Escaping Suburbia

Over the weekend, I experimented with some Easter egg dyes on two types of wool. First and third below are BFL and the second one is merino. Two egg dye kits (less than $4 total) were enough for four rovings of 4oz. each, using 3 tablets for each roving. I probably could have stretched the colors even further and gotten more out of them… more experimenting required!

My favorite of the three, I’m calling this one “Verdigris”. The colors came from the PAAS Camo kit, which I picked up for the slightly darker, muted colors.

“Crimson Clover”, using the rest of the dyes from the Camo kit and supplemented with some icing dyes. For this one, and the one above, I layered the whole roving in a crock pot set on low and poured the mixed colors over various parts of the fiber.

“Clopin”, dyed with three colors from the Paas Neon kit. The blue in the egg dye kit breaks just like the Delphinium color of Wiltons. Also, the teal color bleeds like crazy. I still haven’t got it to stop, but I figure after I spin the yarn, I’ll soak it some more. This one was done by dissolving the dyes in three medium size mason jars and placing parts of the length of roving in each jar. The three jars were then warmed in the crock pot until the dye was exhausted.

So, all in all, egg dye kits are a fine way to dye roving. I’ll be looking for kits to go on sale after Easter.

Barn Owl by Dennis Rivera

Last weekend we went to the Cascades Raptor Center in Eugene. I highly recommend visiting if you are in the area.

Dennis got the best photos of the day (see above!), but here’s one I took of a Kestrel named  Puck. He was very close to the wire mesh of his cage, so I wasn’t able to blur it out completely:

There is this time of night — well, 1:30 in the morning to be exact — when the whole house is dark and the traffic on the highway has died down. I go into the kitchen where the windows aren’t covered and stare out at the hills and the silhouettes of all the trees that surround us. Goosebumps. Never fails.

I can’t say with certainty why we love Oregon so much but couldn’t handle Connecticut. They’re both green, with some beautiful scenery and a great emphasis on outdoor activities.  Maybe it was just the bad timing in our personal lives of when we chose to go to the east coast that soured the whole experience for us. Connecticut felt claustrophobic to me, the trees oppressive. Maybe it’s the open spaces in Oregon that let me appreciate the trees more.

I just really like standing in my kitchen at 1:30 in the morning and looking out into the darkness. Contentment, with goosebumps.

EE Wilson Wildlife Area (January, 2007)

This orchard was so atmospheric and eye-catching, we pulled off the side of the road and took photos.

Corespun yarn is made by taking a strand of  thread or yarn — in my case I used cotton crochet thread — and wrapping fiber around it. There are some really amazingly beautiful results out there if you look through Flickr, and I was inspired by some fiber I received as a Christmas present from Mama & Papa Wolf in these gorgeous blues, greens and purples.

When it first came off the bobbin, I didn’t much like it, but after looking at the photo, I think I do. The colors are kind of selling it for me. It’s so different from what I usually try to spin and I only did a very small amount. I’ll have to try to work it into a project somehow… maybe stripes in a hat made with another similar weight yarn.

Hot damn, it’s been a long time since I updated. I’ve gone through a few job related changes recently and have just been too distracted to think much about the blogs. Hoping to change that, though.

Also, my little 365 project is so not happening. It was feeling too chore-like, not fun, so I stopped. I do have a few shots to share over the next few days though.

For now, here’s a project I worked up very quickly this weekend. This is some shetland & angora fiber from Malia Shetlands in Monroe:

Here it is on the bobbin — 2 plies, somewhat bulky. I didn’t bother measuring it because I knew I was going to just turn it into a hat right away, regardless:

And here’s the finished hat — just a basic single crochet in a spiral with a bit of decreasing around the ears to make it snug:

I love this color — I’m hoping to find more of this fiber, because I’d like to make a thinner, smoother yarn with it as well.

Well, that’s it for now… be back before another month has passed. I hope. I mean, yeah, I will. You bet.

Day 9
December 9, 2009

For today’s photo I have this hat I crocheted over the last two days. (Yesterday’s shot was the yarn on the winder.) I spun the yarn from a lovely braid of Blue Faced Leicester fiber from  Easy Knits.

The hat is just okay, should have done a different stitch.

Day 4
December 4, 2009

Miley inspects my new (to me) umbrella swift.

As long as I’m posting this photo, I may as well mention that Marcus has decided I’m not the devil and will consent to sit on my lap for several minutes at a time. He has also pretty much stopped biting me whenever I pet him, but his claws will come out and he’ll get a little snappish if I get carried away.

Day 2
December 2, 2009

I’m going to attempt a 365 day photo project with some friends on Ravelry… one photo every day. I may not post every day’s photo here on the blog, but I’ll put them all in this set on Flickr.

Day 1
December 1, 2009