Seeing Green

We had yet another failed dyeing experiment this week. We tried dyeing a large skein of tan-coloured fingering weight yarn - over 400 yds - in the microwave (using food colouring drops done by Abi, so I don't really document the ratios etc.) using 3 dishes to try and get three slightly different areas of colour.  All were green. Unfortunately, for several reasons, the dye was only affecting small amounts of the yarn. Those reasons include 1) too much yarn in each dish and not enough water to distribute the dye and give the yarn space to move and 2) probably too much vinegar in the yarn causing it to immediately absorb the dye before the dye had time to reach the rest of the yarn.  After every round I'd look and find huge areas still of tan, so we'd mix and add more dye after pulling up the brown so it would catch the dye first... Eventually I had to give up and say UGH to the yarn above.  Also, we'd run out of blue and green and red food colouring.
The next day we got more food colouring, a very large bowl, and overdyed everything in one pot to achieve the yarn below.  Then I had to rinse it about 20 times because of all the dye added over the last couple days - far too much to be absorbed fully by the yarn. There is still a lot of wild variation, but I'm hoping it will look great when knitted...  My friends son suggested it should be called Jungle yarn and would look good with some red accents. Sounds like a design plan...

Not all green was horrid this week. I did finally finish this project started last year.

And we had two boxes of gifts arrive this week for Abi.  Today was Nana's box, which included this adorable outfit Abi immediately put on.

And magnetic dress-up dolls and craft stuff. Earlier in the week she got more dolls (and she's very happy to have a boy doll) and roller skates and other things.  That was a snow day, so she had to test out the roller skates inside. She's very good at it.

Spring Equinox

Today I noticed our Snow Drops are in bloom - just in time for Ostara - the Spring Equinox.  The crocuses are not far behind and other bulbs are sprouting from the ground full of promise.  Let us hope the snow stays away.

 There are blooms inside and outside to enjoy at our house.
Snow drops outside. Violets from a gift basket over 3 years old inside. Seedlings planted by Abi and me. And Kalancho flowers from an old cutting.

 Abi had fun at a local playground this afternoon.

And while riding her scooter.

not all dyeing yields desired results

"Every skein is sacred.
Every skein is great.
If a skein is wasted..."
you know the rest (or should. and if you don't - your own loss)

I found myself singing this as I hung some recent dye experiments to dry.
It started with some blues and pinks-purple needed to finish Abi's new shawl.  The results of the first batch were lovely and what I expected from Abi's colours.  They  were used for the picot bind off.

Sharing some love

The large section of blue near the bottom is my handspun yarn :)

Remember the yarn Abi and her friend dyed? It was knit up into these:

However, not all of our yarn experiments are equally lovely.
Yesterday proved that...

Abi wanted yellow. It took a while of being dissatisfied with the resulting pale yellow to add a drop of red to make it darker / visible. For the last skein I thought I would transform the yellow dye bath into some orange. There was still plenty of yellow left from trying to make it darker. Maybe adding a drop of the neon pink wasn't a great choice. It didn't matter how much red I added after... the skein is doomed to be crazy-bright.
No idea what I'll do with these...

And then there's this pink and blue in the same yarn base.

It's rather meh in my books.

Getting my knit on

I was curious to see myself knitting (and purling), so with the tripod already out and the sun shining in the window, I took some video footage.
I'm going to use the longer footage to calculate my knits per minute. Just because I'm curious.
Aside from cutting out most of the footage, this is not edited. Ie, that is really my speed for knit stitches and purl stitches (slower). Plus on the knit row I'm slipping two stitches (for that row).  Not every stitch is so quick to do.

I also did a quick video demonstrating a decrease technique used in my shawl design that creates 2 mirrored decreases from 3 stitches. (Not actually made in the correct place because I had already completed that row of decreases.)

And, for a joke I video recorded as I frogged back many rows of knitting on the shawl after changing the pattern for better increases along the sides. (This video predates the knitting above.)

For the non-knitters, "frogging" refers to ripping back: rip-it, rip-it / ribbit ribbit. Yes, it's knitting humour. Like "tinking" is to un-knit stitch by stitch or k-n-i-t backwards. tink.

3ft in 3 years

In dawned on me this afternoon that Abi was due to be measured. So I pulled out the tape measure and the cardboard length I'm visually keeping track on.  She's just over 3ft tall. Checking the WHO height for age charts, I see she's in a low percentile, which doesn't surprise me considering she's always been in a low percentile, especially for weight - which I haven't checked lately. What I find more surprising is when people say she's tall. I think people forget what size kids are.
Today we were out with her birthday balloon. Inevitably, many people asked her how old she is today - but first they guessed four years.  Of course, she happily chatted at them and informed them she is three. And that now there's no more nursing for her.  <-- yeah right.  We returned home and guess what she was asking to do within half an hour.  Nevertheless, there is now a base for weaning.

In celebration today, Abi and I went to the Stone Crock for a late breakfast. Abi had a huge pancake - which is why we went out.  We also went shopping for sun glasses. She's been asking for a pair for months.  I kept suggesting she wait for her birthday.  However, since she didn't receive any for her birthday, we used some of her birthday money on a pair that she chose. They are pink and sparkly with yellow-green arms. Very flower/spring in colour.  Before finding the glasses at the mall (in Zellers), we tried shopping in St. Jacobs. It was a lovely sunny day for walking around.

Yesterday was her big party - full of friends.  There were many balloons. Plus one giant balloon that Abi eventually popped playing with (thankfully; there was no way that thing was coming home) and a special helium balloon - which she carried around today.  There was also delicious food (thanks to Robin) and a tasty chocolate cake (if I do say so myself).  I had some party games ideas, but the kids just played happily by themselves. There was much running and noise.  All in all, I'd say it was a successful party.

Abi's already looking ahead to the next family birthday - mine.  I made a circle calendar for her a couple months ago, marked the seasons, months, etc, and everyone's birthdays.  Each birthday is colour-coded - mostly for decoration when I did it, but the colours have also helped her memorize whose birthday is when. So she knows last month was Dorion's birthday, that hers came next, and that around here mine is next.  Later this month is the conglomerate of her Nana's, Grandpa's and Aunty's birthday (on the 21st and 23rd).  She'll point on dad's birthday on the other half of the circle. And Pa-Pere's and Coreys too.
According to Abi, there will be kids and adults at my birthday. Darn, I was hoping for no kids :P

(yet) Another day of dyeing experiments

Abi and Isaac and I dyed some alpaca sock yarn this morning. (Berroco Ultra Fine, washable). 
In the top photo, the purple (both kids) and the green (mostly Isaac) are ready to be microwaved.  In the second photo, the purple (mostly Abi) has just come out.  She had added the concentrated dye mixture to the yarn before I had added extra water.  The results are quite lovely though:

Purples and blues are so hard to photograph! This picture really does not do the yarn colours justice.

The bi-coloured yarn didn't come out as good in the green department. Especially when held against the bright purple. It was a muddy brown-green, with a lot of poorly-dyed areas.
So I mixed up some more green-blue and overdyed it.  Except, I neglected to add vinegar at first. I think I assumed there was enough absorbed by the yarn at this point. I was wrong.  The colour did not take.  Some of the dye bath had been transferred to the other half of the dish by wicking.  I added vinegar to the green side, microwaved for 2 more minutes, and voila - the water was clear! On the purple side, where no vinegar had been added, it was still bright green. (I'm pretty sure that purple wasn't planning to absorb any more colour anyhow!)  Thus I had an unintentional experiment with vinegar and dyeing.

If you're happy and you know it

If you're happy and you know it sing along.