Getting to Know You

No new eye candy for you this week, however this has been making the rounds and it seemed like fun…

1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:45 AM
2. How do you like your steak? I generally don’t, medium on occasion.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Sex and the City
4. What is your favorite TV show? Desperate Housewives
5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? not sure, but someplace close to the ocean
6. What did you have for breakfast? Cheerios
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Polish
8. What foods do you dislike? canned vegetables
9. Favorite Place to Eat? Shady Glen
10. Favorite dressing? blue cheese
11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? minivan
12. What are your favorite clothes? jeans, handknit sweater, birks or danskos & handknit socks
13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Paris
14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? 1/2 full
15. Where would you want to retire? Harrisville, New Hampshire – hopefully taking classes until the day I die.
16. Favorite time of day? early morning, when the sun is just coming up
17. Where were you born? Manchester, CT
18. What is your favorite sport to watch? Republican sex scandals
19. Bird watcher? no
20. Are you a morning person or a night person? morning
21. Do you have any pets? as of this week, just 3 cats – Thumper, Gizmo, Tigger
22. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share? I finally have a reasonable number of pets.
23. What is your favorite childhood memory? Hard to name just one – most involve time with my grandmother.
24. Always wear your seat belt? yes
25. Been in a car accident? yes – couple of fender-benders in college, rolled my car into a snow bank (neither me nor the car was hurt) and was rear-ended twice on Rt. 9 within 1 year – both times by idiots who weren’t paying attention
26. Any pet peeves? they are many and varied
27. Favorite pizza toppings? pepperoni, mushrooms and green peppers
28. Favorite Flower? roses
29. Favorite ice cream? mint chocolate chip
30. Favorite fast food restaurant? Dunkin Donuts
31. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? I didn’t.
32. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? the thought of it gives me flashbacks (reformed spender here), thought if I was forced, J.Jill or Webs
33. Do anything spontaneous lately? cut my hair even shorter
34. Broccoli? yes, but only fresh
35. What was your favorite vacation? Harrisville 2006 – the one where I learned to dye
36. Last person you went out to dinner with? my SnB grrls
37. What are you listening to right now? the 5 pm news
38. What is your favorite color? all of them – I could never pick just one
39. How many tattoos do you have? two, with immediate plans for #3
40. Coffee Drinker? good god yes!  at least 3 cups a day – make mine regular, please.

I’m not tagging anyone – play along if you wish!

W.I.P. Wednesday – July 29

I didn’t do much knitting this week   Turned out to be kind of crazy week, mainly due to divorce related nonsense.  Thankfully, that’s over for a bit and I have the added benefit of now officially having exclusive use of my house, he who shall not be named’s crap out of it and finally, a reasonable number of cats.  Its just me and my 3 boys now – hoping that life will resume feeling normal soon.

Now for the fun stuff.  There was a little bit of knitting and some dyeing.  I did one repeat on the Luxor socks.  Nothing on Allegoro.  The dyeing was another story – I dyed up 25 skeins of sock yarn on Friday.  One’s a keeper – the other 2 dozen need reskeining and labeling in the next few days and in the shop they go.

As you know, I dyed up samples for the Pea Coat and knitted them.  The voting on a colorway was fun, as were your comments.  Here are the results: Purple-y 19% (5 votes), Green 46% (12 votes), Blue 12% (3 votes), Raspberry 23% (6 votes).  You were right on with my thoughts – it was either the green or the raspberry.  Ultimately, my mother was the deciding vote – she said raspberry.  Have to admit that this was my favorite – the color of the raspberry is even richer in person.  There’s a bit of black in the original yarn, making it heathered.  It shows in the raspberry.  Between the shading – the raspberry was one of my own colors, a blend of two different pink dyes and the heathering from the black, its very rich.  Plus, its so bold and bright – perfect for a winter day!  I hope to dye the yarn in the next few days and then knit it when I finish Allegoro.  Ultimately, I’d love to finish by Rhinebeck, so that I can find perfect buttons for it there (if not before).

So one goal for the week is to dye up that yarn.  The next is to finish my Luxor sock and start my next pair.  Lastly, I want to get to that dividing point on Allegoro.

There’s also 25 pounds of rovings arriving on Friday, so I’ll be firing up the dye pots on Saturday.  Its shaping up to be a great, fibery week!

Happy Wednesday!

Ten on Tuesday

10+ Favorite Sounds

1. my niece or nephew saying “I love you Auntie Kris”
2. Endless giggles and squeals of delight from my niece & nephew playing together or with their grammy and grampy
3. the gentle hum of my spinning wheel
4. the almost imperceptible click of my knitting needles
5. the gurgle of a dye pot boiling away
6. my mother’s voice, reassuring no matter how old I am
7. the pop of a wine bottle being uncorked
8. Tigger’s contented purrs, Thumper’s soft meows when he wants to curl up with me and Gizmo’s insistent squeaks for whatever his heart desires in the moment
9. the rhythmic sound of waves crashing on the beach
10. the thump of the newspaper hitting the front porch and the bubble of the tea kettle – signallng the start of a new day.  the morning person in me will always love these sounds
11. the sound of laughter in a roomful of friends and family, most especially when I’m right in the middle of it, surrounded by the people I love the most

May you hear some sounds that bring you joy today!

Help – Opinions Needed!

Before I get to my request for help, I want to show off one of the wonderful things that came out of the dye pot yesterday.  I showed you pictures of my hydrangea, that I used for inspiration for a new colorway.  Here is the result:

I’m very happy with the result.  I capturedthe pink-blue-purple tones of my blooming hydrangea on yarn.  Hydrangea will be my newest colorway – though not quite yet.  I’m keeping this one for me – there’s a new pair of socks coming my way.  Promise I’ll dye it up on some Jasmine lace weight and some roving very soon!

Now for the help I need.  I dyed up 4 sample skeins of the Burly Spun for my Sweet Pea Coat and can’t choose.  I started with this: Heathered gray.  Nice, but rather boring for a coat that I’ll wear in the dead of winter.  I want color in my life at that time of year.  So this is what I came up with, in no particular order:

Top to bottom, purple-y, green, blue and raspberry.  Two of these are straight from the bottle colors, two are colors that are created by mixing a bit.  I’m not telling which are which at this point.  I have a definite favorite (again, not telling) but I’m still having trouble deciding on a final color to dye the full batch of yarn.  Here’s a link to the pattern I’m making: Sweet Pea Coat.  Here’s where you come in.  I’ve created a poll and I want you to vote for which color you think I should go with.

I’ll keep it open for a few days and share the results when I’m closer to dyeing up the yarn – possibly next weekend, maybe this week…

More Eye Candy

Before I started dyeing yesterday, I snapped these pictures of my hydrangea in bloom.  I love the range of colors when they bloom, as the change from white to shades of purple-pink to a vibrant purple blue.  I tried to recreate that on sock yarn last night – we’ll see how I did when I start to wash out skeins in a bit.

Enjoy your Saturday!

ECF – One for the Dyers

The dyers out there know that this set up can only mean one thing – dye day is coming!  I’m spending the first part of my day mixing up dyes and winding off skeins of sock yarn.  Later today, its play time!

And for those of you who are curious, I’m trying something new — the white things lining my table are “chucks” – AKA “pee pads”.  At the RI workshop we tried these out, after someone suggested using the puppy-training version to line the tables.  We ended up with the chucks instead.  I visited the incontinence aisle at my local CVS and for about $8 bought a 10 pack of these 30″x36″ chucks.  They create a nice smooth surface and are super absorbent, with a plastic lining on the back.  Rumor has it that they are reusable too – just put them outside to dry for a bit, fold them and store until the next dye day.  Ingenious!

I’m off to skein yarn!  Happy Friday!