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Catching up on my ABCs

Posted by jackie blue on April 21st, 2008

I know, I’ve been a bad girl.

E is for Early Spring

e_earlyspring.jpg

F is for Flowers

f_flower.jpg

I like to keep my bathroom a happy place

G is for Green

g_green.jpg

Cooking up something yarny

D is for Desk!

Posted by jackie blue on February 29th, 2008

desk_new2.jpg

I bought a new desk, with hutch and file cabinet the other day.

I took my workstation from this monstrosity…

desk_old.jpg

…to this.

desk_new.jpg

Big improvement, eh? Especially the tangle of wires being GONE.

Dyeing Experiment

Posted by jackie blue on February 22nd, 2008

So the other night I wanted to see how the 2 Kool Aid flavors I got would look on the boring pale green yarn. I took a small bit of the yarn and took 2 baggies, mixed some of each flavor, and popped them with the yarn in the microwave. I did 3 packets of the lemonade and only 2 of the mango, and I only microwaved for 2 minutes, so I’m sure I can get more vibrant results.

koolaid_examples.jpg

On the left, we have the original color. In the center, the lemonade, which has certainly pumped up the green to a happier place. The right, the mango, which is a little muddy, but again, only used 2 packets and 2 minutes of heat.

I know there’s concern about dyeing knitted pieces rather than just yarn so I should have knitted swatches, and still might.

The weird thing is, the lemon one has made a stiff, crackly yarn, and the mango is still pretty soft. So if using the lemon, will have to rinse/wash and block a second time. Also, the concern of shrinkage has me thinking that I will use the microwave method the whole time, and not a pot of hot water, which might felt it more.

So the verdict: if I do this, it will probably be with the lemon. I sure have enough green sweaters, but the lemon seems the least likely to cause extreme blotchiness, and it’s readily available down the street.

Lush and Lacy underway

Posted by jackie blue on February 20th, 2008

Finishing a deadline late last week meant that I could get in some knitting on the weekend, and I’m nearly done with the back of the Lush and Lacy. I’m not sure what I’m thinking, knitting a Spring sweater out of alpaca (I tend to be warmer than most people), and I’m still not loving the color, but Michelle gave me the idea to dye and I think I will. I want to dye it with Kool Aid since I want a bright happy color anyway, and I’d rather use something fairly non-toxic as I don’t have any big extra pots and I don’t care if I dump this in a soup pot, it’s food after all.

lushlacyback.jpg

I  had already started the sweater, so instead of dyeing yarn skeins I will be dyeing knit pieces (before sewing) - anyone have any good luck with kool aid and dyeing complete garments?

Now the problem is what color, and finding the Kool Aid. Seems every store in my neighborhood carries only the sweetened kind but I managed to find the packets of only 2 flavors in a local supermarket. Not the ones I’d hoped for, I wanted blues or greens, but you know yellow and orange are the colors for Spring around here.

mangolemonade.jpg

I bought a few packets to experiment before picking a color. If they turn out awful on the pale green, I might have to resort to Ebay to get other packets. Looks like a dyeing experiment might happen around here tonight, folks.