I’m giving in to peer pressure. It’s probably time.
Hi, I’m Chérie and I’m a fiberholic. Yarn, fabric, rovings, you name it, I want to roll in it. As long as it’s not wool, or alpaca, or cashmere, or camel or … any of those itchy, hive-inducing fibers. Give me good old cotton, slinky silk, soy, bamboo, banana or anything fun like that.
Add a little dye, let me get a few splatters on my feet, and I’m happy as the proverbial clam.
I’ve parked the car at the corner above the farm to take this picture. In the foregroundyou can see the grass planted in the area around the creek. There’s a culvert that runs underneath the road where the creek crosses beneath - the culvert is too small and set too high, so the creek backs up into this pasture and keeps it too wet to be useful to anything other than ducks and herons most of the year. You can just barely see one corner of the house, hidden mostly behind trees, just to the left of the quonset barn (that’s the half-round one). Further to the left is a mobile home that’s also on the property.
Here it is from the north side. Still can’t see the house, hidden behind the overgrown lilac hedge between the quonset barn and the trailer. We’ll be prepping the building site for the new house and studio this fall. The new house will go to the right of the quonset about where that lilac hedge is now. It will be tucked into the hill so that it has daylight basement on the north side and most of the west-facing side as well. What am I ever going to do with 1700 square feet of studio space?
DYE!!! lol. And weave and sew and maybe even paint. It will be big enough for classes. There will be a wet side and a dry side, and both will have natural light. The wet side will have a big sink or two, a washer and dryer, and a bathroom. And there will be plenty of storage room.
And here’s the farm from the back side, to the east. You can see the neighbor’s house behind, across the road, where someone is working in the field, kicking up dust. The swath of dirt here is the field next to mine - the wheat in the middle ground is mine.
So that’s my farm. It’s in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Peone Prairie (Peone is pronounced like pee-own). Peone Prairie is in Mead, Washington, about eight miles from Spokane.
The drive I took the day all of these pictures were taken also took me to an abandoned farm behind my property and a bit to the north. There I found a herd of elk grazing around the falling down buildings.
I never realized this place was there - I don’t remember the last time I went driving up this side road on the north end of the property. There are two high hills between the main road and where the road meets up to another main road. The elk and the farmstead were between the two hills. The next day we saw the elk - or maybe elk from another herd - on a hill south of our farm.
This picture I couldn’t resist. It’s a field of sunflowers about a mile south of our farm. Aren’t they gorgeous?
The field of sunflowers was in front of a great old barn that had the front “skin” taken off so you could see the vaulting in the skeleton of the building.
That was the end of a great afternoon driving around and taking lots of pictures. I went back to the house and put together a CD of all the pictures from the afternoon as a gift for the tenant who was leaving. I hope she enjoyed the show and that it doesn’t make her too homesick.
It never fails. If I set up something to take pictures in the livingroom, one of the dogs always has to get involved.
This is Dandy protecting the yarn this evening. Or protecting me from the yarn. The yarn in question is a couple of samples from the big dyeing session I did at the farm last week. I did a huge batch of samples to see if I could get the same colors there as I do here. The answer was pretty much yes. But not exactly and the washing out process was not as easy as usual here in Redmond. Need to do some more experiments and find out why. Water, process, or that I forgot the urea for the dye mix? Or the sink was too small? Or should I say the sink, a bin, and a wash bucket. The sink really is too small.
I really need to remember sometimes to do a better job of shaking out the little skeins in between rinses. They get a little unruly when I don’t. Oops. I love this collection though. All of these were dyed in the same bin of green. The cottons are noticably more sprucey and the soy silk is a darker olive than the rayons and silks. Pretty wild. And a fair bit of variation in the olive tones too.
Here’s one of the skeins that was pictured in the first blog post (http://farmfreshtextiles.com/wordpress/?p=1). It’s a combination of black (Procion MX Better Black, I think), and raspberry (Procion MX Raspbery). I really like it. The black isn’t super black, but it contrasts nicely with the raspberry. Need to get this one up in the store before I find something to use it on myself.
I love these skeins. They are made up of five yards of about 8 different kinds of yarn, including Tencel, unmercerized cotton, silk chenille, a couple of rayon and rayon blends, and I can’t remember what else without making a trip to the car where the bag of yarn still is. They are fun to look at and play with and think about what to do with. Even here the colors are slightly different, though not as markedly different with these colors as they were with the green.
Anyway, I could keep plugging in pictures from the last dye orgy, but there were a lot of them and I’m getting tired. So I’ll let you in on what I’m working on right now and then turn the dogs out for the last draining of the evening.
It’s a purse. Or at least it will be. It’s made from a skein of banana silk in the Crushed Berries colorway. It’s about 12″ by 8″ at the moment. I can’t decide whether to make it twice this big or half. Either way it will be have a half flap closure and a longish strap.
This is the first time I’ve crocheted the banana silk this tightly. I did a scarf with it right after the first batch I died. Thought there was a picture of it in the gallery (http://www.farmfreshtextiles.com/index_files/Page1535.htm) but don’t see it there. The banana silk yarn is a bit sleazy, so I wanted to try it out in a tight crochet. It’s super soft, but not so drapey when worked this tightly. I’m using a J (6mm) hook, which is a bit of a challenge because the yarn has wide variations from thick to thin.
I like it though. I didn’t think I would and have been debating whether or not to reorder any of the banana silk for dyeing. I love the softness and the way it takes color. But the quality is very, very uneven in the lots of yarn. Some have the banana spun around a core of something that doesn’t dye with my dyes. I haven’t tried acid dyes on it yet, but don’t think it will help - it feels like a polyester of some sort. I’m losing about one skein out of every 7 because of this - and because it tends to unravel in those places. And there are clumps of mud in some of the skeins, which makes scouring it messy and um … interesting.
But I like working with it, so maybe I’ll order more. We’ll see.
P.S. For those of you who have been following the saga of Dandy (the dog above), he got his stitches out today. I’ve been having a heck of a time getting him to rest for the last week or so, but his foot is healing fine. The growth they removed was malignant, but not one of the really invasive cancers. The vet called last week to say that the biopsy showed that the margins were all clear. So we have our fingers crossed that it’s gone gone gone and never comes back!
I’ve spent part of the evening playing with beads and yarn and baubles. Yeah, I should have just finished that purse, but I got side tracked. That happens a lot.
Quite a while ago I bought a bunch of stone circles … no, that’s not the right word. These thingies anyway:
The idea was to pair them up with some of my hand-dyed yarn and make some jewelry. Guess what? Almost none of them look good with the yarn! Sheesh. I did put together a few that looked good together and sat down to play with them. Only to discover that none of my jewelry tools are in my bead box. And since I’ve never worked with them except with all the goodies in the bead box, I have no idea where they might have wandered off to. Maybe the dogs found a use for them.
The stone above is agate from Mill Creek. Since it doesn’t say otherwise and I got it at a local shop, I’m thinking it’s the Mill Creek nearest Redmond (Washington).
Here’s the stone paired with some greeny Shahrazade yarn:
Here’s another Mill Creek agate with orangey shahrazade:
And a closeup of the agate:
Those are nice, but my favorite was lemon canary yellow silk chenille with a malachite circle:
And take a look at the stone. Nummy!
Really need to find those tools so that I can work with some of the other beads I have.
Of course I could just cave and buy new tools Saturday. I decided last night that I wanted to go to Santa Monica this weekend for the Fiber Fest.
But I have company coming this weekend, sort of. My brother Rod, sis-in-law Carmen, and Mr. Mateo, my nephew are coming over for a few days. We’re supposed to go, along with my sister Bekki, to the Mariner’s game Sunday. It’s Run Around the Bases Day for the kidlets. We’ve gone several years in a row, but this year Mateo will be the only kidlet from the family because Sue’s family couldn’t make it over and Bekki’s kids are with their father that day.
So anyway, I’m hoping Rod and Carmen and Mateo can entertain themselves Saturday, because I’m hopping a plane at O dark 30 Saturday morning for Santa Monica. I’ll fly back just before midnight. Friend Joanne is going to come in and feed and drain the dogs a couple of times for me. And I’m going to try not to spend next month’s salary in just a few hours. And have lunch at Versailles. As Joanne described it, their garlic chicken is transcendent. Sadly they do not deliver to Washington. I will just have to deliver myself to them.
That was the theme of the weekend.
Instead of hanging out at home doing something silly like cleaning, I hopped on a plane and flew to Santa Monica for the Fabulous Fiber Fest. Or maybe I really flew down for an opportunity to have a meal at Versailles. By the end of the day I was fairly convinced it was the latter.
The fiber fest was a bit small to hit the Fabulous meter for me, but I had fun. There was just enough each of weaving, quilting, spinning, beads, patterns, etc., to whet my appetite, but not enough to satisfy. Sort of the other end of the spectrum from the big shows where you get overwhelmed and all the bead booths start looking the same after the 40th or so, for instance. All good at this little show though.
I went expecting to come home with yarn (because really,I just don’t have enough already) and instead came home with beads and crochet hooks and a couple of crochet books.
The hooks came from Gosh Yarn It.
No, the two stained hooks are not really tiny. The big hook is enormous. It’s a size V, which I’ve never seen before. I don’t know what I’ll use it for unless I start crocheting rugs with really heavy fabric strips or something, but just in case size ever does matter, I have it 
Then there are a couple of beads from Allene’s Beads.
There is a bit of an aquatic theme to the weekend that started here.
And this one is for my friend Joanne, who tried to take care of the dogs for me yesterday.
More beads from Kahn-Fagan:
The upper dichroic piece is not that dark, but I couldn’t get a good photo of it. It’s a darkish green with gold and purple highlights.
And a sort of flower:
And a wonderful mermaid:
Isn’t she fun?
So that was most of the haul from the fiber fest. Just a couple of books other than that.
The most fun part of the show was some of the demos. I watched a woman making lace a couple of times. I’d love to learn how to do that. I remember watching some of the traditional Belgian lace makers working when I visited Antwerp a few years ago. There were also demos of dollmaking and rug hooking going on while I was there. The most intriguing display was from Wormspit.com, which had a bunch of flyers about silk worms, some preserved moths in frames, several skeins of different handspun silk yarns, a variety of silk fabric samples, and … much to my surprise when someone else moved away from the table a bit, a tray full of silkworms munching away on leaves. I missed the classes Michael Cook was teaching but would love to take one sometime.
After a couple of hours of wandering the booths, schmoozing with vendors, and checking out silkworms, I headed back to the car and went in search of food. Versailles, to be exact. Versailles is a Cuban Restaurant one of my first internet friends introduced me to years ago. Thank you Ginny! Versailles has a lot of variety on the menu and it may all be terrific, but the only thing I’ve managed to sample so far is the Pollo Versailles. Garlic Chicken. *sigh* It’s definitely in the Fabulous category. It’s half a roasted chicken, falling off the boane tender, served with beans, white rice and fried plaintains. *swoon* Now that was worth the price of the flight.
All in all a fun day. Good flights too, which is oh so rare these days. Both left on time with a minimum of fuss, arrived early and were uneventful. I spent most of the time in the air napping and reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. Terrific book. I expected to be educated and was also entertained. Highly recommended.
Today was family day. My brother Rod, his wife Carmen, and podling Mateo came over for the day and went to the ballgame with my sister Bekki and I. We all had a lot of fun and after the game Mateo got to run around the bases down on the field with the other kids. All my pics of that came out blurry. But here’s one of he and his mom and dad during the game:
The Mariners won handily too, so a nice day all around. And what a smart decision to put that retractible roof on Safeco Field. Hah. Who cares if it rains, ’cause it won’t rain on us.
Oh, and after Bekki and I stopped by the art fair at Marymoor Park in Redmond on the way home. That’s where I picked up this little guy to round out the aquatic selections for the weekend. Pretty cute, isn’t he?
Made by Erika Mattsson. You can see more of her work on her website. I bought a couple of her frog beads a few years ago at a bead show and just had them out to play with the other day. Most of the booths were closing down, and a few were already gone. Not a good weekend due to the rain unfortunately. I did find a little something for Joanne’s birthday too. Can’t post that though yet.
The purse. I really did. See?
So back in an older post I mentioned I was working on a purse made of banana silk (am I the only one who has trouble hitting all the keys for banana in the right order and number?). I finished it a few nights ago, but haven’t remembered to post it.
It’s about 10 inches by 7 inches, with a fairly long strap. Yes, I’m being lazy again. Actually, I think the dogs have hidden the tape measures, though I can’t think why. At any rate, the measures are not where *I* left them.
Pattern? I didn’t use one. It’s pretty simple, so I’ll try to write it up more specifically in a few days, but it goes something like this:
1. Chain a bunch of stitches until you like the length for the width of the purse.
2. Single crochet back across.
3. Repeat step two until you have a rectangle twice the height you want the purse to be, added to the length you want the flap to be.
4. Chain a bunch for the strap till it’s a length you like.
5. Single crochet along the length of the chain to finish the strap.
6. Put it all together.
Of course, as you can see by the picture that’s not exactly what I did, but that’s the basic purse. I added beads to the strap, and did some shell stitching (my first) to the edge of the flap. The other thing I did was to add two rows of single back post stitches to make a kind of “hook” on the flap where it goes over the open edge of the purse. It’s not necessary, but I wanted to see what it would look like. Kinda like it.
Okay, and when I started this one, I made it wider to begin with that I decided I wanted it, so when I got it to a point where I thought the size was good, I turned it and added the flap along the side instead of across the top. That sounds confusing. Um. Well, I screwed up and then I improvised. Is that a better description? lol
As I mentioned in the original post I worked it very tight. It was murder on my arm, but I like the way it turned out. It makes a nice solid cloth. It’s very soft, but substantial.
Okay, and I’ll admit, it’s not really finished yet. I forgot the loop to fasten around the bead to close the flap. Oops.
I could have added a lining and worked it more loosely. If I do another one, I’ll try that.
What’s the next project? Dunno. I have some silk chenille I dyed weeks ago because I couldn’t wait to try it on the loom. It’s still waiting to be tried. And I think I want to try a sweater or a shell from the banana silk now. I should decide soon since I want to take something with me to Spokane tomorrow. I’m taking more yarn to dye - want to do some more experimenting with the water there and see if I can fix the problem I had the last time.
A good friend of mine died this morning. Tom was a neighbor, friend, and my favorite massage therapist. For the last eight or nine months he battled cancer, and this morning, the cancer won.
Tom told the worst jokes. The more juvenile the better. He had a new one just about everytime you’d see him. He loved to help people. Whether it was offering a hand to a neighbor, or travelling half-way around the world with Medical Teams International to massage burn victims and work with seriously injured children. A few years ago a young friend of his from Moldova came to the US before heading off to college. Tom helped him to earn school money while he was here, doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. The two of them stripped and stained my deck for me.
The story and pictures on the Medical Teams Intl site show Tom before he got sick and talk about the work he and his wife Barb did in Moldova the last few years. He was also a tireless fundraiser for MTI and for the Leukemia Society. He did an interview with a local TV news station just before he left for his last trip a few weeks ago.
Thank you, Tom, for making the world a little brighter. We miss you already.
I’m at the farm again for a few days. I worked from here today for my “day job” and have been winding skeins tonight to do some dyeing tomorrow.
The electric skein winder has been humming along on the livingroom table.
It’s a funky looking thing. It’s all PVC and bolts with a little motor off the right side and a yardage counter off the left and a polysomthingorother belt drive. I bought it from Babe’s Fiber Garden more than a year ago now. It’s really handy for winding a lot of skeins in a day. It probably takes me more time to tie ties on the hundred-yard skeins I’m doing at the moment than it does to wind the skeins.
And yes, for those of you checking out the background in the picture, that is one large television. It was my grandfather’s behemoth, which he always swore he got so my grandmother could watch more comfortably when she was bedridden. Umhmm. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the bass booster or the fact that it’s so large the financial ticker was in large print when he watched CNBC.
Tonight’s yarn is Bamboo from Southwest Trading Company.
I also have some skeins of banana silk steeping in a bucket of turquoise dye. I forgot to take pictures before they went it - they were some that I dyed the last time I was here and hated the color of. They looked sort of like dead seaweed. Sickly brown and sickly green. An interesting look, but not particularly attractive. And not interesting enough to fall into that “so ugly it’s neat” category. So I chucked the five skeins into turquoise and it will be interesting to see what color they become. Right now it looks like an interesting green variegation.
I’m timing my dyeing here just wrong. I’m getting the yarn dyed and rinsed out, but not dried. And it’s much drier over here - I could be hanging the skeins outside to dry here and they’d be done in a few hours. But no, I’m timing it so that I end up hanging them in the bathroom of the Redmond house and waiting days for them to dry.
Ah well.
And one of the dogs has gas. Or maybe all three. Yippee. Why does that never happen until bedtime? Note to self: No broccoli for the dogs when they aren’t going to be in an airable location.
Tonight I spent some time rinsing the yarn I overdyed a fewdays ago. Again. The water at the farm is very different than the water in Redmond, so I need to do some experimentation to find out how to make the rinse out better. Anyway, it’s looking promising. Or at least more richly ugly than the dead seaweed color it was before.
Not looking too bad in the bottom of a bucket. Of course, it’s still wet yet, so the color will shift a bit as it dries. Here’s a closeup of a couple of other skeins:
Lot of color variation here. Now it’s an interesting interesting. Much more rich and vibrant than dead seaweed
Sunday I went up to Greenbluff to get peaches with my niece Ashley and nephew Bobby. Wish I’d taken pictures of them in “peach tester” mode. They kept going back to where one of the orchard workers was slicing up peaches and offering samples. They had to be sure which kind we needed to get. Rod, Carmen, and Mateo came up too, and got to the last place a bit after we did, so Ashley and Bobby went with them to “show” them where the tasting was happening. Um, yeah.
(The slurping sound you hear is me snarfing down a bowl of peaches. Just the mention of them sent me running for the box! Mmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmm!)
I bought two boxes. Here’s what’s left of my haul:
So sad. They are almost gone.
No, really, one whole box went to my sister Bekki. And about half of mine I took into my office. Co-workers snarf down almost anything, but these were especially good.
The biggest ones (mostly around the edges) are a variety called Flaming Fury and the smaller ones are Elegant Lady. Both are sweet, juicy and fall off the pit when you slice them up. The skins practically fall off too, they are so ripe. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the rest of them, but I need to figure it out soon. Like tonight or tomorrow.
Mmmm. Good peaches.
Greenbluff is an area north of Spokane that where there are several orchards and big gardens. At different times of the year, you can find strawberries, cherries, pears, peaches, nectarines, corn, pumpkins, and apples. And a dozen other veggies and fruits in smaller quantities. The growers have several festivals in the fall and summer. Last weekend and the weekend before were the Peach Festival. Several of the orchards had music and tastings and they all had U-Pick opportunities. Last year we went up twice and picked peaches. This year we settled for hanging out around the Harvest House store and buying freshly picked peaches - picked by someone else, that is. I can’t wait till more of the apples are ripe. Between apple pie, apple slices and dried apples, I should be a happy camper for months. The best ever dried apples are made at another Greenbluff orchard, Walters’ Fruit Ranch. I can’t take those to work because I want them all for myself. And so does everyone else.
We saw several relaxed barns on the drive through the orchard area too. This one’s not too relaxed yet. Except the doors, anyway.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what was holding this one up:
The picture makes it look like the house is holding it up, but the house is behind the barn. Maybe it’s the tree in the lower addition that keeps it from falling down completely.
We also discovered a real gem. As we rounded a corner on the main road, we saw a sign pointing down a gravelled dead end road that said “Gourmet Candies”. We couldn’t pass that up. It was a little caramel shop in the botton of a ginormous house. It was called Ellie’s Edibles, I think. They had the most luscious vanilla caramels. And all kinds of interesting variations.
Here are some white chocolate dipped vanilla caramels infused with lavender and milk chocolate espresso caramels :
The lavender ones were good and a little different. I wanted them to have milk chocolate too, but then I always like milk chocolate more than white.
These are the dark chocolate espresso caramels and some lemon lavendar-infused caramels.
The lemon ones weren’t as good as the white chocolate. They had a slightly medicine-y flavor when the citrus and the lavender collided. Not bad, just not as good.
I have no idea what the espresso ones tasted like since I don’t like anything remotely coffee flavored. I took those to work with the peaches. And I didn’t get pictures of the nekkid caramels. ‘Cause I et ‘em. They were awful nummy too. Nice and fresh. The kids had chocolate caramel suckers that looked good too. I might have to go back soon.
The dogs and I head back to Spokane tomorrow after work. A good friend of mine recently turned 70 and her family is throwing a big party for her. I can’t believe Anne is 70. No way. I bet she still sunbathes on her back porch in a bikini. Anne was one of my English teachers in high school. The best one and the toughest. We’ve stayed in touch ever since, which is more than I can say for most of my classmates. But 70. Sheesh. That must mean I’m getting older too. Not possible. Nevermind that I also just RSVP’d for my 20th college reunion.
Really, one of these times, I’m just going to take a day off.
Friday dawned bright and early (really bright, since the bedroom window here faces east, and really early since Dandy seems to think the first hint of light means it’s time to get up). My brother and I spent much of the day first cleaning out a corner of the quonset barn and then moving tools out of the addition over at the trailer. The trailer is going away soon. Yay! And then the new house building starts. Double yay!
In addition to the tools, I pulled several boxes of books out of storage that came from my parents’ house after Mom died almost 4 years ago. And my great-grandmother’s treadle too. It’s a White from 1910, with a pretty ornate cabinet.
The books were fun to go through Saturday morning. In addition to a bunch of old books on carpentry and shorthand (Dad’s dad was a carpenter as was Dad until he went to the police academy when I was born and Mom and Dad’s mom were secretaries), there were some real finds. Some of the books must have been either my Great-grandmother Campbell’s or Dad’s dad’s as they are collections from the 1900’s through the 1920s. There is a 19-volume set of the collected works of Thomas Carlyle; several thin volumes of The Pocket University, each volume the work of a different classic author; a collection of the history of the US through 1924, and much more. There was also a sweet boxed set of four chapbooks of Robert Service poetry.
Saturday afternoon was Anne’s birthday party. It was a terrific gathering of friends with food, wine, and stories about life with Anne. The setting was her yard. She lives on Spokane’s South Hill, in a tri-level house that backs onto a volcanic rock hill and trees. Her husband Michael has turned the rocky hill into a garden of eden. Every nook had been planted or sculpted and turned into beauty. I used to love house sitting for Anne when I was in college because her house always seemed like an island of serenity. It’s even more so with Michael’s tending now.
Sunday we had a little bit of a lazy day. I wound a bunch more skeins of yarn and intended to start dyeing. Somehow that didn’t happen. I did get some laundry done - I’d created piles after Grampa died and not done many because it’s been so hot here. So I’m nearly through the piles and even got some folding done. I think I’d hate laundry less if it weren’t for the folding.
My nephew Robert stayed over Friday night to help and came out again today. Mostly he volunteers because he might get to drive the riding lawn mower. He was remarkably patient about not asking today until we had all the shelves in the livingroom cleared and refilled and I was halfway through my dyeing. I was going to have him help with the dyeing too, but I forgot to having him bring crummy clothes. He didn’t care. He got to mow.
So today was dyeing, dyeing, dyeing. The only thing I didn’t get to was some new fabric I bought from Dharma - a soy/organic cotton jersey, and a cotton/bamboo poplin. Did get them washed and ready to go, so next session will get them into the dye. They both have a really nice hand, so I hope they dye as nicely.
Dyeing in the old farm kitchen is an interesting challenge. It’s the only kitchen I know with less counterspace than mine in Redmond, and the sinks are too shallow. So I bought some buckets, which has made it a bit easier this weekend. Rod and I also made a great discovery out in the barn - a deep, double-basin galvanized steel utility sink. It looks like new, but with a generous coating of dust. I’ll pull it out into the back yard next trip over and start using it for washing out dyed yarn and fabric. It will mean schlepping the hot water out there, but s’alright, it’s better than trying to wash out all the stuff from a big dyeing session in the tiny kitchen sink.
Here’s one bucket full of bags of dyed yarn bundled up for batching:
And another of silk chenille soaking in soda ash:
Yes, that’s yarn, not Top Ramen.
And as long as I was buying buckets, I picked up more of my favorite paint containers, but in a bigger size for mixing up larger batches of dye liqueurs:
I have a bunch of these in the 1qt. size, but these are 2.5qts. That’s a lotta dye. That’s okay, because I did quite a bit of yarn today. There was 2+kilos of Southwest Trading Company Bamboo, about a pound and a half of Tencel, and another pound plus some of silk chenille. Seems like even more than that. Wonder what I forgot I dyed.
Here’s the last of the silk chenille steeping in dye:
*sigh* Who thought it ever was a good idea to have a kitchen sink only four inches deep? Ah well, it’s done for this trip.
I haven’t decided whether I’ll leave these in the dye till I come back over in a week and a half or take them back to Redmond with me. Probably take them back to Redmond. I have no patience to wait and see how a dyeing session turns out. Practically have to lock myself out of the room the yarn is in to keep from rinsing it right away. But it will be prettier if left at least overnight, so I can do that.
Okay, gotta go. Getting up at oh dark 30 to drive back to Redmond before work. The price I’ll pay to avoid driving in heavy holiday traffic …