....a bump in the road ???

So...anybody think it has been w-a-ay-y too hot lately ? It certainly makes the ambition non-existent.....have tried to get some things done (I really want to make some fresh bread, however, in this heat kneading a batch of dough does not even get considered). About all I have managed to do beyond setting out some washbuckets for cleaning fleece, is getting my dyepot going.

The first dye-bath used the purple tablets and the blue ones (easter-egg dye tablets, I stocked up after the holiday). As always happens, depending on how much lanolin may still have been present on the fleece, the fiber does not take up the dye at the same rate...and sometimes too, the dye "breaks" so you find yourself with surprises once it is rinsed and dried. Well, no surprise here then because it did 'break' resulting in a deep pinkish-purple edging into royal purple and aqua going to a bright turqoise.....see:




And, since the dye had not exhausted, figured I could go ahead and dye another batch, so put in another 12-16 ounces of fiber in the crock (no new tablets)...this time I got the aqua shades.

And the dye is still not exhausted, so mixed in red tablets. Now I have a lovely shade of deep pinkish purple.

Still working this one….added green tablets, hoping to come up with a nice shade of brown. Ummm, no…but did get a lovely deep olive green/bronze out of it.

Ok…still seems to be some life left, so threw in the rest of the tablets (yellow and orange, I believe)…..This time I got what resembled dry grass (?hay) yellow/green. And with that, I considered this experiment DONE. Here is a pix of my lineup:



So, now the job will be to get enough of each color spun to do what I need….and at the moment, the old brain cells are working their way around possibly plying the white with either the grass or the aqua, and using a two-ply of the brighter tones for the entrelac bands (and since I like my socks on the shorter side, 3 bands will be sufficient). But, that will need to wait a bit, but in the meanwhile, only the Shadow knows…..lol



Other than the above, have gotten some done on the Special Birthday surprise (I need to finish it as it will be presented next week). Have also been working my way thru the TestKnitting shawl (Cirque); have fallen woefully behind in my Scarf o’Year project, cast on for yet another pair of socks (yes, I know, still several in the works, but they are at a stage that evening/end-of-day-tiredness is not the best of time to be working on them so they are temporarily in a holding pattern).

..until the next time !