Earth Day and Designing - a belated post

If the rains and lack of snow and flowers and buds are any indication, it must be spring time.  And let's not forget the ducks in pairs and the birds building nests and and warm weather.  Yes, it is mostly definitely Spring. Even if snow or ice should come crashing down right now at my window I would still declare it is Spring and the cold stuff can "Foxtrot Oscar", as my dad would say.

Seeing as how we celebrated Ostara/Easter while Corey and Ed were in town a few weeks ago, we didn't do much last weekend.  For Earth Day (aka Good Friday this year), Abi and I dyed pencil roving given to us by a local woman trying to get rid of it.  Abi and I experimented with the cakes. We dyed one in the form it comes in and the other I unrolled into a skein.

 Here's Abi trying to get colour into the entire cake.  We started with the microwave method of heat setting the (food colouring, as usual) dye, but it wasn't setting all  the dye. So we switched to the slower oven method to let the yarn soak for longer.  I flipped it over part way through so both top and bottom would be immersed in the oven.  The result is quite nice.  The purple absorbed fastest at the outer edges, but as the dye was slowly absorbed by the roving in the oven, the blue was set inside.

After that fairly simple dye job we tried our hand at rainbow dyeing.

 Unfortunately, the results were not nearly as dramatic as the bath. I suspect more time and dye would have helped.

Regardless, I think it will knit up nicely.

I was also working on a new shawl design to show off my first full skein of handspun yarn.  I was aiming for an Earth Day finish, but apparently I was expecting too much of myself to spin, ply, design AND knit the project in a week. So I finished it Saturday. (In part because my friend 'expected' me too. As a joke. So I proved I could.)  The second half of the spinning and plying happened on Friday... one day... yes, I'm apparently as fast at spinning (with a drop spindle) as I am at knitting.  You see, I had to spin it up quickly because I ran out of yarn half through the project that day.

The photo at the top of the posting was the first ball of singles.  Above is what I had after plying the first two balls of singles and starting the knitting. You can see all the stages of fiber, singles, two plies, and knit. And my spindle. (I want a better one...)
Alas, I had to frog the entire thing after binding off. My design was... off... I shan't speak of what a silly mistake I made.  But I did learn several things from working the design, not least of which is how GORGEOUS my first handspun yarn is!! (not including all the little skeins I played with before having the courage to spin the "special" fiber I had bought).
I'm currently testing a redux of the design on not-handspun yarn.
In the meantime, I had time to actually skein the yarn, wash it, let it rest... all things one should do before knitting it.  It's not advisable to spin, ply, then knit from the ball in the same day... unless you want to work with "energized" yarn. (I won't delve more into spinning talk here...)

Once the design is knit and tested,  I can sell it. And then I can buy a better spindle on Etsy. And some fiber.

Yes, I already have two lovely designs for sale on Ravelry. People are actually buying them too.  Ah, my first day of sales was so exciting.  Tomorrow my designs will also be featured for sale at the DKC Frolic in Toronto.  Both designs use yarn by Waterloo Wools. And I was surprised to find one of my designs featured on another blog - with a design by Jared Flood.  Technically, my design was "above" his. ;) And for the non-knitters, you should know that's illustrious company.
I'm waiting for all the people who have bought the pattern to start knitting it so I can see pictures! And for my test knitter to restart (she didn't like her first yarn) so she can share it too.

Both are dragon-inspired designs.
First came the Dragon Hatchling Shawl.

 It's a quick project (I knit it in 2 days to get it blocked and mailed on time). My sister received this one for her birthday.
And then I finished the much bigger project. The Battle-Weary Dragon Shawl.

This one is knit in a cobweb weight lace yarn. My favourite. It's Montague Yarn from Waterloo Wools - a blend of merino and silk.  When I saw this skein of Silver Fox for sale I had to get it.
I'm also donating some of the sales from the Battle-Weary to local animal rescue.

For the record, I really don't spend all my time knitting. I swear.  But there are plenty of opportunities while I'm playing with / watching Abi, nursing, long car rides when I'm not the driver, having coffee with friends (many/most of whom are also knitters), making Abi finish her meal, walking to the park with Abi (this way I can walk at her speed without going crazy!)... lol And then I discovered that spinning actually helps me drink my coffee/tea BEFORE it's cold. Spin, drop, sip, draft. Repeat.

Last Weekend

Last weekend was full of excitement. Corey and Ed came out to visit, we celebrated the beginning of spring with the Ostara Bunny leaving treats, AND it was my birthday.  I'm finally getting around to sharing some photos for you. (click to enlarge)

 Saturday we went out to St. Jacobs and after shopping at the market took a long walk in the town up to the local dam.
 There were many lovely photo opportunities on that beautiful day.

Of course, Robin as usual neglected to inform us (or at least me) of his intent to take a long walk. If I'd known I would have brought the Ergo carrier...  Instead there was a lot of this

And this

And just general trailing-behind of Abi and I

Fortunately, she could sometimes be convinced to walk more on her own with the allure of a walking stick

We saw a lot of great things. Fish in the water. Birds. "Helicopter" seeds to toss. And a couple of garter snakes playing chase and "hard to get".

The next morning the Ostara Bunny came to visit. Abi was slow to get into the hunt, but by the end she was eagerly seeking out more eggs. And she adores the purple lamb puppet.

We were having so much fun that I almost forgot it was also my birthday. My sweet daughter prepared a basket of her eggs for me and wished me a happy birthday.
Robin baked a rich chocolate cake.

We also went out for sushi for lunch.
That same day we also went to the park and took Abi roller skating (with Uncle Ed).  Once again she made me proud - picking up newspaper flyers blowing around.
 Litter offends her sense of what is proper.

 Of course, as usual, she and I were tagging along behind...

(Here we are also modelling our summer knit hats)

Dangling Bits

I made myself some pretty dangling bits.
Yes, I jumped on the pretty-stitch-markers bandwagon.
I used to be satisfied with plain white circles around my needles when I needed stitch markers. I was satisfied because that is what I inherited from my MIL and they work.
Then I wanted some colour, so I bought a small package of rainbow coloured rubber ring stitch markers at the Knitters Fair last year.  Different colours and different sizes (particularly the small one for socks) is great, but I do find the rubber markers to be a bit sticky. I wouldn't want to use more than a couple on a project.

Still, I've been admiring the pretties dangling from my friends' projects on the needles.
Thus, today for crafts I made my own pretty stitch markers.  It's been a long time since I delved into my bead collection.

 The moonstone markers are my favourites of course. I also made two more that are clip-on style to attach to a stitch rather than on the needle. They're already in use.

 I call these ones the Bees and the others are the Ocean markers. I think they'll need new homes.  The Bees can also function to count things.

 The Pretty in Pink markers used up leftover heart pieces from Abi's baby blessing votive gifts and beads from an anklet my friend made years ago that's been sitting unused. (I trust you're not offended Aileen. You're probably rather surprised I still have it.)  The purple-blue set is my second favourite and the clip-on marker features a fluorite stone. I made many of these, you know, for projects that need a lot of markers.

We also prepared a basket of yarn bits for the birds and nested it in the tree outside. Hopefully the birds will help themselves to some nest-building materials... rather than try to nest in it... I'm intending to bring it inside every evening. (Emphasis on intentions.)

There's much more yarn to refill it as necessary!

 Not these yarn bits of course. This is my special mini basket of mini (teeny-tiny) skeins from my favourite yarns.

Lest you  think I would leave you without a cute-kiddo picture after all this time, I give you "walking the animals on a cloudy day".

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.