Busy as a Bee

I finally got busy and managed to get a few things done around the house recently. Monday was major "house cleaning" day (boo) and we finally got The Girls "own" rooms set up last weekend. They've been sleeping in the same room since they were babies, but the 7th grader doesn't need to go to bed as early as my 4th grader now. Together they stay up wayyyy to late talking, laughing and giggling so it was time to seperate them. Of course ever since we set them up, they've still been wanting to sleep in the same room, they're calling it their "farewell tour!" Couple of nuts I have. Yep.

Yesterday The Girls and I "attacked" their closet to see what still fits them and what needed to go. Wow! It's a BIG job when you have two "pre-teen" girls begrudgingly helping you. Life is so hard for those poor children. They like getting new clothes but when it comes to cleaning out the closets...the attitude can get slightly unpleasant at times. We were all getting on each others nerves at the end! Oh well. It's DONE. We got a mountain of clothes out of there and we felt so much better when it was finished. That's one thing I DO NOT look forward to when school's going to start.

We also went thru all the school supplies that I've been picking up here and there, we can't beat getting stuff at Walmart so cheap this time of year. I stock up on as much paper, pens, pencils, etc. as I can afford to since the school asks for it all thru the school year. Plus, it gets them a "tiny" bit excited about school starting again. Wooo hooo School's starting soon!!! I know this Mom is excited!

On the knitting front I've been a slacker big time. My "sock-in-progress" is moving along at a snails pace. I'm just working up plain ol' socks in Lorna's Laces Purple Club. I have to say the way they're striping using a larger cast on than I normally use is pleasing me to no end. I think that's why I'm not rushing (besides being so busy doing other things). It's just been a pleasurable, leisurely knit. "Zen" if you will. I'll have to post a pic soon.

I also finally got around to over-dyeing that sock yarn I got off from an Etsy seller. After unraveling the hank and examining it I found it to be a dye job that wasn't up to my expectations at all. You can't see it very well from the pic but it wasn't something that I knew I could be happy with.

I just decided to turn it a darker purple so I overdyed it with GRAPE Koolaid yesterday and I'm very happy with the results. I don't know if she didn't soak her yarn well enough, dyed it dry, or what, but the dye she used didn't penetrate thru to a lot of the inside very well. I think that's why soaking is so important. It DID have a "varigated" look to it (and still does), but it looked "rushed" maybe, and not thoroughly done to me. Easy Peasy Fixable tho, so all is okay in my knitting universe after all. Oh Gosh, and it smells WONDERFUL!!!!!! I wish this was scratch & sniff. It's Absolutely Delicious!! Whatever base yarn she used is really nice and soft though. That's always a good thing.


And I made my first stitch marker ever.

Many more will follow as The Girls and I have a TON of beads. I got some of my supplies at Joann's last weekend (all beading stuff was 40% off) but still need a few more of the different findings. There are so many great tutorials on blogs, it's a fun project when you need some diversity in your crafting.

Enough going on already... I've got a neglected sock that's calling my name...AGAIN!

HEY Kool Aid!!

Once upon a time (quite awhile back), I ordered a skein of Great Adirondack Nassau yarn in the Tourlamine colorway from an online yarn store. (No doubt I had a pattern in mind for this "at the time" but I'm so flighty when it comes to projects I have No idea what it was now -uhh... like I knew a WEEK after this came! I crack myself up ). Anyway, I'm pretty sure this isn't the colorway I ordered and instead of bothering to return it I just kept it. This is what arrived:

I was expecting the colorway that is in the link above (whom I DID NOT buy this thru but probably should have if they were selling it way back when). I received this lime green, pinkish, orangey neon thing which would have been okay if that was what I had ordered. But it wasn't. This ball has been sitting in my stash for over a year at least so I decided, "why not change the color!"

Nassau is 50% cotton/50% silk so this is "iffy" in dye land with kool aid (works best on animal fibers = wool) but I've been wanting to try it so bad I figured what the heck?. After reading up on the What a Kool Way to Dye board on Ravelry and asking if this would work - I soaked it for about 30 minutes in luke warm/cool water, mixed my kool aid and a bit of water in a cup, then put the yarn & mixture in a microwave safe dish and ran it thru for 2 minutes at a time for a total of 8 minutes. In between I would let it set a bit so I wouldn't cook my yarn. When the water gets clear, the dye has been absorbed in. Mine seemed to be okay for the most part even though it looked like this in between trips to the microwave:

Looks a little like icky I'd say. But it's part of the process. Then I just let it sit and cool.

I gave it a few rinses in cool water to try to get some of the excess dye out. Red is a hard color to stop from bleeding no matter what kind of dye you use. This is it in a white bowl, so not too bad considering how dark it was to start out with. This is what I got once it dried. It's still not anywhere near as dark as I had hoped for but the neon greenish spots turned "gold" which works okay for me. I may still give it one more go, I'm not sure if I used enough KA and need to ask on the board. I used 5 packages: 2 Cherry, 2 Black Cherry and 1 pink lemonade (just for the fun of it). I don't have a scale and I think it's one packet per ounce. I think I may use all cherry next time too.

This being a cotton/silk blend, it's not going to work as well as it would with wool, but I like the variations that still exist in it. It's certainly no worse off than it was when I started out! And I have to say, this is some SOFT yarn, another one that I want to just have by me to "pet". I may order that Tourlamine on ebay after all (once my yarn diet is over). If you haven't kool aid dyed yet, you're missing out. It's fast, fun and I can't wait to try it again.