Making Monday - casting on

It's Making Monday and I should of course be casting off - I have *cough* several things already on the go after all - but I just need to do this one little thing..

Honestly it won't take long - a few hours maybe...

I love starting new things even though I find casting-on, joining in the round and the first few rows tedious beyond imagining - after that, well, it's all the possibilities isn't it? Especially with Fair Isle which this will be. Haven't even decided the designs yet, the potential is still all there.

Apart from that, look! Look! First (indoor) daffodil!

We did not have snow today (we had a little yesterday, but it melted). Instead we had a very cold but bright day, which means sunshine at my kitchen window, shining through my flowers. I love daffs!

Aching Monday

I did a Metafit class this morning. 'Nuff said.  It was a lovely frosty morning though. And now it's a lovely frosty evening. The Boy and I went out for a walk to see if we could see any fireworks - I tried to photograph them and got such gems as this:

Still he seemed to enjoy himself and it really is a lovely, if chilly night.  We'd thought of taking the kids to a firework display but they're on so late. Why? It's dark before six o'clock, they don't exactly need to wait until 8 o'clock.

So I'm doing a bit of knitting rather than trying to escape a crowded post-firework-display car-park. Hmm, I'm not too disappointed! Note the cat-hair in that picture - there is always a stray cat-hair in my knitting photos and I never notice until I get the pictures on my 'puter.

I'm so sleepy though, might not get much done *yawn*.

Making Monday

Yes, I know it's Tuesday - it's the school holidays, days are fluid (or to put it another way, I didn't have the time/energy to post last night. The first week of the holidays is always a bit intense*).

So here's yesterday's making:

Guessed?

Miss Mouse quite likes making things but even so I was quite surprised at how she took to this. I had to untangle it for her a couple of times but she did very well. She loved choosing the colours (purple, orange, green, blue, cream and brown - she works on the 'more is more' principle) and was very pleased with the result.

Mine was the one that looks like poached egg. Love that yellow..

I can't remember the last time I made a pompom like this but it must be a couple of decades ago at least. It's very relaxing - I even sat through a couple of episodes of Fireman Sam without muttering about the inordinate number of crises they seem to have in Pontypandy.

I do have a plastic pompom maker gadget but it's absolute rubbish (it doesn't work) compared with the classic two wonky rings of cardboard. Yes, cereal box - well it's traditional! I associate making pompoms with being in Primary Five - my teacher had a big bag of leftover wool and we always seemed to have pompoms on the go, filling in any odd times. Finished maths exercise and there's only five minutes 'til the bell goes? Pompom!  My brother had the same teacher when he was in P5 and the big bag of wool was still on the go then - he made loads of pompoms.

I hadn't even thought of teaching the kids to make pompoms until it struck me that the Boy is going into P5 after the holidays and the association was made. Not that he paid much attention, but there you go.




 * By 'intense' I mean there's a lot of bickering, and bedtime can't come soon enough.

Making Monday - the lace headache

I'm still getting to grips with this lace business. Every now and then and it all goes completely pear-shaped. My project is a very simple razorshell scarf, no shaping, nothing complicated, so you'd think it'd be easy to spot where it's gone awry, but no..


On knitting night last week Cristina and I spent ages trying to figure out where I'd gone wrong - luckily she relishes the challenge and has a much better grasp of the construction of knitting than I have so she can 'read' it better than me. Eventually I had to go back several rows stitch by stitch until I'd got it right again - no way was I just pulling a needle back and ripping out a few rows. It was a needle coming adrift (accidentally) and me picking the stitches back up wrongly that got me into this mess!




I'm discovering that the wool I'm using (Shilasdair Luxury 4-ply) just doesn't like the strains I'm putting it under with my constant undoing and redoing, and being as soft as anything it just parts under the pressure. I'm sure it's absolutely fine for people who don't make as many mistakes as me, but perhaps I really need a tougher wool (sock yarn with a bit of synthetic for toughness?) until I know what I'm doing. Nevertheless the scarf is coming along nicely now - I have the right number of stitches doing the right things, I have a lifeline in place (planning ahead for the next mistake) and the pattern is just so beautifully symmetrical. My daughter said to me last night 'We're learning about symmetry!'. There's something very endearing about a five-year-old using a sort of technical grown-up sounding word like 'symmetry'! I tried not to laugh - she was so earnest about it.

hearts and stars

I made a heart yesterday. I'm not sure if it's a very small pin-cushion or if I'll attach a ribbon and hang it up somewhere (Miss Mouse has her eye on it - she wants it to be a pillow for her teddy, but it's really too small for that). The idea was to brighten up miserable January with a bit of colour, and I thought a few hearts in cheery colours might do the trick!

It was cold and clear on Sunday night so the Boy and I went out into the garden to look at the stars. We didn't have a hope of seeing the aurora as the glow of Glasgow is to the north of us, but we did get a good view of Orion and I was pretty pleased with myself for finding Cassiopeia. And as he was interested, yesterday I showed the Boy various aurora pictures online - some cracking ones on the Shetland News report and Paula Moss Photography. When I was a kid I used to find the northern lights a bit creepy - I remember standing at our door once watching it then having the urge to run back inside. It does look a bit like a dodgy special effect in a film I suppose! I do kick myself a bit now, that I lived in a place with reasonably dark skies (though the flare-stack at the oil terminal did affect that) and more opportunity for aurora-watching than most places in Britain, yet I didn't stand still, watch and make a point of remembering these moments. Especially when so many of my friends now I'm on the mainland say that they'd love to see an aurora. There's nothing like being irrationally irritated with your former self!

Anthropomorphising flowers

Well that one's just a tulip. Pretty, mind.

But this, this one, is applauding. Or swooning? Or maybe facepalm!

I lead a dull life don't I?

So, today. Making Monday. I got the shopping, housework, lunch and stuff out of the way, and prepared to knit. Like Natalie of the Yarn Yard I've never really got to grips with lace knitting so I'm trying to encourage myself to get out of my knitting comfort zone with it a bit. At the moment I'm doing the razor-shell lace scarf, as mentioned before - only one line of lace, repeated over and over so easing me gently out towards the rough currents and shoals of lace knitting where there be charts, yarr, and x almost certainly does not mark the spot but more likely some tricky sl1-kfb-while-standing-on-your-head-psso operation. But I made the mistake of switching the television on, having a look at what's on catch-up and saying to myself 'Ooh, I'll just have quick look at that Borgen thing, people have been talking about that on Ravelry/Twitter - subtitles though so I'll only watch a couple of minutes..' Yeah. Some time later with the remote still in my hand I realised that it was finished and it was almost school pick-up time so no time for knitting. I'm so glad I did though.

Some thoughts on this:
1) Media bint character really does look like Rose Tyler's Danish cousin as somebody on Ravelry pointed out. Uncannily. Which reminds me, does anybody remember The Tenth Kingdom? My Beloved dubbed the character of Sally Peep 'Alice Tinker's slutty cousin' and everytime we've seen Lucy Punch in something since that's all we can say. Mind you in Hot Fuzz it was pretty accurate.

2) Subtitled Danish or Swedish drama is weird because it sounds familiar enough for me to forget that I don't actually speak the language and do need to read the subtitles. So no lace knitting while it's on.

As well as the lace knitting thing I also have a tentative not-quite-resolution thing to get to grips with crochet a bit more as well. I sort of managed granny squares last year, but I want to make a granny stripe blanket eventually (even if it's only a little one for the cats' basket) so last night was spent doing wonky treble clusters while watching Pride and Prejudice on DVD.


This was another Reason To Be Cheerful - I am fortunate enough to have secured a gentleman who will willingly and happily watch the whole of Pride and Prej over two consecutive evenings. Not so surprising really as he's addicted to Patrick O'Brian novels which are the nearest male equivelant I've encountered. I won't show you a picture of my wonky crochet, but honestly, it is improving. So, woohoo!

Since the ginger-wine/keyboard interface incident I'm still using my Beloved's noisy keyboard so I shall stop typing there before I drive him to distraction.

somebody designs boot tread patterns

That was today's odd thought. Somebody has to sit down and design the tread of boots and shoes. And tyres I suppose, though I imagine that has slightly less to do with interesting patterns and bit more to do with function.

Imagine them meeting the Queen - 'And what do you do?' 'I design boot tread patterns Ma'am' 'That must be very interesting' (actually this may be King Thistle).

Someone designs the patterns on upholstery for trains and buses (coaches) too. And curtains-round-beds in hospitals (this was a thing that struck me when I was drugged up to the eyeballs* and floating round the ceiling after giving birth to Miss Mouse). Well, whoever they are, I praise them, bringing abstract patterns and odd colour combinations to the world.

Right, so, today. Yeah, more of the white stuff.

the 'school run'

The cats didn't know whether to go in or out, so settled for both, at frequent intervals of course. I did this and that (mostly opening and shutting doors for the cats, come to think of it), and had a go at sewing. Just hand-sewing - I still haven't figured out the accursed sewing machine yet. Wanna see? I had a ridiculous amount of fun playing with the the possibilities for the eyes:

'paranoid'

'exasperated'

But I'll just do eyes-forward for this one I think. I'm looking forward to the embroidery bit. I don't think it'll turn out as good as the ones in the book or the ones Andamento made but so far it's easier than I expected. Quite absorbing. I do need good light though. Ooh, just realised it's Monday (d'oh, need more sleep) so this is a Making Monday post!

* only co-codamol actually but it made me reeeeally spaaaced ooout.

a little Making Monday

Can you tell what is yet?

This is something I've been meaning to get back to for a while. Can you guess? Well, actually it's a base/stand for a loo-roll doll:

As you can see from this In Progress picture her legs are too long, so I've made the base with a hole in it to sort out the disparity in height. So far so good, but I started this project two years ago for my friend's daughter! The dress itself was a doddle (and really really good fun!) to make but the base has been a bit of a nightmare. I tried various things but ended up using layers of cardboard stuck together, which was okay, but putting papier-mâché on it to smoothe out the surface has not come naturally!

So anyway, today I finally went into a paper-and-glue frenzy and got it done. It's still drying but with any luck I'll be able to paint it tomorrow (pink naturally) and be finally done! Yay! Fortunately my friend's daughter still thinks such things are cool...

It's so great to able to write about something I'm making, however pathetic it is!

Making Monday and Making Winter - neeps and knives

This is a combined Making Monday and Making Winter post. Making Monday is, I suppose, slightly on hiatus because our glorious leader, Natalie of the Yarn Yard who started it, is away on holiday, snowed-in in Boston last I heard, but it's a good blogging habit now. Making Winter is silverpebble's and thriftyhousehold's idea for this winter, in an attempt to embrace the winter. I don't really have a problem with the winter, which is probably just as well, and Hallowe'en is the first episode of winter fun for me. Anything involving fire is pretty much a good thing in the winter - neepie lanterns at Hallowe'en, bonfires and fireworks on Guy Fawkes night, candles at Christmas, and then the most incandescent of the lot, Up Helly Aa, enjoyed vicariously by webcam!

Yesterday afternoon was spent doing one of my favourite things - making neepie lanterns. I pushed the boat out that this year (at 50p a neep I think I can manage it just this once) and made two. One was for putting in the living-room window and one to take out with us when we went out guising.


A neep is much harder work than a pumpkin and I always have skinned knuckles or blisters or both to show for it, but it's really worth the effort. Hallowe'en isn't Hallowe'en without the smell of singed neep!

This is my preferred method - slice the top off and cross-hatch the flesh with a sharp knife. This makes it easier to start gouging it out.

After that it's a bit of a free-for-all - knife, spoon, swear-words, all have their place. These two didn't actually take all that long to do.

This year I managed to convince the Boy to come out guising with us - it's not usually his cup of tea but I pointed out that he only gets few years to do this as a kid so he should enjoy it while he can. And actually he got quite into the spirit of it once we'd cobbled together a hobbit costume for him (brown Jedi robe that My Beloved had made for him from a bit of scrap brown material ages ago, One Ring on a bit of leather, wooden sword). We were going out with my friend and her kids and we all dressed up. I was a pirate, nicking the waistcoat and velvet jacket my husband wore at our wedding and the Jacobite shirt he wears with his kilt. Miss Mouse was a fairy, my friend was a rather slinky red devil and my husband dug out his re-enactment kit and was a mediaeval knight. Last year it was a beautiful night - clear, not too cold, dry and not windy but this year unfortunately it was bucketing down, so Frodo and the fairy had to wear raincoats on top of their costumes. We had a great time though! Much silliness..


The one on the left, with the handle, is the one that came out with us, though unfortunately it was so rainy I couldn't keep the candle alight, even with the neep's 'lid' on. I like his cheery expression - I don't like to make them too scarey!

Making Monday and GSoY loot

On Saturday I went to the Glasgow School of Yarn, an event organised by the Yarn Cake to celebrate their first birthday. There were classes and a marketplace, coffee and cakes. And lots of lovely knitters - many of whom seemed to have been there for both days (it started on the Friday). I had been looking forward to it for ages and even ensured that we'd be back from our little jaunt up north in time for it. Unfortunately by the time I got there I felt lousy - really drained and dizzy and just not right. It's probably as well that I'd been too disorganised to sign up for any classes. I kept having to sit down, and couldn't focus (mentally) which possibly was a good thing in a way as the Marketplace was very tempting and had I been well I'd probably have spent far too much. As it is I came away with two (signed!) books and a skein of Colorimetry yarn.


It was lovely to sit and chat. Knitters are such nice people aren't they? Angela had been to a steeking class and was full of enthusiasm for getting the scissors out. And she mothered me most excellently when I was being peely-wally! And despite the wooziness I did have a great time. I caught up with Purplejen of Colorimetry who I've not seen for Far Far Too Long, and Added Sparkle who works with my Beloved and has been turned to the Motorbike Side..

The venue, the Mackintosh church, was interesting. It amost feels like heresy to say it, living so close to Glasgow, but I *whispers* don't like the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh that much. As Angela pointed out there was a period when you couldn't move for Mackintosh-inspired stuff in Glasgow and I suspect that may coincide with when we moved down here - it was ubiquitous to the point of silliness and I think it put me off.

It's a nice building though.

It wasn't until today that I noticed the colours in the Colorimetry I bought were very like those in the Peerie Flooers I'm knitting at the moment - that's probably what drew me to that particular skein when usually I'm drawn to greens!


Which brings me to today's Making which has been limited due to dishwashing, cat-litter-changing, hoovering, post-school-obnoxious-child-wrangling and similar exciting projects. Today I have been mostly knitting Peerie Flooers and making another apple and blackberry crumble. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Making Monday - ssh, it's a secret

What I'm making on this Making Monday is a birthday present for my daughter - it's alright, she can't read yet, so I can hide it in the middle of this post and she won't spot it if this tab happens to be open (I am the tab queen - my husband laughs at how many tabs I have open at a time) .

This week I had foraging-and-dyeing success and foraging-and-baking success.

Foraging-and-dyeing was with elderberries. Now I'm ashamed to admit this but I'm rubbish at recognising trees, shrubs and wildflowers, so I take photos of plants I'm curious about, email them to my dad and get him to do the identification. It's not urban ignorance, I do have reason for this - most of those plants don't grow in Shetland or not in my bit anyway so I just didn't grow up knowing them. I did introduce my mother-in-law to the joys of popping seaweed à la bubble-wrap though so I have my own incredibly useful plant skills!

Anyway, using the 'ask Dad' methodology I've learned to identify elderberries (yay! go me!) so went and gathered a small pot of the for dyeing purposes. I squished them up a bit (with a tattie masher) before simmering for an hour, cooled a bit, strained the mush out, added the alum-mordanted wool, simmered for another hour, then left to soak overnight. And this is what I had next morning:

But I was still after green, so pretty though the pink was, it was time for an alkaline modifier. This time, this time, I would be careful.

That's it a few minutes after it went into the soda-crystal solution. Initially it was quite a nice grey, then gradually turned greener. I warmed it (not even reaching simmering point really) for a few minutes, let it cool, then rinsed in a fresh soda-crystal solution. And here's the result:



Yay! Green! It doesn't photograph all that well but it's a soft sage green and I'm very happy with it. And as the majority of elderberries I've seen round here are still at the green stage I have plenty of time to try a pink dye too.

I was flicking through a dye-book while eating my dinner last night (pitta-bread pizza, my new default quick and easy dinner) and it said that alkaline modifiers shouldn't be heated when using animal fibres so I'll have to try without heat another time, maybe when I try the red cabbage again. It would certainly take the stress out of it.

And now, I'll just sneak my daughter's birthday present in here:


Yes, a 'Noro' stripe scarf using Mochi Plus in 'bright rainbow' or some such name. I'm knitting it only when she's not around so it's a proper surprise, but I've only got a few days to get it done. Over the weekend I've obviously been knitting only in the evenings once she was in bed, so today was the first time I've seen it in daylight - very zingy!

And now after that colourful interlude, back to my foraging adventures, this time foraging-and-baking. Miss Mouse and I went out brambling yesterday and yesterday evening I made apple and blackberry crumble. Crumble is another of those things I've never made before but Mum emailed me her recipe so I had a go and oh my! - it was lovely. I mean droolingly delicious, perfect comfort food for a cold wet evening.

I think I'll be making it again.

Making Monday - a bit of serenity

Today I've spent some blissful time knitting while watching a DVD (nothing at all highbrow - it was The Bounty Hunter in fact, which was suitably silly for the kind of mood I'm in and the short attention span I have when knitting). It is a grey day and the wind is really getting up now, so some peaceful warm knitting time makes me feel cosy and wintery. As do these colours! Mostly when I knit from a pattern I choose my own colour scheme but for Peerie Flooers I'm doing just as the pattern dictates (in terms of colour at least - I've made the rib section a bit deeper than the pattern says, partly by accident) and I love the colours. They're bright but muted at the same time. I don't think I'm very good with words, especially enthusiastic ones, but the way each change of colour changes, oh I dunno, the mood of the knitting is a real pleasure. I can't wait to get on to the flower pattern. So anyway, yes, lovely wool, lovely colours. Thumbs up!

[An edit: harmony, that's the word I was looking for! The colours harmonize. Love them.]

The cats are glaring out the window at the weather, and I should really be doing some housework, not sitting knitting, but one more round can't hurt, eh?

a weekend

I didn't have a Making Monday, I had a chaotic what-day-is-it-today-anyway Monday. It was a local long weekend holiday here ('the September weekend') so the schools were off on Friday and yesterday and my Beloved took those days off too. We went to the Glasgow Science Centre on Friday - worth a visit but as it was a holiday it was busy and Very Noisy.

The kids loved it - Miss M especially liked the bubble thing!

I got thoroughly bewildered over the weekend though, never sure what day it was - culminating in sending my daughter off to school today in the wrong clothes and without her PE kit because I forgot it was Tuesday. Poor kid is wearing a pinafore, blouse and tights - not the easiest to change out of. Thankfully my Beloved had left for work before she asked for her tie, and I can't tie ties so that was one problem evaded. I dropped her PE stuff off at the school office later to pass on to her, but as she struggles a bit getting out of her pinafore I'm wondering how she's got on... I am useless!

Non-achievements of 'making' Monday include :
going to Sainsburys with the intention of trying on the top I saw there last week only to discover that there were only two left (in sizes best described as Far Too Small), discovering that the new trainers I bought for Miss Mouse the day before were half a size too small, and taking Miss Mouse to the Heritage Loch (duck pond) to feed the ducks and finding the somewhat inadequate car-park was full.

On the upside we got Miss Mouse's shoes replaced with no fuss, Miss Mouse wasn't bothered about the ducks, we got a birthday present for her friend, and in Sainsbury I ran into a friend I hadn't seen for ages. Achievement of Sunday - aside from getting the wrong size shoes for Miss M - was going to Lidl and getting new kitchen scales with 1g increments, which are already making mordanting so so so much easier. Already? Yep, mordanted this morning, have simmered red cabbage (bleurgh, I mean really - have had the back door open and scented candles lit) to have another go at red cabbage dye.

Doesn't that make you want to heave?

And the yarn has just gone in! Smell aside, I'm quite excited about trying the cabbage dye again as I got interesting results last time.

After commenting on Sakthi's blog to the effect that I couldn't find my nostepinne (and yes it is a lovely word!), it turned up, so the other night I wound my calendula-dyed wool from last week into a lovely squishy cake.

Could also be a weapon. Well, you never know when it'll come in handy.

That's all folks!

Making Monday 8

Making Monday Eight? Already?

Well, today was the day of our tattie harvest. I had two bags with potato plants growing in them and from them we got this:


Not the most impressive harvest. Though they do taste great and we (me, Miss Mouse and her friend) had fun digging them up.

And now for the scarey bit. My Crofter's Cowl, lovely knit, very quick, but.... now I have to graft the two halves together. Scarey.

I find grafting sock toes hard enough. *gulp* Well, here goes.

Making Monday 7

It was my daughter's first full day at school today (after several weeks of half-days) and I just couldn't settle to anything. I did plenty - went for a run in the wind and rain, did two loads of washing, mended rips in two pairs of trousers, persuaded the cats that no the weather hadn't improved in the ten seconds that had elapsed since I let them stick their noses out the door - but couldn't settle to anything for very long. I just kept wondering how she was getting on, if she'd cope at lunchtime, how grumpy she'd be by hometime... So I just drifted around, doing a bit of this, a bit of that, but unable to really concentrate. I even had a DVD to watch - Bright Young Things - and usually I find things like that suitably distracting because even if the story doesn't grab me I appreciate the costumes. But nope, couldn't concentrate.

And after all that, she was fine. Tired of course, but happy enough.

So, as the weather was what I'd usually describe as 'Shetland weather' I embraced the fact that I was mostly indoors today and did things such as appreciate my garter-stitch squares:


Aren't they gorgeous piled up like that? So squishy. I quite often find that I like the look of a wool when it's still a skein but it loses its allure when I knit with it. And similarly I like the look of my garter squares when they're piled up on each other but I wonder if I'll like them as much when they're sewn up into a blanket. Maybe I should just knit a huge stack of them and display the stack as a piece of art in its own right!

I also appreciated my cut-flowers:


.. cut yesterday because I knew the wind was going to bash them to bits anyway so I might as well cut them and enjoy them indoors. I followed Belinda of Wild Acre's tips in her post on harvesting flowers from your garden, so I'll see how they do. Some of them were slightly past it when I cut them of course, but, well, I felt sorry for them. I grew the calendula for dyeing purposes so if I'd been organised and had some wool wound and mordanted I could have tried another calendula dye. Oh well, never mind. And on the kitchen window-sill masking the view of the battered garden...

Can't resist the sweet-peas. Oh, and the Boy's tomato plant needs to be repotted really.

In the end, it being that kind of day, I retreated to the kitchen and mused on the importance of the onion.

Resulting in bacon/tomato sauce with pasta - comfort food for a wild day. I took pictures but they looked all yellowy, like the food pictures in takeaways. Not nice. Tasted good though.

Making Monday 6

I did it! I finally got round to getting a sturdy notebook for my dyeing record - thanks to meeting up with my friend Lyndsey for a coffee and a mooch round the shops. Funny how often we end up in stationery places!

So that was my 'make' of the day, starting my dyeing notebook. It's not very exciting to anybody but me, and looking through my home-dyed stash I realise how few details I have for quite a few of them, but this should organise things better. And that's a good thing. I also bought some teeny-tiny labels on string - you know the type, like very very small luggage labels, so I shouldn't have the lost label problem any more either.

I also went on with my garter stitch squares, using the anthemis tinctoria-dyed wool this time.

I've been on a bit of a roll, creatively, over the last few days - I finished the thick gorgous Drops Nepal socks that I started at midsummer:

These have very much been a pick-up-when-I'm-in-the-mood project - they took no time all really in terms of hours spent working on them.

And I managed to make Scones That Actually Look Like Scones:

.. and taste bloody good! I think I'm a sconvert! Sorry - who knew what a wonderful world of scone-based puns was waiting out there for me! I'll get me coat..

Making Monday 4

Busy week- I've not had a chance to blog since last Monday.

Little Miss Mouse has started school. She's settled in well so far and seems quite happy about it! Last week she was only in for two-and-a-half hours a day but from today it's full mornings so after a very hectic child-dominated summer I suddenly had three-and-a-half hours to myself. Which feels a bit odd to say the least.

This morning I dug out some felt and fabric I had tucked away and decided to make her a little brooch. I (slightly reluctantly) went for the felt as the fabric seemed a bit too thin to hold the shape. The brooch has come out looking a little like a political rosette unfortunately - it's actually purple, dark pink and light pink rather than red, white & blue though! The purple button in the middle is one that was one an old pair of her trousers - the trousers were absolutely trashed but I salvaged the buttons at least. She likes it anyway!

This week I've been continuing with the garter squares. The soft pinky-brown there is from yarn I dyed myself though I'm not sure what I used for it. It's a fairly recent one so maybe it was my last batch of onion skin dye. I do try to label things but the labels fall off and I lose track! I keep meaning to get organised and keep a dyer's notebook with samples of the dyed yarn stuck in but haven't got around to it. It's the story of my life *grin*.

My anthemis tinctoria (dyer's camomile) has just started flowering so I also took the opportunity this morning to do another bit of dyeing. I used aran-weight undyed yarn, mordanted it with alum/cream of tartar, and the dye-bath was all the flowers that were open - not very many but after a couple of minutes it was a clear yellow, so apparently a little can go quite a long way. Though I should point out I only dye about 50g of yarn at a time due to the limited size of my dye-pot.

The end result is some nice light yellow wool, though not quite as light as it shows up in my photographs.

I'd really love to have as much of my own dyed yarn in my garter square blanket as possible. The muted colours should go together quite well I think.

And that was my Monday - one in which I finally did some making (that didn't involve swearing or splinters)!