blue is beautiful

In between yarn club orders, I decided to use up some odds and ends of dye solutions that have been accumulating on my dye table. It's about time, since I botched a batch of yarn last night by confusing my purple and black dye bottles. Oops. They're pretty, but not what my customers are expecting to get.

I had a lot of blue and green solutions around. So I dyed a few skeins of Joy, a big skein of Colleen, and some random blue/green colorways. It's nice to just pour some dye in a pot and see what happens, instead of trying to match a stock photo.

It was a warm (for March) day, so I hung them outside to dry. I liked how they looked, so I snapped a photo. It looked better in real life, I'm sorry to say, since the sun came out just in time to wash out the colors. You can't see the interesting variations in shading in the Colleen (the semi-solid green skein) or the two sea-blue skeins at the other end of the line.



My husband rigged this clothesline for me last year. I like it because it's under the eaves of the roof. Maybe I'm the only paranoid dyer out there, but whenever I see photos of people hanging dozens of skeins outside to dry, I always think about bird poop. I've got drying racks that I put out in the driveway during warm weather, but I know that my little feathered friends like to perch on the phone lines right over them, so the clothesline is my first choice for hanging yarn. It also catches the breeze a bit better up there, and during the summer, the bricks radiate additional warmth.

better not pout, I'm telling you why ...

... Stephen West is coming to town. On March 28. There's an open house/trunk show starting at 11:30, and his Shawl Inspirations class, which I'm taking, is later that afternoon. I can't find any info on the workshop, other than what was mailed to me by the store, so it looks like it will be a brand new class. Should be interesting!

I've bought Herbivore for the class:



(The pattern, that is. The man might be an herbivore, I don't know.)

I want to try out shawl shapes other than triangles, and this looks like it will fit the bill nicely. Can't decide what yarn to use, though. I have a new DK BFL that I want to try out:



This was a hard blue to capture with my camera. It's somewhere between turquoise and royal blue. I was actually going for dusty blue, but I used a different black dye than the one I usually use for dusty blue, and it came out quite a different shade than usual. I like it, though.

The yarn *is* DK weight, though. I think I'd like a lighter weight yarn for the spring, like maybe Willow BFL:



Yeah. I think the Larrabee. I'm in the mood to knit something with bright, lighter colors. I do need to still find a pattern for the DK BFL, as I'd really like to put the yarn through its paces.

the red stocking

When I was deciding what to list this month in my store, I decided to organize it by color. This week's theme is red.







Might add a few more this week, depending. Everything goes live on Thursday at noon, Eastern Time.

Blue will be up next time, probably in 2 weeks.

Angee

Ravelympics inspired me to finish a pair of socks that I started in September. Why yes, I have a severe case of second sock syndrome. The other pair I was intending to finish for the Ravelympics was started last winter.



This pair was knitted from a limited edition 8-ply (9-ply? it's been a while) merino yarn. Specs (330 yds, 100g) make it sound like a sport yarn, but it acts more like a fingering. I used U.S. 1.5 needles, but probably U.S. 1 would've been better.

I'm trying not to buy limited-edition yarn any more. I want consistency in my lineup, but sometimes curiosity gets the better of me. At least I have three kilos of this stuff. It knits up into a nice firm fabric, which I really like. Colorway is Copper Patina, a very springtime colorway.