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June 20, 2005

Lots of News

I have lots to tell you.  It seems like I've been gone forever.  I know, three days isn't really forever, but I've missed you guys.  Friday I went to the Estes Park Wool Market and took a class on Natural Dyeing.  Here's a picture of the view outside the classroom:

It was a wonderful class.  The class was taught by Liesel Orend and we dyed yarn using black walnut hulls, osage orange, cochineal, madder, marigolds, cutch, logwood, and indigo.

So, we dyed three skeins of each color, then shifted one skein of each with iron, and overdyed one of each with indigo.  We then dyed three skeins of indigo - one dip, two dips, and one dip that we shifted with iron.  It was all very cool and informative.  I think there may be dyeing in my future!

Now, on to knitting.  Some days I really hate cotton.  Tivoli finally dried, I put it on and it fit.  I wore it for about 10 minutes and it's too big.  Why, you ask?  Well because the cotton stretched.  Only horizontally, but enough that in Travis' words "that sweater makes you look pregnant".  Isn't he sweet.  My gauge changed from 19 sts to 18 sts to 4 inches.  Enough so that sweater is about 2 inches larger all the way around.  Lovely.  Not the patterns fault, I should have washed my swatch before I started so I knew what the ending gauge would be.  So, because I really like the pattern, I'm going to frog and re-knit with the proper gauge in mind. 

The Zip Cardi sleeve #2 is coming along nicely.  I'm shaping the cap and will be done with it this week.  I also found 2 options for a zipper - aqua, which is a bit lighter than the yarn, and a dark gray.  We'll have to see which turns out to be the better choice after I get the rib panels done (remember there are 7 of those suckers!).  I think I'll re-knit Tivoli after I get this sleeve done before I tackle the ribbed pieces.  I can only handle so much cotton on size 1 needles.

I'm still undecided on the shawl, but I think it is between the Leaf Lace Shawl and the Lotus Blossom Shawl.  I hear from a good authority that the Fiddlesticks patterns are fabulous and the charts are wonderful.  So, we'll see as the time for this project draws nearer.  The wedding I want to wear it to is August 6 - so I have a bit of time.

That's all for me.  I hope you all have a wonderful Monday.