cousins under the skin--er, overdye

Seems like lately I've been dyeing a lot of warm yellows, so rather than mixing it everytime, I got some golden yellow dye. I was messing around with it one night, trying to get a colorway that was something like this, only with a little turquoise:



Instead, I got this:



And a subsequent try was a little sloppy--I didn't make the color repeats long enough, and everything bled as the dye was setting, so I resorted to my old friend the navy overdye:



Strange to think that these two colorways are actually related. Sort of like the way human beings share 90+ percent of their genes with apes, yet turned out rather differently. That's what's so interesting and frustrating about dyeing: how what you plan is so often not what happens.

the siren call of Ravelry

This afternoon, I was going to either pick my kiddo up early from preschool and take him swimming, or make shepherd's pie for dinner. But instead, I spent the last hour updating my projects on Ravelry and browsing my friends' newest projects. That place is such a time drain.

I keep forgetting to take photos of my kiddo's gansey, which I finished in January after my shoulder finally recovered enough for me to knit again. At first he complained that it was "too yarny," yanking and pulling at the funnel neck collar. But he seems to have gotten used to it, and will happily wear it. I still need to take photos of all the details, like the diamond gusset and the triangle neck gussets. Those Channel Island knitters certainly were clever about those little comfort-enhancing additions. I love feeling like I'm part of a centuries-old tradition by incorporating these features into a modern sweater.



I finished up a pair of cargo longies this week. They use my Moonlight colorway, and have a cute little cargo pocket on the left leg. I love the button that I was able to find--it was exactly what I was looking for.