An Adventure!

Last weekend Ruth invited me on an adventure with her to visit her sister in Mass. and go to the Green Mountain Spinnery, Webs, and see the Yarn Harlot. If you look at the Yarn Harlot crowd pictures we are there to the right. (someplace). Green Mountain Spinnery was waaaay smaller than I thought it would be, but a nice store.
We both got beautiful yarn. Webs was crazy - I mean like last minute shopping on Christmas Eve crazy! We waited probably 1.5 hours to get our books signed by Stephanie (aka yarn harlot). She was amazing and very classy. I give her a lot of credit for spending so much time chatting with everyone in line, even though there were always 50+ waiting. The line to check out was probably 1 hour long....seriously.

Ruth's sister Martha and her family are very nice and warm - inviting me --a stranger into their home. They usually have "sister" weekends, but this was a Knitting weekend, so hence my invitation. On Saturday, we dyed sock yarn from KoolAid. (instructions found at Knitty.com). This was more fun than I will ever be able to describe in the blog. We had a nice weather day so we could work outside.
(Mark: we are really not using the deck to dye the yarn - there must be something wrong with the angle of the pictures).

Martha bought the sock yarn from KnitPicks, Ruth brought some lacey cashmerey stuff, and Martha had some stash she wanted to try.

We had to soak in soapy water - it looked like a bowl of spaghetti


We used 3 pks of koolaid per skein of yarn.

We made plains colors, and multi. The yarn seemed to suck the color fast and then
we had to manuver the yarn around the rest of the watered koolaid so it took some
of the color. Ruth and I tried some multicolored skeins, both using different methods.
This is Martha mixing some "stuff".


After they were died, they had to take two trips thru the microwave to "set" the color.
Then out to the line to dry. The plainer yarn is some Martha tried to dye with coffee.




We had to bring it in overnight and finish drying in the basement.

Sunday we spent a lot of time making it into cakes. It is very tangled, and the next time we will tie it up better so some skeins took a lot longer than others.


(note: no pictures of Ruth because she was the official photographer )

This was the quick version. We did a lot of other things too.

Martha's family is very fun. Her kids are a bit younger than mine. EmmaLousie - 15 and Tommy 13. Both are quite funny. Her husband Mark was very brave I thought - he stayed home most of the weekend!

Ruth had some EXACT yarn in her stash to finish up Joe's socks - what a miracle. I am decreasing for the toe to get the darn things done - sick of them. I am working on some Jaywalker socks from yarn I got at Ellen's half Pint - merino tencel mix.

Oh, another thing. Remember my prior posts when I complained about all of the K2P2 ribbing I had to do on my sweaters? Martha voluntarily makes most of her socks in K2P2 ribbing - go figure!

In other news:

The boys are getting ready for a big fishing weekend - Walleye opens this weekend. The family is all doing good. Have a safe week!

A fish story

Not much knitting to share. I am almost done with Joe's 2nd sock and am p*ssed that I will run out of yarn - 460 yards and I will run out - obviously they did not give me enough. I have been reading that others had trouble with that yarn. Trekking Pro Natura..... So I'll tell you a fish story. Joe and Joel went fishing on Sunday and caught lots. The End.

Trudging Along......

I have another FO....yea! I have finished the Shrug from Lace Style, and I am loving it. Some wierd pictures so you can see how is fits. It was hand dyed yarn I bought from Hemlock Fiber Fest - 2 years ago. It was purchased to be wrist warmers or socks, but it was much to nice so I was waiting to come up with something really cool. This was a pretty quick knit, though it seemed like a LOT of knitting for this little thing. Tiffany wants one too, hers will be pink and summery. Goby cotton yarn. Because the yarn was hand dyed, my fingers turned green whenever I was knitting it . I had to give it a nice long vinegar in soak when it was done, and yes, now it smells like vinegar so I have to find something nice to wash it in.





I am trudging along on the French Girl Fifi sweater. Only three more rows and I will bind off the bottom and start the sleeves. I've also finished one of Joe's socks and have about 2 inches done on the 2nd one. I am totally bored with both ongoing projects, and want to start something FUN and NEW ......but I am resisting so I can get these done and out of the way.




Abbey is loving it outside now, it was 60 here today....all of the spring smells, it's hard to keep her inside.


Have a safe week.