On Knitting Wire

a)It hurts my hands.

b)I don't have the right pliers for tucking in the ends.

c)casting on? A bitch.

And yet it somehow seems imminently worthwhile to get it all off my needles afterwards. I can't begin to explain that, beyond that it suggests some internalized masochistic tendencies.

Anyway, I'm casting off for the month of July. A couple days to go and I had to put this up... I mean, I had a pink theme going already, why not juice it for all its pinky goodness? It's not a color I see often in my stash, and the fact that it's been mostly accidental (note to self: more dye, less yarn) doesn't make it any less, well, pink. Now it's out of my system and with August I can start afresh... or at least with a bunch of FOs.

Chair Cover?

I think this shot is truer to life for my firstborn attempt at homespun, although the skeins still look more red-blotchy than they do to my naked eyes. It rolled into balls much nicer than I'd anticipated, given the mess I'd managed to make of one of the skeins while winding it.

I'm going to set to and make some sincere progress on a couple wips (by which I mean I have dangerous intentions of finishing something). I've been unravelling lots, and lots, and unspeakable lots, and have decided this simply must change.

Details later. In the meantime, what the heck should I do with this mottled pink stuff? As a mottled pink person, it would be unwise to knit a garment out of it, and I'm quite exhausted on accessories. The only thing to have crossed my mind so far is a pad for the back of a wooden chair. A small, peculiar pad.

Yarn Dye-ing Effort, the First

It's been really hot out-- by the standards of the Pacific NW. Ambulances keep zipping past my house to pick up people who wilted in the heat. There was a heat watch advisory and emergency hydration shelters opened up in some parts of the county. It's probably not helped that we mostly don't believe in air conditioning; something we never miss except for 3-4 days out of the year.

Among all the wilting and the sweating and my fruit juice-yogurt-fruit-blender diet, I decided it would behoove me to stand over a cauldron of water and boil some yarn. At left you may admire my first effort at spinning (it's less homespun and more "thin lengths of roving"); also my first effort at dyeing. I used two packs of black cherry and one of grape, for variety (not quite variegating) which I poured in on top after the black cherry was absorbed.

In retrospect, I would have liked it darker-- should have picked up another package of black cherry.

Examine, if you will, my artistic mess

Not all that much to show off here; I just realized that it would behoove me to finish a few projects I've left lying neglected. So I picked up the long-lost Pomatomus and added a couple inches. I love the stitch pattern on this, although I think the ankle tube is by far longer than I'll ever need. Well, live and learn. It's still a foot shorter than my dreaded (and forgotten in a drawer) knee socks.*





*The ones that won't stay up unless safety-pinned to my tights. Those ones. Yeah. Live and learn.

Buttony Progress 2

Given how little time I'm actually working on this, it's knitting up very quickly. I was desperately short on yarn (especially since it looks like I'll be giving this belled sleeves), and have since remedied this with a few more skeins. I was lucky-- the shop still had the same dye lot.

Of course, during that same trip, I picked up... no, please don't groan... $2/skein sock yarn from the sale bin. yarn. Forget that I absolutely do not need more yarn. I got it anyway.

But that's just a side-note to today's news: I have an interview later this month (much later) at a yarn store that's opening up. I wish myself plenty of good luck.