Kiss My Knits!

My daughter the comedian. In case you can’t read it, it says that she knows a kindergartener named Cliff Hanger. This is hi-LAR-ious to her. Switching the name to Hiff Clanger runs a close second.

She’s had lots of fun with this over the last couple of days. I’m a little hoarse from shouting and laughing. Good times.

Behold, the magic of overdyeing. Many pics follow!

I got a lot of mileage out of the leftover leaf-green dye from Sunday’s session. Here we see a small amount of leftover white Dale Baby Ull crammed into a pint Mason jar filled with dye. A day or so later, the dye was absorbed and the liquid was mostly clear. The picture doesn’t capture the correct color – it’s more of a grass green.


In other news, more banana chocolate chip muffins than two people could possibly eat.

Emily: “Maybe next time you can make strawberry muffins. That would be good.”

Everybody’s a critic.

I’m up to mid-March on hat orders. Next up: London, Alberta, and New York.

Not perfect, but much better. A wash and a cut for $15 not including tip at the Aveda Institute on South Boulevard. Well worth the price, but I had to really guide her. Even though I brought the picture to the right along with me to show her what I wanted, it came out fairly choppy. There were big blocks where you could see exactly where a large hunk of hair was cut. But we worked on it, and an hour after I walked in, it looked good. It’s a hairstylist school, I don’t expect her to have it flawless the first time, so no worries. She got a nice tip for her hard work.

My husband was called out of town unexpectedly, so things have been kind of hectic here this week. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the stylist’s chair that it occurred to me that this is a Girl Scout week. And the meeting is today. And I have nothing planned. I’m not adding any extra stress to my life while I’m flying solo with Em, so I’ve sent out an e-mail saying that unless someone else is able to step in, the meeting’s off. It’s short notice, so I’m not expecting miracles.

And actually, just now as I was writing that, I realized that no, we meet on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday, not every other Wednesday, sooo… there wasn’t supposed to be a meeting. I’m sending out a “never mind” e-mail now.

I’ve been backsliding on getting enough sleep this week, as you can no doubt tell. I’ll try to do better tonight.

Hey, Sunday dyers!

This is mystery Romney that was leftover after the session. We all thought it belonged to Illiane because she had to cut out early and nobody else remembered dyeing it.

Well, Illiane says it ain’t hers. Anybody else recognize it?

Dye day with pics!

It’s hard to wait to post pics, but necessary. Case in point: after we were all done, I took the dregs from the remaining mixed-up dye and poured it onto a couple of slivers of wool.

To the left, when wet, they looked questionable. Dried, they lightened up substantially. Interesting!

And so I wait for the overdyed stuff to dry before posting. Although it kills me.

A lot went on this weekend. Saturday morning, I hit a few yard sales on my way to the post office. I needed a few supplies for dyeing fiber on Sunday, and yard sales are gold mines for that sort of thing. I found a $1 enamel pot and a $2 extra wide crock pot marked “as-is.” Score! I plugged the crock pot in before I bought it, and it worked just fine. Here it is in action.



There was one other item I picked up, which I just couldn’t resist. These little ceramic saucers from a house a few blocks away. I probably wouldn’t have bought them if they weren’t marked “Made in Occupied Japan.” They were two dollars for the set of three, and one not pictured had a chip. But they are pretty, and they make me think about that time in America’s history. I chatted for a moment with the older couple holding the sale. I said I’d take them, and the wife said, “you’re breaking his heart!” It was a joke, but you could also tell that it really wasn’t. I promised to give them a good home. You just know there’s a story there, but I didn’t think to ask what it was until I was gone.



I spent most of Saturday running around being sure I had things – I’d rather not use our food steamer basket for the acid-dyed yarn, thank you – but that was fine. Since Em and my husband off having a blast at the Storytelling Festival of Carolina, I felt free to do whatever the heck I wanted without worrying about them. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

I did stay up late on Saturday, but still got up on Sunday morning for an abbreviated walk/run. Not quite up to usual standards – I’d classify this as “white zinfandel.” My knees are getting me some today, but I don’t know if it’s from the running or from standing up all day. We’ll see how they are tomorrow.


The hat I’d been working on has been ripped out and reborn as “My So-Called Scarf.” It’s a better use of the yarn, but I’m still not entirely sure it’s the best. Still thinking about it.

I have to wait for my fiber to dry before I can post pics and talk about the dyeing event. I’ll say this, though – it was fun!