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More Fun with Dying!

Susan organized a fabulous yarn dying party for her birthday last weekend and had lots of leftovers. I had such a great time at her party, catching up with pals from Sip-n-Knit that I haven't seen since moving to Volusia, pigging out on yummy fajitas and messing around with Kool-Aid and Wilton cake dyes. AND there was chocolate cake :) And I hate to see a friend weighed down under massive leftovers.....

The kids had Monday off of school and both neice and nephew got to invite a friend over - so I invited a friend, too. Susan brought the remaining yarn, sock flats, Kool-Aid, chicken, soda and some chocolate cake (and her husband, Rob, with a Wii - they were a pretty impressive carload altogether!) and helped keep me, Helen and the neighborhood kids entertained for the afternoon.

Bobby enjoyed dying his so much that he offered to help Eli with his sock flat. There's a fierce amount of 6-year-old concentrating going on here.

These two spent the rest of the afternoon glued to Rob getting the skinny on World of Warcraft, his kindergarten experience and his magic hair.

Helen tried her hand at kettle/bucket dying and got a very vibrant strawberry!

I dyed some bright and freaky tropical colors and then over-dyed them in a bucket with a lt. brown .

I'm not sure it toned down as much as I'd hoped. But it's a little less freaky than before and I can't wait to see it in socks!!

Here's our collective efforts drying in the sun and wind.

We had a great time doing this for the first time last Thanksgiving and it gets more exciting each time!

Helen's Scarf for Bobby!

Another guest post from my sister. We had a yarn dying party the day after Thanksgiving at Threads of Time last year and Bobby had a ball. He used almost every color we had. So, my sister Helen made a scarf for him out of his yarn......

Once a son starts dying his own yarn a mother has to get to work!

Check out those colors!

The Daily Nightmare

I started the daily sweater on my flight over here and have been knitting dutifully on it for weeks now - including hours and hours of clickety-click boring stockinette stitch. I threw it in a Cool as a Moose bag and took it with me everywhere and knit, knit, knit. I read the forum entries in Ravelry to be sure and try it on as you go, isn't that the whole big benefit of knitting from the top-down? Trying it on as you go?

Even the cat helped out:

You know where this is going, don't you? I knit for hours, days, weeks and couldn't be bothered to take 3 whole minutes to transfer half of the sweater to longer circulars so that I could try it on. I mean, if anything, it'll probably be too small, right? And, if it's too big, then it's supposed to be a substitute for the roomie sweatshirt, so at least it'll still look better than its predecessor. Right? RIGHT?
After finishing the back ribbing, I had the sweater off of the too-small circular for the first time and tried it on last night to discover it is, in fact, a huge blue blob of knit stitches and pretty cables.

Not only is it too big around the middle, but nearly flowing across my back.

Being that this yarn is named Columbine Blossom, I could accept that some flowing is desirable, if nothing, to recreate images of columbine blossoms across summer fields. But I don't like the idea of wearing yards of flowy cotton when I could have a cute, shapely sweater that actually flatters me.
I mean, I could buy a shapeless, pretty-colored sweater any day of the week. But a flattering blue pullover with decorative cables should make all those around me envious of my fabulous color and fabric choice and supreme knitting skills. That's why we all started knitting, right? It wasn't just for the chagrined Thank You's on Christmas when recipients find their yearly gift is handmade and full of expensive non-itchy wool (which they will pretend is itchy just to be difficult, the little buttheads! It's freaking angora for crying out loud!). But, we imagined sweaters that no one has seen in the local boutiques or Old Navys - a fit to make your younger relatives jealous and the ability to alter, fix and adjust anything to your preference and BENEFIT.

I'm sure I have learned a valuable lesson and will try to remind myself of that through the tears and upper-arm muscle ache as I rip out and re-wind approximately ten pounds of cotton today. I will write a little note to keep on my bathroom mirror and maybe even my rearview mirror in the car, maybe my wallet, too.......
You're never as fat as you think! (Even after Christmas!)

Sledding on Ertlberg

Today we went sledding on Ertlberg with the Kisberi's.

It's not the steepest, most-exciting slope, but it provided plenty of excitement for us.

Dave had a great time on his belly..... check out the name of the sled he was riding. Ha! I wonder if these are made somewhere near Chicago!

Cian's got a great scream going on as he and Dave race down the hill - he'd be a shoe-in for a horror flick!

We even sledded back to the car!

Snow Day!

My cat loves pouncing snowballs!