too solid, they all came out a bit lighter than I'd hoped, see light pink yarn here from the hearty red packet. ( I've committed to making these skeins blood red in time for Halloween, darnit!)


Completely flustered and out of Kool Aid and Batik dyes, I grabbed the nearest thing I could think of: a packet of Crystal Light Raspberry Ice and came out with a much darker (and way cool!) tone.
´
Ms. Mayor of Doubtsville thinks it might end up a bit sticky. Maybe so, but the colour is still really cool! There's gotta be some sort of need for sticky yarn, eh? Maybe a hat that 2 year old fingers finally can't pull off the head while in the stroller.....







Today I went shopping at Idee in Nuremberg and found loads of proper dyes, dyeing bottles for painting and pipettes for just general messing around. The light amythest from last night has been submerged into King Blue and the tips of my Briggs and Little Sock Yarn for my space-dyeing attempt. (I can't just try dyeing and work in other techniques later - I have to try dyeing skeins and also figure out space dyeing at the SAME TIME!! and buy bottles and pipettes to play with yarn and fleece painting RIGHT THIS SECOND!)

Because it's not just about scribbling in your Mickey Mouse book and being happy playing with colours - it's about being able to do all the techniques everyone else can do on the first try, right? Or at least the second try......otherwise I'm going to end up with lots of over-dyed black and browns ;)



Asides:

Ciara's Quote from the weekend: I never thought dyeing yarn could smell this good.

How do you like the Groovy Green tiles in my downstairs bathroom?

Also, at Idee, I found this pull-chain music box. How sweet is this??!! I just need to figure out something to knit around it and which chubby-cheeked drooler is going to get it. (probably whichever one doesn't end up with their fingers stuck to a Crystal Light toque).

First Try on the Sock Yarn Raglan Sweater

New Favourite Soap Opera: All My Chins
LOL
not the most flattering picture of me, but it captures the sweater on my first try. It's a bit tight around the tetas (the 2nd try only made it a bit looser, so the third try is going to include another round of phases 1 and 2 of the South Beach. Yea veggies!!) Wish me luck!

Make Glove, Not War!

I finished my prototype Luxury Sock Yarn Glove. For those of us who have absolutely beautiful feet, but are reluctant to wrap expensive merino and mohair around them (yes, I know, this too shall pass....but until then, I want to knit and wear some of this great yarn!)

Also, a close friend and annoying Reminder of Things Unfinished, brought to my attention the fact that I've blogged a lot more about potential projects than their finished products.

Presenting: Project Picture Overload!!

Clown Socks - yarn picked out by a six foot blonde beasty Irishman as the "coolest sock colours" this side of the Danube.


I used the two-stranded heel and toe on these bad boys (just to make sure he has to wear socks with pink in them for a VERY long time) an I'm really excited about the colourway from the stranding.
Toe


Heel


Sorry to disappoint kids, but that's all the pictures our fearless Yarn Hunter can post until Picasa deides to play nice with Blogger Beta. Where's my IT God when I need him?!

Yarn Picnic with Sing-a-long!

Head!

Shoulders!

Knees

and Toes!!







Knees

and Toes!!















I was a very shoppy girl this week :)
First, Erica (yes, it's all her fault!) got me a beautiful purple colourway from Sunshine Yarns for the birthday I'm pretending didn't happen. And let me buy another off of her that she had two of - that's the pink colourway! Purty, idn't it? I'm weird about putting luxuriously soft wool on my feet. Sure, they deserve the best, but so does my head - so my ears will spend the winter under purple and pink.
Then I found a sale on cotton yarn in my local supermarket (seriously!) The pyramid of Punto blue will be a cardigan for sister in Florida.
And the red/pink colourway will cover the knees of the new baby girl in North Carolina.

Last, but not least, Erica and I found a new sock yarn heaven this week. It had absolutely everything I had heard of and more! See that thick and fuzzy Regia far right - they're going to be boot socks for this winter - it's the softest yarn I've ever seen from Regia (including their cotton). They had buckets and buckets of On-line, Opal, Regia in brand-spanking-new colouways and more Ja Woll than you could shake a Visa card at. And all of it quite reasonably priced - which is good, because hey only accept cash. Even though the entire shop was no bigger than my kitchen, we managed to spend over 30 minutes combing through colours and textures and patterns and samples and did lots of chatting with the friendly owner.
I just hope Erica can keep her cool, since the shop is only 5 minutes drive from her house - can you imagine!!!!
I can't wait until next month's yarn budget :)

Flashback

This photo is so old that Cian's still in diapers! Yikes.
Dave and I visited some friends south of Stuttgart and we spend a day hiking in France. I shopped my first ever Phildar boutique and found a lovely thick cotton that became a sommery-buckety hat.
Voila!

More spoils of the hike :)

Yes, Virginia

There is a yarn that is durable, washable, can give as well as it takes and is still wool!!

Introducing Schoeller & Stahl's Teflon coated wool. What do you want to bet that someone at DuPont plays with needles and string in their spare time???

I'm knitting up a hat and scarf set for my nephew Bubba (name changed to protect the innocent and to better match his personality). He's just started a project in Illinois and I predict this to be the ultimate test of durability and wear. Dave will be taking it over next week so I've got some buckling down to do.

And I'm not admitting to a birthday, but there was a great birthday present from my sister Louise, who lives in Maine.