Happy Halloween!

I've been doing a lot more knitting than spinning in the last few days.  I was trying to spin more finely and try and make sock yarn, since everyone knows sock yarn is crack and somehow ended up in a total sock knitting kick.  Seriously, everyone and their mom is going to get socks for the Holidays.  Just as well, as the yarn was threatening to take over.  And as if the regular socks weren't enough, I've discovered the joy of baby socks. They are even more cracktastic than regular socks as you can whip out a pair in a fraction of the time.  

The copper project is going nicely.  The vinegar is noticeably blue and I think that Hedgerose and I will try out some dyeing on Monday, as we both have the day off and will be geeking out doing serious crafting research.   I'm really excited to see how it will turn out.

In other news, I had to reset my "days since bought yarn" count back to zero. It was all the way up to 90 days. Because I bought the yarn to make socks for a friend, I briefly debated letting it keep counting, since it was so close to 100, but felt that the joy and glory would feel ill gotten at that glorious moment. O well, it will make the real 100 day feel all the more exciting when it does get here.

So I have an idea...

So I had an idea. I read somewhere that by soaking copper in vinegar, you get an interesting blue dye.  Needless to say, I had to try it. It will b a while before I can actually add the yarn, as I am still spinning and the copper is still vinegaring, but for now there is a jug of slowly blueing vinegar on my deck, confusing my room mates. I am trying a bunch of pennies in one jar and a copper coil in the other.  I'll be interested to see what the difference in color between the two jars is. I actually do a lot of craft shopping the hardware store.  My weights are fishing weights, the copper wire, etc.  They must think that I am either doing something really cool or that I am crazy.   

It has been a week of dyeing!  Over the last 5 days I managed to get 11 skeins dyed!  And I dyed all of them with kool aid and food dye!  Ok, enough with the exclamiation points.  I experimented with a few new ways of dyeing this time around.  I am a fan of the dunk and boil way of dyeing.  You mix up the color of Kool Aid that you like, put the yarn into it, and boil it until the color is out of the water and into the yarn.  Seriously, it is enough to make you never want to drink Kool Aid again.  You can use the same water over and over again.  That is just wrong.  (I actually drank some Kool Aid last night anyways.  I bought several packets of Mexican Kool Aid, which for some reason has sugar in the mix, in addition to having to mix in like a cup of sugar, it's weird.  So I have about 12 packets of this drink mix to drink or pawn off on people. Digression). 

This time however, I experimented with food coloring, and it came out really well.  Well, except for the black.  I'm not sure what I was thinking.(That's not true, I was thinking ladybugs, but I was delusional, it was one of the few times that I have dyed without Hedgerose and her common sense and look where it got me)

More yarn will be put on our Etsy story as soon as I get some good pictures of it!  

--Riastiltskin

Welcome all!

Hi, all.... one of you (well, at the moment)! As the lovely Ria mentioned, I am Hedgerose-- I teach eighth grade English and, in my mythical free time, do everything I can related to fiber arts. I started with spinning, then learned to weave, make Waldorf dolls, crochet, felt, knit, and, most recently, make felt hats.

My current fiber project is to make a bunch of single, coordinating socks-- I am one of those rather unfortunate people who get sidetracked waaaaay too easily, but hopefully knitting one sock at a time will help cure that. I've also been making crocheted lace trim; I need to dye it before I put pictures up, but it's pretty awesome.

I do other crafts as well; most recently, I've been doing a lot of bookbinding (I finally learned casing in!) and spend time in front of the T.V. mindlessly making paper flowers.

Let's get this blog started!  Hedgerose and I have been friends for several years.  In fact, she is the person who taught me how to spin, which in turn deepened the fiber addiction.  I've now gone from buying in bulk at Jo-Anns, to cruising local yarn stores to touch the walls of yarn, to spinning my own mountain of yarn, to dyeing said mountain.  My new idea is to sell my partner on a sheep to "mow the lawn." As of yet, he isn't going for it.  For some reason, every time I bring it up, I get a flat "No livestock" response.  Despite the fact that we could get a mini sheep conveniently small and purple.  Anyways, welcome to our blog!