It's Raining Taxes

Between the rain and taxes not much progress on my tapestry. It is way too dark to weave in the front studio. The back studio is OK since I have better lighting there. I was able to finish another bookmark...that's the 13th...seven more beetle patterns to go.

Also finished my little green scarf with the beaded rib pattern....finally! I finished knitting but then spent at least two hours or more on the fringe. First, I bound off the the end except for three stitches on each side. Then I unraveled the edges, one row at a time. When two loops were unwound, I then tied them in a square knot. This technique I learned from the last fringe I did...if you try to unravel them all and then knot them...it becomes an absolute mess. Well, needless to say that took awhile. Then I noticed that one side of the loop fringe seemed longer than the other side so I decided to cut the loops and make 'regular' fringe. That took a few minutes but then I thought it would look better if I unraveled the fringe into four threads to make it softer and more flowing. That I did while watching TV...it took all of 24 and a bit of the news. But then it looked pretty good...except it needed a bit of spritz and a combing. That was completed this morning...and now I have a very long wonderful scarf. Not too wide, soft to the touch and very pretty fringe all the way around. I might be a tad happier if it were a slightly different shade of green...this green goes with none of my clothes. There is a dye day coming up...hmmm....

And it was another good day with the postal service...they delivered my yarn for dye day from KnitPicks. I got a bunch of balls of cream and some of butter. Now I need to plan out what I am going to dye. If you don't remember our upcoming Dye Day...read here.

I asked for suggestions for an upcoming self patterning yarn dye day on a couple dyers lists. Here are some suggestions.

1. Soak your fiber in the soda ash solution & let dry. Then make your 40 ft skeins. Otherwise it will be way too messy.

2. Keep the cats [or in my case the chihuahuas] away when balling up the completed dyed yarn. Remember its' a 40 ft skein so it will go around lots of furniture and you'll get lots of exercise walking around with the ball winder.

3. I have been instructed to take pictures...of course. But here are pictures from Ruth who had a self patterning dye day already. http://twistedspinster.net/2006-03/DyeDay3-12-06.html

4. Tie the skeins in lots of places...otherwise they will become a tangled mess.

5. Make sure the dye goes all the way through from top to bottom when the skein is painted.



PS. I discovered a three inch loop in my scarf this morning...turns out when playing with the chi's yesterday a dog nail got caught in the scarf. After five minutes of massaging with a tapesty needle all is fine. Perhaps this is a reason I don't want to knit a sweater. I could see me spending months knitting the sweater then fixing it everytime I played with the dogs. You might suggest "don't play with the dogs". Don't be silly - anther suggestion might be - don't knit the sweater!