Mossy Cottage Knits

We Lure TMK Further In To the World of Fiber

Remember the Sock That Kicked My Caboose? Sure, I finished Sock No. 1 but, ever since, Sock No. 2 and I have been circling each other warily like tom cats, arching our backs, showing our yellowish, pointy fangs, and making that awful yowling noise, meaning that, as of yesterday, I’d gotten all of 3.5" inches of the 7" cuff done. Which is when TMK said, “So, do you think you could have those socks done by the knit-in? I would love to have some new socks to wear to the knit-in. Yes, indeedy; I sure would. Knit-in, new socks. That would be just dandy.” 72 stitches on size 1 needles in yarn that has a personal vendetta against me, and she wants them done by Saturday. A definite knee-slapper. However, as of today, all 7” of the cuff are done, as is the heel flap. There is hope, despite the fact that this is the exact point where things went in the terlet with Sock No. 1. News at 11.

Some F.I.R.E. news: I received an email from Meredith today saying it is snowing in Ulan Bataar, so our knitted goods arrived just in time, Brigadiers! On a lark, I checked the weather report for Ulan Bataar and the high and low temperatures for this week (which is still just October, mind) are 41 ° Fahrenheit (5° C) and 8 ° Fahrenheit (-13° C). And it will only go down from there. Brrrrrr.

The Cuzz also has a new entry about helping Meredith and the F.I.R.E. folks distribute some items to elderly Mongolians. It’s well worth a read if only to understand the complicated emotions he went through as the distribution progressed. He makes a point of noting that this distribution did not include Dulaan items. That will come later when F.I.R.E. focuses more on the orphanages, kindergartens and the street children, when the items distributed and the recipients are a better match. Go look, too, at his pictures of the mountains of items in the F.I.RE. warehouse. Remarkable. To anyone who made a financial donation, know that those are pictures of your money at work!

As I mentioned, TMK and I spent Sunday with Janine to give TMK a chance to dabble in the mysterious world of fiber dyeing. Here, some pictures of our grand adventure.

Below, Janine’s buckets o’ dye. These buckets contained the only-slightly diluted dye mixtures that were then combined, diluted further or, what the hell—let’s get jiggy wid' it—combined and diluted. (To everyone’s astonishment and great consternation, Janine’s sweet pup, Shadow, attempted a drive-by lick of the indigo blue but only succeeded in dyeing his heretofore-sandy mustache and heretofore-brown nose a bright blue before he was caught. He suffered no ill effects.)

The dyes were diluted or combined in these smaller cups...

...while the yarn and the roving soaked in water:

Janine starts applying color to her yarn:

A not-very-good photo of the very pretty results, designed to go with some medium-salmon yarn Janine already has, and all destined for Dulaan:

Then it was TMK’s turn:

After the application of the dye, and before the roving was steamed, it was rolled up in plastic wrap...

...which is about when we started to notice something really odd. First, the roving never absorbed any of the water, even though it had soaked for at least half-an-hour, and then it never absorbed any of the dye. In fact, when TMK turned this roving “snail” over, all the dye leeched out of the top and ran to the bottom like the world’s oddest hourglass. We did it again and, sher ‘nuff, the top, which had been black, turned back to red, and the bottom, which had been red, turned black. Whuh? We know this is pure romney wool, sheared, processed and dyed by the woman who owns the romney sheep so, what gives? (Not only that, but, seriously, this roving "snail" looked every bit like blood sausage, especially when it became shiny and plump and hot after the steaming. Not pretty.) Eventually, after steaming, the dye did set and TMK now has roving that is half red and half-black (not her intention, necessarily, but by that point we were grateful for anything.)

Wednesday, TMK dyes merino! Have your sunglasses on standby.

Posted by Ryan at October 23, 2006 01:46 PM