Friday, March 28, 2008

New Look 6678

Thank you for all the comments on the Easter egg dyeing. The dye did stick and WOW are they bright colors. I was so impressed that when I saw Easter egg dye on sale after Easter I couldn’t get to it fast enough.

I finished sewing the shirt I had sitting around. I had posted about this project when I first started and found it posted on March 23, 2007. This surprised me. A year, this project has been sitting around for over a year. I really need to try and stay focused a little more.

New Look pattern 6678.
I had issues with the collar. The collar was a bit big and would drape outward. I had to make it smaller and adjust the neckline to make it lay flat. Because I shortened the collar it caused a lot of gathering around the neck arm area, which makes the sleeves look puffier then what I think they are suppose to be.
The bottom part of the sleeve is also bigger looking then the cover of the pattern but over all I really like it. I have worn it a couple of times already and I got a lot of nice comments on it. The main reason I think I get a lot of compliments isn’t the style of the shirt but the color. It seems to bring out the color in my eyes.

To add a pet photo to the blog, here is Rohan asking if anybody wants to play ball with him.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter Eggs

We dyed some Easter Eggs yesterday. Tyde went surfing so it was up to Dax and me to get the job done.


We only dyed 12 eggs and noticed we had little cups just sitting there with dye in them. So, I grabbed some wool that was sitting by the drum carder. We couldn’t resist putting it in the little cups with Easter egg dye in them.


I didn’t pre-soak the wool so I left them sitting in the dye overnight. I will steam them today. I hope that will be enough to make the dye stick. Dax is hoping to add this colorful wool to her collection she keeps for needle felting.

Here’s what we had with a sample of one of Dax’s needle felting creations. I call her the White Lady because Dax used white for her skin. Dax often refers to her as Lady Big Nose II.


Rohan is hoping the White Lady will be in his Easter basket. Unfortunately he was disappointed.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

I've been dyeing

We have had a nice weekend. Yesterday was a busy day. First there was a Community Spring Celebration that I voluntereed for. When I first woke up I thought the weather was going to be awful for it. It was very cloudy, windy with the threat of rain, and it was cold. But then the sun came out. The wind stayed but the sun made all the difference.

Then the first of the soccer games for the Spring season started. Dax's team still got beat but not as badly as before. We were so pleased to see the improvement. The team they played was the same team that beat them in the Fall 16-0. This time the score was 5-1. See the one, they actually scored a goal! The first part of the game was closer then it sounds it was tied at half 1-1.

Here's a picture from the game. Not the best picture but I liked it because you can see that the cruise ships are in port. That's the Disney ship behind them. This is their home field.

On to the dyeing, I picked up some un-dyed yarn at the Maryland sheep and wool festival in May. The yarn is 50% angora 50% wool from Tess' Designer Yarns. It was on sale because it was un-dyed. I can’t remember but I think it was on sale for half the price at the time. My plan was to dye it myself and use it to make the Sideways Knit Short Sleeve Top pattern (scroll to about halfway down the page).


Before



I was going to use Jacquard dye but the color I had was more turquoise then what I wanted. I ended up using royal blue rit dye .

After



I hope everybody has a great week.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Time Out

I had decided to work on Chuck’s Cabled socks first because I thought they would knit up faster than the Bayerische. They have given me nothing but trouble, Arrrr.


I got this far on them and decided to run some yarn through them to see how they would fit. I could get them on my foot but it was really tight. So I frogged them and tried again with bigger needles. That didn’t work for me either. I didn’t like how the yarn looked with the bigger needles so I frogged them again. I then decided to add a stitch of the black color between the main cables. This added four stitches to the sock. But it also left a span of 4 stitches to carry the gray yarn on the back. I usually do not carry the yarn on the back any further then 3 stitches at the most. These stitches are purl stitches and there might be a way to hook/twist the back yarn with purl stitches but I don’t know this method. This started to frustrate me so I have put them to one side and started working on theBayerische socks. I have not given up on the Chuck’s Cabled socks but I think a break from them would be good for me right now. We will just call it a time out.

Dax has a performance this weekend. It’s some kind of Orchestra competition. I’ve never been to one so I’m not sure what to expect. I do know she has been practicing more than usual for it.




If you didn't notice she seems to have adopted my Ruffle jacket. We had some cooler weather this week and she decided the ruffle jacket was perfect to keep the chill away. She told me she got a lot of compliments at school on it.