A fairly productive day

I got up early this morning (my day off) and went out for a run before another day of rain began. 6.2 miles - I stayed on the roads today, the arboretum is way too muddy after all this rain.

Shopping and errands took the remainder of the morning.

This afternoon, between loads of laundry, I did manage to run satchel through the washer. It felted to a perfect size for our MacBook.

Now, it has to dry and be assembled. I'm looking forward to putting this to use!
In the fall of 2005, I went to SOAR in Park City, UT. One of the short workshops I attended was with Nancy Roberts, the brains behind Machine Knitting to Dye For.

Her nifty theory is that you work up stockinette swatches on the knitting machine, then dye them. You then ravel them, and have controlled striping yarn to make socks, hats, or whatever!

I have had these blanks in my stash for almost two years, and today was the day they cried loud enough for attention.

I didn't feel up to mixing my acid dyes (and all the protection needed), so I just used Wilton Cake Icing Dye. Nancy uses a stencil brush and "pounces" the dyes on, but I didn't have a brush, so I just splotched it on out of my little bottles. It didn't turn out as precise as it could have, but I'm pleased with the results.

Here they are post-microwaving. I've got enough for one pair of socks (the blue/greens). There may be enough of the yellow/red to make a shorter pair for the Girl of the House.

Now, I didn't clean my house (except to clear the counter for the dyeing), and I didn't make supper. But we have clean clothes, lots of food, and brightly colored yarn!




About supper: Everyday, the Girl of the House has one chore for certain - unload the dishwasher. Now, if you do this everyday of your life, you shouldn't need a reminder, right? Occasionally, if the dishwasher isn't unloaded by the time everyone is home for the evening, I just say to Paul "Where would you like to go to supper?" Off we go, leaving hungry child/children home to fend for themselves. After all, you can't cook supper if you don't have any dishes to cook in. It makes a pretty potent point (ooh, alliteration!), and the dishwasher gets unloaded regularly for awhile, sans reminders.