"Proud"

It has been awhile since I've blogged, I have had a lot going on personally. If you've been following my blog (both of you, lol) you know that my husband joined the Army National Guard last winter. After several delays he is *finally* home. On top of that we are expecting our 3rd child any day now so things have been a little busy to say the least.

I thought I'd post my latest dye creation here. It was for a swap, 200g of worsted weight BFL dyed in a peacock colorway, meet "Proud".

The recipient used to raise peacocks and has been collecting peacock colors for a project.

I'm very pleased with how this colorway turned out and have in fact dyed a 125g skein of BFL to list in one of my stores shortly. It'll probably go on Made By Military Wives on Feb 1.

Shades of turquoise, blue, purple, lavender, and olive green come together beautifully in this colorway that is Proud as a Peacock.

"Astro"

Meet my new friend, "Astro".

It's kind of bright and fun. Black, orange, blue, and bright (and I mean bright) green.

It's stocking today on Serenity Tree along with a matching long sleeved t-shirt. The shirt is 18mos Circo brand, my kids have a couple of these shirts and I like them.

I had a hard time photographing the colors, the green really didn't want to show up. I also had a hard time getting the colors to set like I wanted. It was pretty frustrating and my hands are tinted bluish-black. One of the skeins I think looks a little more washed out, but I've listed them as "seconds" so hopefully that can make up for my mishap. It's dyed on Sweet Grass Wool 3-ply, which is 4oz and 153yd per skein.

October Activities

I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of exciting new projects to report. I've been working on a few small things, I did a custom dye for a customer on a merino/mohair blend

and am still finishing up seaming "Savannah". When that's done I can get a good picture of it, I think it'll be a beautiful sweater. I've finished up a pair of longies as well but the camera was missing.

All in all it has been a pretty busy month trying to finish up some odds and ends as well as preparing for a trip to the grand 'ol state of Texas. My husband is training in San Angelo and we drove down last weekend to visit him.

A gracious friend is letting us stay with her this week near Dallas and we'll head back over to visit him again next weekend before making the 1,200+ mile journey home.

On another note, I just started in October stocking at Made By Military Wives on HyenaCart. All vendors are obviously military wives. We stock on the 1st and 15th of the month, so be sure to check it out.

New Yarns

Here are two new yarns I dyed up for tomorrow's stocking:

Meet "Eve"

It is similar to the "Sunset" colorway, but without the blue. The base yarn is 70% Merino, 30% Mohair and is dyed with professional quality acid dyes. Colors are dark pink, orange, salmon, light pink, and white. It reskeined beautifully and I hope it finds a new home.

And the second, was a bit of a nemesis to me. Meet "Scrappy"

Like any child, scrappy was a bit of a nuisance, but worth the effort when all is said and done. I split this 4oz hank into 9 relatively equal sections and dyed them separately. "Scrappy Pants" are all the rage these days, but with them come lots and lots of ends to weave in. This skein takes the weaving out of scrappy pants.

I did repeat colorways, so if you split the ball in half you'd have two identical balls, the outside ends being the same. I figured this way you could knit both legs at once starting from each end of the ball and have them end up pretty close. So sections 1 and 9 are the same, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, 4 and 6, and then 5 is different. It was a lot of work to come up with colorways that would be different but flow a little, reusing colors here and there to create autonomy, and keeping it fairly gender neutral. It's kind of a bright, fun skein. I hope to see it knit up.

Camping

We are having a camping theme this month over at Serenity Tree. Here are the two yarns I dyed up this week, both on 3.5oz Uruguayan 1-ply merino. It was a fun yarn to work with, being so soft. The dye seemed to take a little more richly on the merino vs the peruvian highland wool I've been using.

Here's "Sunset":

It's a beautiful blend of pink, salmon, orange, and blue.

I just think it's beautiful and hope I get to see it knit up.

The other is "Sticks -n- Stones", it has sold already but is wonderful to look at anyway.

I mailed it today to Canada, so it's really out of here. I'm really pleased with the colors though.

And lastly, my "Woodland Pixie" shorties with a leafy ruffle.

They're 6 mos size, and really cute. Overall I'm pretty proud of the stocking. I do need to get some more yarns and bath products featured in my Etsy shop, but Serenity Tree is taking July off, so that might be a good time to focus over that way. So far most of my Etsy store is just things that haven't sold in a month on Serenity Tree.

Well, stay tuned! I'm sure the dyeing bug will hit me again in a couple days. Plus I still need to post the pattern for that blanket, don't I?!

Twilight

I got a custom order on Etsy to handpaint some yarn inspired by "Twilight". It took awhile to get done since I am still not staying at home and my computer crashed to top it all off, but here is the result:

"Bella" - Bella is a brown-eyed brunette, and blue is the color Edward likes best on her.

"Cotton Candy" - the name has nothing to do with "Twilight", but the colors were suggested by the customer and it reminds me of cotton candy. Light pink, reddish pink, blue, and some grey

"Edward" - Edward's eyes change color depending on his cravings. This skein includes a few of them.

"Lust" - This colorway has shades of red and black, perfect for your inner vampire.

"Quileute" - Jacob Black is part of the Quileute tribe. Tribal colors are black and a dark orange.

"Vampire" - No explanation necessary.

And a final shot of them all together. I'm a little disappointed with how similar "Edward" and "Quileute" turned out, the latter should've been more orange and less yellow. However, maybe it's fitting since they're both fighting for Bella's heart.

So Much To Do

Holy smokes, it has been so long. I apologize to my faithful follower. My justification is valid, I promise. My darling husband, the love of my life, left for basic training on April 29. Before that we spent a bunch of time cramming to get the house put together before he left. Since then I've been staying with my folks while the drywaller is in there making a mess. So, it's relatively justifiable, at least I think so. I have a ton of things in the works, a handful of Etsy custom items, so it has been kind of fun. I'll post some pics later, but for now I'll leave you with a skein of yarn I dyed about 3 weeks ago.

Spring is here, time for a "Royal Rainbow"

Here's "Royal Rainbow". I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

I wasn't sure whether I should continue with the rainbow or add the black in. I added black.

The colors are so rich and bright. I love it. It'll be listed on Tuesday.

Introduce... "Retro"

This one was kind of fun. I used a new dyeing technique that I "made up" (which isn't to say other people don't dye yarn in pickle jars) and dyed this skein of yarn.

I am listing it tomorrow for our stocking at Serenity Tree. It is a semisolid yellow overdyed with blue and green. It reminded me of tie-dyeing, hence it's name, "Retro".

I will list this, "Engine 3", and probably a shirt I haven't made yet (which reminds me, I have to go throw those in the dryer, drat!). I'm going to save my diapers for the next stocking. A friend ordered 2 of 5 different prints, so I'm making 3 of each to have one to spare. I'll post pictures later, and leave you today with a swatch of Retro.

Engine 3

Here is the yarn I dyed last night. It's called "Engine 3", inspired by my dh who is not only an incredibly patient man, but a firefighter. I took colors from both the engine and fire. Engine 3 is his ride. Enjoy!

Procrastinators Never Prosper... Especially in a Snowstorm

We had the strangest weather yesterday. Yes, I know, I live in the Midwest. The weather isn't predictable and often is kind of nasty, especially this time of year. Yesterday was a prime example.

It started out raining in the morning, and turned into sleet and snow pellets. I looked out the window a bit later and it was snowing, only not the soft, fluffy kind of snow, but the heavy, wet flakes that come barrelling toward the ground. It was an angry snow. I looked out again later and it looked like the snow was pretty much done, the sun had broken through and it almost looked pleasant outside. Then it started snowing again and blowing. Swirling, twirling, and COLD.

See, I had to run to the store. I wanted to dye some yarn and get a few other things (like toilet paper, which we were COMPLETELY out of). I also had to return a movie to Redbox. I kept putting it off thinking I'd maybe get the neighbor to watch the kids for 20 min while I ran to return the movie, aah, no, I'll just bring them. So of course I waited and put it off, and by the time I decided I should really go, we were in the swirling twirling freezing cold portion of the storm. If I just would've gone earlier I wouldn't have frozen my little toes nearly off, and I probably wouldn't have had to fight with the car door, which was frozen shut. Good and solid, too. I'm the type that wears flip-flops all winter long, if for nothing but the convenience of slipping them on and heading out the door. It was so cold, I got the kids loaded up and came back inside to change my shoes. That *rarely* happens. Of course I couldn't find both tennis shoes, so I settled for my Keens (mine are lime green), which are also sandals but at least have the toes covered.

So we went shopping, bought brat buns, bread, toilet paper, squirt bottles for holding the dye, and got to the saran wrap. In my head, "Hmm, so 'they' say not to get cheap stuff. There's this, or this. Only two choices? Well, I do have some at home that worked fine last time I dyed. I'll just use that." Check out, run to car, go home. I get myself set up to start dyeing, get out the cling wrap... not enough. Seriously, I was like 6" short. I probably would've skipped the store altogether if it weren't that I wanted to dye up a colorway I had in my head, dh was at work, and I had nothing better (read *funner*) to do. So, I ran over to the neighbor's and borrowed hers. The battery on my camera is charging, so I'll put up a picture later, it turned out okay for my first attempt.