Kiss My Knits!

This morning, it had finally stopped raining, so Em and I walked to school. It turned out to be a good thing, since she had had a bit of a fragile morning. Walking up seemed to give her an opportunity to regroup. She told me a story about her dolls coming to life, and about a guinea pig magically turning into a white duck. She’s big on magic wands and transformation right now.

Em felt she was running a little late, so she said, “We’ll walk quickly.” She did. I had to stretch my legs a bit to keep her pace, and she was shorter than me by a foot and was wearing a pack. That’s my girl. She comes by her speed and walking determination honestly. It’s a trait from my mother’s side of the family. Soon she, too, will be alarming tour guides by rushing to the front of the group, rest of the tourists be damned.

It was also good to walk her to school, since I’m not running this morning. Instead, I have an optometrist’s appointment. For quite a while now, I’ve been having difficulty focusing on things. If I look at something close up for more than a minute, then look up at something far away, it will sometimes take a good 20 seconds for my eyes to refocus on it. And I’m squinting a lot, even this morning when I should still be fresh. I’ve increased the size of the type on my computer, and that’s helped, but clearly I need to get this looked at.

I have a feeling my optometrist is probably going to tell me I need bifocals. At right: artist’s rendition of me in new eyewear.

Emily likes playing The Sims 2, enjoying the virtual dollhouse aspect of it. We don’t forbid it entirely, but we do encourage her in other directions, since it’s rated T for Teen. She hasn’t played it in a while, which is probably for the best. She likes to make up imaginary expansion packs for the games that she plays (most of which actually are age-appropriate) and imagine upcoming DVD movies, like Enchanted 2 where everybody goes back to the animated world to visit.

We’ve had vague discussions about pregnancy and babies before. Last month, Emily finally asked about how a baby actually gets OUT of a woman’s body when it’s born. We had that discussion in the parking lot of a Target – you take your opportunities where you get them. Upon learning where the baby comes out, the smart and surprising question from her was, “What if a woman has to pee while she’s pregnant?” Believe me, honey, the baby won’t fall out. A woman has to pee a LOT while she’s pregnant.

These two things led to this little tidbit from my daughter in Starbucks today:

Her: “There’s a new thing in Sims coming. It’s an animation where when a woman has a baby, the movie shows the baby coming out of the woman’s genitals.”

Yet in her imaginary expansion pack “Sims Doctors”, also upcoming in Emilyland, there is pixelation over any bits of blood so you don’t have to see them. Shows where her priorities are. Blood? Horrifying and gross. Nudity? A-OK! Such is the world of a 9-year-old.

The colors remind me of butterfly weed flowers. I’m thinking of putting one of these at the corner of the house, assuming it ever stops raining and/or our yard guy ever shows back up.

Another Knitpicks 75% wool 25% nylon fingering weight yarn, acid dyed using cold pour method. This reminds me of berry cobbler. I believe the dye uptake would have been more thorough had it pre-soaked overnight, but then, I wasn’t going for a total saturation.



Same skein, spread out to show color changes. Note white areas around ties. It’s not a real issue here, since there’s white interspersed throughout, but it could have been a big problem. Lesson learned – don’t trust commercially tied yarn, retie it nice and loose yourself, and double-check any potential problem areas.

Tomorrow we move away from the blues, I promise.

At right: Mmmm… cobbler.

Second skein of the day. Similar color palette to the first one. Tangles and Mud commented that if the first skein was Westley, then this one must be Westley by night. I can see that!

Mmmm… Westley by night.

Wait, what was I saying? Right, yarn! The methods were similar to the other, but the colors were mixed stronger but were laid down in larger swaths. There were also sky blue and richer black tones. I’m partial to this yarn, but then, blues and grays are the colors I’m naturally drawn to.



One more, spread out so you can see the lengths of the color sections, which are variable throughout the skein. The yarn is Knitpicks Bare 75% wool 25% nylon fingering weight sock yarn, dyed with acid dyes then steamed to set. After this batch, I’m really thinking that next time, I need to buy my yarn in bulk.

Rain today, and probably all week, so no walking to school this morning. Em had a good first day yesterday. I was very excited when she told me she wanted something different in her lunchbox and she selected an apple. I thought it meant she might actually eat what I sent with her. No dice. The apple came home uneaten (“Oh, I forgot about that.”) and she told me she had a berry-flavored Capri-Sun for lunch. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than the ice cream sandwich she chose to have every day yesterday. On the up side, at least she wants something different in her lunch now. For a long time, she wanted the exact same thing every day, even though she knew she wasn’t going to eat it. She actually asked to change – that’s progress!

I can’t go running this morning, so we’ll devote that extra time to boxing up more hats and knitting like the wind! Today, hats are ready to go out to Canada and Louisiana. Next up: ID, ID, and MA.

Okay, we saw the final yarn from dye day, let’s look at the first one of the morning. I was going to dole these out one day at a time, but hey, what the heck.

This was handpainted with acid dyes. Base yarn is Knitpicks’ superwash “Bare” 75% wool 25% nylon sock yarn. This didn’t come out exactly “perfect” in terms of the patterning I was trying to achieve, but I’m pleased with the color combo. I don’t feel bad about it – I was rushing a bit, showing the technique to someone else, and frankly, my bottles released a bit more dye than I expected. I need to invest in some beauty supply squirt bottles for greater control.

The shades are three colors mixed from one base. A silver-gray, then the silver-gray mixed with a primary blue, and the silver-gray mixed with black. Thankfully, none of the red crud in the bottom of my black made its way into the mix. The color on the picture isn’t quite true. It’s not as high contrast as it appears here. The blue has more gray tones, and there’s more shading between light and dark.

I think it’ll be fun to knit with. Or gift or sell, as dye day has put me a little over the top on sock yarn.

At left is the same yarn spread out a bit to show the color length.

For some reason, my first yarn of the day is always more pastel and muted, and then things heat up a little bit as I get more into it. Maybe it’s the equivalent of stretching before exercise.



This yarn is called “Westley” because turtlegirl made an offhand comment about the Princess Bride. She said this yarn reminded her of a line from the movie.

Man in black: Who was this love of yours? Another prince like this one…ugly, rich, and scabby?
Buttercup: No, a farmboy…poor! Poor and perfect, with eyes like the sea after a storm.

And there you have it. Westley.

More to come.

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Before: This is the pic from yesterday. The yarn is the DK weight of Knitpicks’ “Bare” 100% superwash merino wool, acid dyed in the crockpot, primary color blue plus a little violet. The dye uptake wasn’t as thorough as I’d like, perhaps due to late addition of the blue, but more likely due to inadequate pre-soaking of the yarn. I decided to overdye the skein in darker tones.


After: What in blue blazes? This is the same blue yarn overdyed in the crockpot with a mixture of purple, violet-blue, and black. Unfortunately, my black had been mixed long ago and the red/orange elements had begun to separate. I didn’t realize this until I had upended the remainder of the bottle into the crockpot and started it going. Rinsing the bottle out released a flood of orange precipitate. Too late now! I hadn’t mixed any vinegar into the dye, but I still let it sit a lot longer than it should have. Let this be a lesson not to be a miser by trying to store mixed dyes beyond their natural shelf life.

Well, I learned something and it’s an interesting effect I would not otherwise have gotten, sooo… success? Sure. Why not.

Today’s the first day of the new school year. Em was at the door and raring to go at 6:30 this morning, but I kind of stalled her until 7am (the earliest the school doors open). At that point, we were in the yard and she started to go around the house, saying she wanted to walk to school. Oops! If I’d known that in advance, I wouldn’t have stalled so much. We wound up driving, but we’ll walk together tomorrow if the weather permits. We did walk up to the school’s open house last week, so she knows what she’s getting into.

Coincidentally, I grew up in this house and went to Em’s same school, starting there at the same age she is now. I walked to school myself. I think it’ll be a great way to start the day.

Today I’ve run the greenway – I’m jumping on my first free morning – and come home and watered the plants and done a little wii fit stuff. My weight was up a little the last couple of days as I madly sucked down water bottles to free up enough for dyeing. Heh. It’s back down now.

Later I’ll be packing up more kits and hats, as well as a ball of stash yarn which someone bought. I need to post more for sale. Tonight, hopefully, I’ll be binding off socks from my last batch of handdyed sock yarn.

I hope your day is as great as mine has been so far!

Dye day went well yesterday. Songs were sung, pizzas were consumed, and much fiber was dyed. I’m lucky to have so many creative, fun people around me. Pictured: tangles and mud (who is extremely talented with color, by the way), turtlegirl76, and illiane of Emergency Knitting Bag fame.

Turtlegirl, by the way, is having a stash sale on Ravelry. I’ve seen her stash. It’s impressive on a “My God, it’s full of stars” level. When she lets stuff go, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Not pictured are several others, including Jetsyknits whose husband had us testing out his latest creations. When he’s ready to share those babies with the world, they’re going to rock the fiber world’s handspun socks.

I may have said too much. Hopefully he won’t have to kill me.


I don’t want to reveal what I’ve dyed yet, as it’s not all done. This one skein is going to get overdyed. I’m not quite satisfied with it. Back to the crock pot with you, blue poser!

It was fun, guys! Let’s do it again!