Flame on!

Flames seemed to be the theme of the day on Sunday. This is Stinkerbelle in her new hat. No, I didn't make it. We bought it at the stupidmarket. It was on a display near the registers and she put it on her head and started mugging for her public. I can't describe it except to say that she pronounced the hat "gangster" and did her rapper thing with it pulled down over her eyes. When she told the cashier "word to your mother" I though that ALL the cashier's were going to bust a gut laughing. A few of them needed prompting by the customers to please go back to ringing the orders. Do you understand why I had to buy it?

Anyway, It was great inspiration for our Kool Aid dyeing experiment. You can see it here before we put it in the microwave. What you can't see is that the pan didn't fit in the microwave so I had to transfer it to another one. Duh!
Here is the finished product. I took this one this morning before I left for work. As I said before I'm terribly impatient. It's nearly dry and ought to be bone dry by the time I get home tonight. I think that the colors came out well. If they stay like this it'll be grand. Yesterday I saw a few other posts about Kool Aid dyeing and now I think that I ought to have used more. This is the result of 1 Orange, 2 Tropical Punch and 1 Black Cherry.
I think it looks Sizzling indeed!

Foolproof

I put off posting until now (when I really ought to be in bed) because I was hoping to have something really exciting to report - I don't. I got quite a bit done on my second sock today and it is gorgeous and red and I can't wait until it's finished but that's not earth shaking. I was also hoping that the yarn that Daria and I dyed with Kool Aid yesterday would be dry but it's not. It is worth noting that the yarn smells unmistakably like .... Kool Aid. I thought that without all of the sugar it might not smell so sweet but I was waaaay mistaken. You can smell the yarn from a mile away. It does look super cool though. It's red with a touch of bright orange. It's kind of flame-like and definitely sizzling!

The most notable thing about tonight is the swatch that I made. Not that the swatch is exciting but I actually made it. I'm gonna felt it as a test before I work on my next bag. I have in mind to use hardware from Home Depot on it and embellish it a bit with a contrasting color in a raised pattern. We'll see how that goes.

I'm not usually big on patience or following instructions. Case in point - dinner Sunday night. I was making a chicken dish that I found on the internet but as I went on I realized that I was missing ingredients and made creative substitutions. Then I realized that I was supposed to rub the chicken with spices (which I didn't have anyway) and let it stand for an hour before cooking - ooops! I also elected to cook it totally on the stove top instead of putting it in the oven to finish. Guess what! It was the most yummy thing EVER. Of course Lindsey still doused it thoroughly in ketchup and Daria refused to eat at all. They'll never have to try it again though because I have no freakin' clue how I made it.

I mention my adventure in cooking only so you understand how difficult I find planning my creative endeavours ahead. My instinct is to dive in. I am trying so hard to do this right. I am hoping that the bag I'm thinking of comes out well AND that I can do it again. Is that so much to ask?

Lot's and lots of sock yarn

I went to the craft show yesterday and managed to stick to my plan. There was some reall cool stuff there including some gorgeous mosaics and I managed to resist it all. The most exciting things I bought were cool glass bead earrings from Jasmine Keane and another basket to try to control my collection of yarn. I stopped at 2 stores on the way to the craft show to look for the right yarn for my Red Hot Sizzling Socks and came up empty. Nothing soft and wonderful, nothing red, nothing that screamed "take me home". It's all good though because I came home to a package from Knitpicks. As you can see, I got Palette in red. Sock Garden in Geranium and some Color Your Own Merino Wool. I expect that all of these will become socks at some point. I ordered them on Wednesday and my yarn search yesterday was the result of impatience. I just can't wait to start my Red Hot's.

The Turquoise yarn in the picture is Shine and I bought it to play with. I've been knitting for a little over 3 years and I've never designed my own but my kids are at weird ages from the standpoint of patterns. I have a whole bunch of the Katia books and I really enjoy them. I've done a lot of patterns from them for my girls and my niece with great success. They're age appropriate but not too cutesy. You know what I mean? They're just not always what I'm looking for. I want to make sweaters that are cool and hip and fun to knit too. I mostly gravitate towards cables and texture. I'm not really big on Fair Isle and other colorwork. I just get tired of carrying yarn in back.

Anyway, I'm gonna start designing for the smallest person in the house for obvious reasons. If I screw up on a smaller project then there's less to rip. I would love to work some of Brenda's beads into it.

Good news on the Jaywalker front too. I started the second sock and it's coming along really well. I think that if I do Jaywalkers again I'll do them shorter. I really don't love socks that come up so high on my calf and ... no surprise, I'm freaking out a little over whether or not I have enough yarn to finish the second sock. I guess that if I run out then I can rip out the top of sock one and shorten it. Yuck!