Success!

The dye.
The complicated, scientific, heating apparatus.

The swatches.

I waited so long to post, now I'm too sleepy. It was a good day. More on these tomorrow and better pictures, too. I ran out of sunlight, you see.

Preparing the Plumage

I made some little swatches today for testing the overdye colors. The big one was the actual swatch for the knitting of the Peacock Feathers Shawl itself. I learned the value of swatching when I made the, Shetland Tea Shawl, the brown one at the top of the page, and it came out an entire foot smaller in diameter than it was supposed to. Needless to say, I hadn't swatched. Now, look, another advantage of swatching! Less work for me today! Now, why on Earth did I go through with knitting this shawl, in the first place, after looking at that swatch and seeing the scareigated lace, I have no idea. But, I think it will be a fun experiment, so I don't mind too much.

I've also pulled out another UFO. The Lace Dream Stole, from The Best of Knitter's Shawls and Scarves. I have less than six pattern repeats left to knit, but each repeat is thirty-two rows long. It is a beautiful pattern, Ostrich Plumes, but it is a huge stole and pretty dull to knit. I worked on that a bit today. It's going to be pretty in this fuzzy, pink mohair, a little scratchy, though. PH doesn't mind.

Lace Dream.

I leave you with a photo I took of the Tennessee state flower.

The wild iris. Pretty, no?

Another Post? So Soon?

What do you think?

This is a comfy sock I made from Drooling-Over-Yarn-Laura's sock yarn in a colorway called "Something Unusual". As I suspected, the colors go great with jeans. Great dye job, Laura! I think I will call them my, Drooling Socks. The second one is nearly completed.

I know that the socks I "designed" are, really, extremely simple ones, just socks with cables running down the sides, but I was thinking that I might try to write it out, for practice. If I do that, would anyone give me feedback on whether or not the pattern makes sense and is easy to follow? Then, I can work towards something more complicated. Please, please, please?

I did finish knitting the Peacock Feathers Shawl in the scareigated yarn. Here it is in its shriveled and unblocked state.

Here's what I am going to do to salvage it. I am going to knit some simple swatches with the leftover yarn and overdye them with different shades of blue and blue-green. I have sapphire, turquoise, teal and navy, acid dyes. I'll post the swatches so you can see the results and help me make up my mind. It will be an experiment. I hope it works.

PH made a bird buddy! He and this morning dove entertained each other on and off for an entire afternoon. The dove would come to the window, look in and call, until PH would come running and join him. Then, they would just sit and stare at each other. They did this over and over. I found this friend much more enjoyable than the skink PH carried into the house the other day, and let go.