Here’s what’s going up next on my etsy shop. What should I call this colorway? I don’t have any fabulous name ideas. Tell me what you think.

I’ve been wanting to order this yarn (Pirate King) for a long time, and I finally did last week. It came today, and it’s even more beautiful in person!

I’m going to make Clark a pair of socks! We’re both very excited.

Pretty pictures…

Lunch yesterday-

Max with his haircut-

Clark’s haircut, along with the fleece shirt he’s worn every single day since receiving it-

Max loooves books!-

I will frequently see him up on the couch, quietly looking through a book. He also frequently brings books to us when we’re sitting down and looks expectantly on, waiting for us to read it to him. So very, very cute.

I dyed a pound of GORGEOUS wool today. It feels so weird to dye wool brown, ’cause although it started out white, it still looks “natural” when it’s done, like I didn’t do anything to it. Anyway, this wool is now the color of an irish setter.

It’s lustrous and luscious and pretty much irresistible. I’m excited for it to dry so I can start working with it. I have big plans.

Also, I sold 3 more batts last night on etsy! Hooray! To a blog reader, too! (Thank you again)!

I’m so excited! I’ve wanted two things for a long time…

1. to knit a slouchy hat for myself
2. to knit something for myself from my Tweedy Batts

When cleaning out the wool room last month, I collected odds and ends of browns I’d dyed years ago when testing out colors. I decided to do something productive with them so I separated, carded, and spun them into 3 different tweed yarns, plus a blue. Making it up as I went, I started knitting yesterday morning and came up with this-

and it’s GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS!!! I’m so excited. So now, I want to make Tweedy Hat kits for my etsy shop.

Of course, since I was using old test scraps, I’m going to have to go back the drawing board in terms of trying to dye up more. But I’ve got the blue, the tweed, and the dark brown used on the skinny stripes. And I know and still have at least one of the dyes that I used on the brown wool, and a good guess at the others. So it’ll take some work, but it should be doable. However it won’t be exact so I’m left to hope I can make it work.

In other news, I’m working on posting a new color on etsy, which will bring me to 7. It’s a gray/yellow combination that is really pretty. I’ve knit Liv a mitt with it and have the yarn spun up to knit the other one.

I still don’t know how I’m going to tweed the blue, which is the clean blue stripe in my slouchy hat.

And finally, I sold my first batt! Nate designed a nifty card for me to slip in the back of the package (that truly did not photograph well) and I shipped it off on Friday!

I’m finally doing this.

Today, I had a playdate for Clark, made bread, recorded a song, washed pans, and now I’m dyeing wool for my mother-in-law’s bathroom rug. (I know, wool and bathroom don’t typically go together, but it should work in this instance).

Here are PICTURES!

I’m realizing that there aren’t a whole lot of pictures of Max. This is because when I have the opportunity to take pictures, he’s down for a nap. Yes, those two things are related.

Poor Max. I’ll try to get some photos of him soon.

When I got down my box full of dye, I noticed a water bottle of blue dye mixed up already. I don’t remember what blue it is, but I figured I’d use it and see what happened. I poured the whole bottle into the pot. The resulting silk is a bit brighter than I’d intended, but I think I like it.

Maybe the brightness will satisfy that part of me that wants it red. In any case, I’m going to spin it up. It will be easy to rip off and overdye if the color isn’t working out.

So, here it is.

It was supposed to be a very neutral moss green. The alpaca on the right is sort of, kind of close to the color it’s supposed to be, but when you open it up, it’s mint green on the inside. And I even scoured it first.

However… it carded into the most lovely, complex, heathered version of the color it was supposed to be. I’m very, very happy with it.

The photo is a bit bleached out. I have a hard time getting good pictures of dark colors.

It’s a very high color saturation, which means it took all of the dye I had to dye it. Initially, when the colors separated out I decided I wouldn’t buy that color again, but I like it so much, I want a sweater out of it for myself so I’ll totally get more. I have about 3 pounds of the dyed fibers to card and put in my shop (if I ever actually HAVE a shop).

Because of the complexity of the base, I’m going light on the tweed. I don’t want it to look messy. There are four colors of silk going in to make the tweed, but in very small amounts.

It spun up heavenly. I’m looking forward to carding it.

On Saturday, Nate took the family out to Snoqualmie Falls. I haven’t been there in many years. It was unbelievably crowded. We hiked down to the bottom (major round ligament pain) and when we were done, Nate hiked back up by himself to get the car to pick us up.

Clark has developed a sensitivity to loud noise. He spent all of the 4th of July with his hands over his ears, and I guess the thunderous falls were too loud as well, though it really wasn’t that loud.

We’ve been enjoying heading out after dinner when the house gets hot and outside is starting to cool off. We typically go to a park for some fresh air and shade.

I carded 4 ounces of my Green Tea batts,

still sampling, unfortunately. I’m testing out a new silk to see how it cards and knits up since my old silk is no longer available. So in the next day or so I should have it spun and I’m trying to decide what to knit it into. Maybe some picot edged leg warmers? Or a hat? Or a scarf? Any suggestions? I’m going to spin it woolen and am hoping to get about 180-200 yards out of it. If need be, I can card and spin more.

I’ve felt a little down this week. Not really sure why. Hormones, or fatigue, or something. Not very sociable.

Yesterday was a busy day. I carded the rest of the watermelon batts, the wool I had dyed for sample black/gold batts, and dyed 3 1/2 pounds of wool and alpaca for a new colorway. I don’t know if anyone else is going to like it, I’d say it’s a bit unconventional…

A friend of ours’ husband travels the world for work. He brought a tea set back from Japan which his family had on display in their living room and which I had admired frequently. It was broken, so when Pat went back to Japan, he bought a replacement for them and a set for me. They offered me the broken one in case I wanted it for display, and I took it for the color inspiration. I think it’s a very happy colorway. Tell me what you think.

In order to really know, I’m going to have to spin a whole batt and knit it up. My fibers are still wet, so this was just a bit carded into a rolag on my handcards but if nothing else, I certainly succeeded in duplicating the color. I’m quite pleased and think it’d look really nice woolen spun and knit into that cropped sweater in Debbie Bliss’ most recent magazine, pg 38.

The black and gold batts from yesterday’s adventures are nice, too.

In the photo you can’t really see the underlying gold very well, but it’s pretty. I’ll spin them up soon. I think the luster in the wool will give it a metallic look which’ll be neat. If I do more of this color I’ll play with the wool/alpaca ratios to bring out more of the gold.

Veronica got her ears pierced on Monday night.

She was very brave.

So, here we go. Tim backed up, tested and updated my site because he rocks. It may look the same to you, but it’s totally weird on the back end. The posting part anyway. But we’ll see if we get pictures. Thank you so much, Tim and Carol! Again. This is how many times now?

Ok, so if you like foreign movies with subtitles, and like romantic movies, have we got one for you. Nate has taken to renting Bollywood movies. I’m really not much of a movie watcher, and becoming less so as I get older because there are, in my opinion, SO many more interesting and productive things to do with 2 hours. Or in the case of Bollywood movies, 3-4 hours. So I don’t watch all of the movies he brings home, but the girls eat it up.

Anyway, we just watched Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. It’s incredible. The sweetest, most touching movie I’ve seen in a long time. You laugh, you cry (how cliche is that?). Still. I highly recommend it if your tastes bend that way at all. It does have some crazy musical numbers, but if you don’t enjoy them, it’s still worth suffering through them to see the film. The main character is one heck of an actor. Again, wow.

I’m listening to the soundtrack right now which I downloaded off of iTunes for $5. It doesn’t make me as sick as other music (remember this freaky pregnancy can’t play, sing, or even listen to music thing?) because not speaking Hindi myself, there isn’t the slightest chance I could sing along to it :-). That seems to be a real issue for me. How sing-along-able it is. I really miss singing actually. I cried on Friday when I tried to play my guitar and gagged as soon as I CONTEMPLATED singing. I hadn’t even gotten to the actually singing part.

Ok, so this is a majorly rambling post, eh?

Getting to the picture part… Here is the skien I spun from my watermelon batts. I have more batts carded, but I haven’t photographed them yet.

That seems to have worked. SO, here’s some catch-up. (It’s going to take me forever to insert all of these, ’cause I have to do it one at a time).

Liv’s dyeing and spinning experience with her 4 ounces of BFL. (Blue Faced Leister). Oh yeah, and there’s Calcifer in the background in his hospital tank. He’s all better and back in my room now.

Then there’s Veronica’s dyeing experience. She hasn’t shown much interest in spinning it.

And then there was the silk lace I spun for Carol.

Whew! I’m done. Enjoy the color, I’m going to go do something else with my day now.