Well then, my decision to only update with finished work has proved that it's forever and a day between finished pieces for me. On the other hand, I just finished a beast of a skein of yarn - positively huge, I tell you! I give you Bonfire:
Dyed with Red Hot, West End, Lousy Tip, and Bastet from Fyrinnae and at 241 yards, it wouldn't even fit all on my spindle!
I finished another yarn this weekend, it's pretty small at 33 yards but quite pretty I think. I'm calling it Robin's Egg:
I used wool that I dyed with Japan and Romeo.
As far as knitting, I've been barreling through the Lizard Ridge for my mom and I only have five (!) more squares to finish. Yay!
Phew, well I've finally finished my first plied yarn, and it's called (big surprise) Milky Way. I used wool dyed with Nightboat for the grey and Dragon's Wing for the light green-ish. The silver thread was easily the worst part because I ran out of single ply thread, and the craft store where I work only had two ply, so I laboriously unplied some (never do this, ever! it's not worth it!) after I had taken my yarn off my spindle temporarily. So here it is:
It's 100 yards and I'm very happy with it.
So about trying to make this blog a daily occurrence... *anyway* I've been somewhat busy over these past two months (I'm rounding up a little to make my return seem more epic) and part of it has been due to the activities mentioned in this here blog. I did finish the FDP, and as for individual reports on each color as it's dyed, well that ship has sailed. But there are still individual reports on each color as I spin with it! Which reminds me...
That's a yarn I'm calling 'Cake Frosting' that I spun up using wool dyed with Ancient Mirage and Queen Mab. I also spun up all of some grey that I dyed *I think* with Bastet into a very thin single, which was upleasantly tedious, but oh, I have plans for it.
On the knitting front, I've been getting a bunch of lovely yarn over at Woolcott & Co. in Harvard Square for several different projects. I cast on for Knitty's Wisp in some light pink Rowan Kidsilk Haze (I think the colorway is called Grace). I did a few rows and although I'm not a huge fan of working 'airy' lace I like the finished product enough that I'm sure I'll get through it.
I also cast on for the Welig gloves from Knitting New Mittens and Gloves by Robin Melanson. I love this book and have tabbed off a bunch of patterns in it. I'm using the book recommended yarn which is Nashua Handknits Julia (mine is a light sage green) and I have to say that it is both really lovely to work with and very nice for the pattern.
My mother/daughter Lizard Ridge project is fairly steady, if slow, and I've currently got fifteen squares done out of the fifty that I need (ugh). I've mentally nicknamed the pattern 'lizard rudge' for no reason that I can fathom.
First off, I have given up on the Knucks. I remade them three times and no matter what I tried, there were massive gaps between the fingers. So feh, I'm taking a break and then I'll try another pattern for fingerless gloves that isn't finger-down.
I spent most of today dyeing even more roving. I think I might just name this the Fyrinnae Dye Project (FDP) since it's most of the dyeing I'll be doing for a while. To make life simpler (maybe) for me I'm just gonna hyperlink each eyeshadow color to its page on the Fyrinnae site, thus no hyperlink on a color name = a discontinued color.
Lousy Tip and Anasazi from yesterday are done and unpredictably as always Lousy Tip produced a light brownish tint and Anasazi went from golden ochre to a burnished orange with strong hints of red. (I swear I'll take pictures of all this soon)
Last night I did two more dyebaths with Ancient Mirage and Bastet, which are now done drying. Bastet turned out a medium to dark grey and Ancient Mirage a peachy pale taupe.
This morning saw another four dyebaths, which are now drying: Black Plum which produced a dark dusty rose color, Bloodmoon which was a muted red and produced a bright orange, Chameleon which was very dark burgundy and produced a light ashy grey and Changeling, which also produced a light ashy, but different from Chameleon grey.
Right now I have dyebaths of Day-Glo Fantasy, Dirty Boy, Dragon's Wing, Dryad and Fall From Grace cooling overnight to be rinsed tomorrow.
I'm starting to realize just how long a process dyeing is. I'm doing a half hour presoak in acidulated water, I've decided to aim for a 15-20 minute cook and then an eight hour cooling/setting period and then another day to dry. And to think, I still have 25 (!!!) pots of eyeshadow that I haven't used yet. FDP looks to be a lengthy endeavor.
