Knitting and Carding Again

There's been plenty going on this week, but for some reason it feels like it's all been in the
kitchen. Those who know me best know that cooking is not my favorite thing to do, so there must be some incentive. Yep, you guessed it. It was weigh in time in the Cupboard and it was good news all around. Not as good as last week, but good all the same. I'm down 13.5 lbs total and am happy with that. Hubby is down the same amount and we decided to do another week on this strict phase of the diet. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, if you call having one guest "hosting", and that guest eats the same way we are dieting....so it's all very good. ;)

On the knitting front, I give you this....

This is the most current picture of 15 inches of sweater back. I had to take a pic before starting the arm hole shaping cause you know, all heck could break lose and this could end up in the frog pond. I will confess to not using lifelines at this time and triple counting everything before beginning a new row. Not that I'm paranoid...but really....this is the largest item I've knitted so far and I don't want to screw it up! (BTW...I've only had to tink back one row....the first decrease row as I didn't decrease enough lol.) I did start the armhole shaping and am truely nervous about this. I really don't want to screw this up and keep reading the pattern thinking..."This is much to easy to be true."lol ( Paranioa....will destroy ya.. ...lol. sorry...rebel rocker days kicking in.) I keep telling myself that this is the largest piece to be knitted for this sweater. I could be wrong...the hood may be technically larger...but still...the front panels and sleeves have got to be narrower! Right now I can't put it down. That's really good because I couldn't pick it up all week. I just had other stuff on my mind. lol.

On the fiber front.......

I resisited the urge to dye up silk this weekend. I really want to give it all my attention and we were not planning on being at home all day today. (We had a new nephew to go meet today. He's 10 days old and cute as can be!) I don't like rushing (har har) the dyeing process (but probably do lol) and am wanting to dye some of the silk/merino laps I bought from Yarn and A Tale . I'm thinking about using my Crock Pot or Microwave as I use food based colorants that won't harm either. I recieved what I would call TOP quality laps from Leah when I ordered (every order is the TOPS! Thanks Leah!) and I don't want any agitation going on. I think I am over heating my dyebaths, causing slight felting and dyebath splitting. I want to check the water hardness first and am still investigating dyeing methods in both the crock pot and the microwave.

I give you this pic of the last carded fiber I processed. I did not draft this out into thin roving and then roll into balls as I was trying to preserve some of the individual colors. This picture does not do it justice, the roving is really a dark charcoal grey, raspberry, teal and something in between all mixed together but under the camera flash comes out purple. Every time I look at it I think...Dragons! So, the Dragon Roving it has become, and socks it's asking to be. I'm trying to spin it as thin as possible. We'll see if it ends up socks or a wrap.

There have been power outages(and flooding) around here lately and I thought you'd laugh at this pic. Here's Don eating dinner last Wednesday night by "caplight". Fortunately I thought to have dinner waiting for him for a change, as the power went out night before he got home. Dinner was done, but he had to eat by lamp light. He also used a mini flashlight clipped to the bill of his baseball hat. (We sell the same thing at our store so it gave me a laugh.) (No flooding at our house btw.)