As The Yarn Turns

Saturday Sky and First Friday

It was another hot and sunny Saturday here in north Alabama. We had a few days of rain earlier in the week, so it was much cooler than last weekend. It was a good day for a little yard work and then a little sock knitting after it got hotter. Here's the view this morning from the backdoor.

Last night was "First Fridays" in town. I've mentioned it before but basically on the first Friday evening of the month, they allow artists and performers to set up booths and perform on the sidewalk downtown. It's a lot of fun and a good opportunity for artists to show off their work. Rick and I performed some magic for the crowds (well mostly Rick). Here's Rick floating a friend's daughter.

The only problem with participating in First Fridays is that you don't get enough time to see everything else. We did get a little sightseeing done towards the end. There were more performers than I've seen in the past. Even Quizno's had a band on their patio.

There was a large group of dulcimer players. Who knew we had so many dulcimer players in town?

I also saw some belly dancers, another music group and lots of art and crafts booths. Here's one of the artists stationed right down from us. That's Rick collapsed on the bench after a long hot afternoon of performances.

I promise there will be some knitting content next time.

by Sydney  |

A Long Weekend and a Bib

It's the end of a was a nice long relaxing weekend here. I helped a friend with a yard sale on Saturday. I sold a few things too but Rick and I just don't have enough yard sale type things. Part of the reason is that I take stuff to the thrift store several times a year. I'm not patient enough to save it up until I have yard sale quantities. What's left are books and electronics.

The rest of the weekend was spent knitting and dyeing yarn and just relaxing. One of the things I knit was another baby bib. I'm warning you now, these things are addictive.

It's knit in Sugar n' Cream countryside ombre. You'll have to take my word for it that the colors are actually purple and sage green. My photo didn't come out any better than the ones Chris took. It's also a cloudy, rainy day here, which didn't help the photo. Plus all of my models (Katie cat and the ferret) are hiding. (I think they're on to me.) So I'll have to make do with an ordinary picture.

The 4th of July was a relaxing day for us too. Rick and I spent most of the day watching the shuttle preparations on NASA TV, grilling out, and watching our neighbors shoot fireworks. For whatever reason, the noise doesn't seem to bother Katie and ferrets. Today it was back to work and catching up from the time off.

by Sydney  |

Experiments in Dyeing

This weekend I decided to try a different type of dyeing. Before we get to that though, here's some Project Spectrum purple pictures from downtown. As a transition between blue for June and purple for July, here is one of our W.C. Handy Festival flags that they have just put up.

The W.C. Handy Festival happens towards the end of July in honor of jazz musician W.C. Handy, who was born here. Also from downtown, here is one of the many flower pots planted with purple petunias and other flowers..

Getting back to the house, I decided to try spice dyeing. Yes you heard it right. I have a summer 1995 issue Spin Off that discusses dyeing yarn with spices, coffee, tea, and a few vegetables. Remember the yarn I was spinning a while back? Well I decided to try dyeing it yellow with turmeric. I am pretty pleased with the end result.

The yarn is a nice golden yellow, or I guess curry yellow. It is still drying and it still has a little bit of turmeric scent to it. Hopefully the smell will go away with time. I basically followed the procedure in Spin Off, but here it is in case you are interested in giving it a try too.

I had about 4 ounces of wool fiber, divided into two skeins. I added about a half ounce of turmeric to a quart of water and simmered it for an hour. At the same time, I put my skeins in warm water with a drop of liquid dish soap to soak. At the end of an hour, I added one teaspoon alum and 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar to the spice bath and stirred it to dissolve. You can get all of these from the spice aisle at the grocery store. I added some more water and the yarn to the spice mixture and simmered it for another hour. After simmering, I let the dye bath cool and rinsed the yarn. It took a lot of rinsing to get most of the turmeric out. If I had to do it again, I might strain out most of the turmeric before I add the yarn. Of course, the color might not be as intense then. That's really all there was to it. I use crochet cotton for my skein ties and it dyed nicely too, about the same color as the yarn. I plan to make socks with the yarn.

Since the 4th of July is Independence Day here in the US, I will leave you with a picture of the flags a realty company placed in all of the lawns in the neighborhood. Happy 4th to everyone in the US. To everyone else, have a good week.

by Sydney  |