Mossy Cottage Knits

Blogging Redux!

I'm back after my week-long blogging-bereft vacation. Who knew this silly little diary could get under your skin? A few days of no blogging and I was getting downright twitchy!

A "thank you" goes out to everyone for their condolences about Barclay. Granted, it was not like losing a pet but we had become very emotionally invested in the little guy. We did not request a follow-up note from the animal shelter but we're pretty sure he's gone to the Big Nest in the Sky where chewed-up worms are plentiful and he has normal feet like all the other crows. Now if he could just cover up that big, glowing red nose. Oh, wait; that's another misfit, another story.

I have so much to catch up on that I thought I would jump right into Knitting Knews.

Knitting Knews
In my last post before my vacation, I was teetering on the brink of seaming my first sweater. That Friday, I had a couple of quick and dirty finishing/seaming lessons, one from a co-worker who showed me some basics during the lunch hour, and one from an LYS staff member who gave me an impromptu ten-minute lesson after work. Now I'm more confused than ever. I should have known I was in trouble when the LYS person whipped out an entire book on finishing. And what's that she's saying? Sewing the sleeves to the shoulders involves math?! Horrors! I'm now reduced to eyeing the four pieces of the sweater with great trepidation and, in truth, haven't touched it since I cast-off the last piece. In fact, if I were a cat, I'd have my back arched and I'd be dancing around it on kitty tip-toes, curious, intrigued, tempted, but still afraid to touch it.

My simple avoidance solution was to start the Magic Scarf. I now remember why I bought this obscenely expensive yarn. The colors are downright spine-tingling: coppers, teals, pine greens, cantaloupe, aquamarine, terra cotta, every earthy color under the rainbow. It knits up beautifully, too. I used size 13 needles and got about 2.5 stitches to the inch. The scarf is now about a 1.5 feet long; I think I'll make it about 2.5 feet long and then abracadabra! I did a test swatch Saturday night and then pulled out all the drop stitches; it was a hoot!

A picture of the scarf pre-magic:

Dyeing Dyegest
During my vacation, K and I took measure of the dye garden, seeing what was growing, what wasn't, what was missing, which seedlings were ready to plant, and so on.

Our cosmos seeds have been very disappointing. They germinated a good three weeks ago but are still only about one inch tall, no matter how much cheerleading we do ("Gimme a 'C!' Gimme an 'O!' Gimme an 'S!' ") and no matter how much water or Zoo Doo fertilizer we throw at them, so we said ta' heck with 'em, and bought and planted 16 sturdy, already-blooming, bright-pink cosmos plants.

In another bed, we planted three purple basil plants. One of the reference books assures us you can dye with basil, but it's a complicated pain in the tookus to do so (something along the lines of it will gladly dye everything, including you, your clothes, and every surface in your kitchen, but is stubborn about dyeing yarn). Still, we figured it was a win-win situation: If we couldn't dye with the basil, we'd serve it up with fresh mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, toasted baguette slices, and lemon-infused olive oil! That'd show it!

As a thank you gift for some work I did, someone at work gave me four dahlia plants. Since dahlias are on The List, they got plopped in the dye garden as well. Here's a picture of one of the plants:

Lastly, we transplanted some calendula seedlings into the dye garden. I'm really intrigued by the orange calendula and wonder if they will make a different color from the yellow. All of the dyeing reference books warn that the color of a flower often has little to do with the color of the dye it makes so, who knows?

On a slightly different note, I finally divided the 1/2-pound skein of Henry's Attic into 16 1/2-ounce skeins (as Goldilocks would say, “Not too big, not too small. Just right!”). The skeining process wasn’t perfect; the skeins vary from 30 wraps around my hand and elbow to 40 wraps, but it was as exact as I was willing to get. A picture for you with you-know-who in attendance, as always.

The last few days of my vacation I also did some mordanting and some actual dyeing. I'm looking forward to shareing my "dyeing journey" with you over the next few entries!

Posted by Ryan at June 16, 2003 10:46 AM