Monday, May 08, 2006

Back from Birthday Land

Whew! I've survived Tim's bday weekend! Friday through Sunday night was birthday, birthday, birthday STUFF! Parties, take out, arcade, family, friends, etc. All in all, everything went well and Tim had a BLAST! Here he is (with little Ben next to him and my hubby next to Ben in the red tshirt) licking his ice cream:



Now that I'm back to the blogging world, I can show you the pics of the yarn I dyed for my DyeORama pal, Bev. I used (for the first time...eek!) real acid dyes from Wool2Dye4.com and, you know, they really weren't much harder to use. The potential for huge messes and other diasters is greater, but the results....MWA!....air kisses all the way. I made some stock colors, then mixed my own in smaller cups...Bev was looking for either honey amber or some autumn type colors. Wasn't able to make the amber, but I'm sure I'll figure it out sometime (or DYE trying!...ha ha....good pun? bad pun? ugh)

This is the finished yarn (8 damn ounces, dude!) hanging in the sunroom....



This time, I was VEWY wise and tied the yarn in three times as many places as last time and really spent a lot of time when I arranged the yarn back on the board to unwrap. It took forever, but I was pretty successful and that was totally worth my time. No more swearing my head off trying to wind the yarn on my niddy noddy. It all came off pretty easily, although that night, my arm and shoulder were KILLING me! ("Honey, would you please rub my right shoulder?"..."Yeah, okay"....squeeze sqeeeze....."Oh, you're done?"...thanks alot...I feel MUCH better.....yeah, that's right, I'm being sarcastic!)

But, the yarn itself came out FAB (super, super soft, huge skein AND self striping!) and I've decided to call it "Marigolds at Twillight":



Okay, must go make dinner...oh, but wait...just wanted to show you two more pics....one is of a gorgeous white flower in my garden and the other is one of my lilac blossoms on the tree that I have almost in bloom. Wish you could smell them....as soon as I walk out of my sunroom, I can smell that "oh, God, I'm in Heaven!" fragrance. MMMMmmm. Don't you wish you were here?



SNIFF DEEPLY!!!



Have a great day! ~Gina : )

7 comments:

GamecockDoc said...

Love the yarn. The colors are so rich. And the label is super cute!

Heide said...

Ooooh! Pretty yarn, the colors are wonderful! My undyed yarn has been held up from my dealer so I can't start until next week at the earliest. Aaaack! The lilacs are beautiful. Our neighbors both grow them but the bush I bought died. I'm sniffing my monitor right now.

I have a question for you... Is there a set way to wrap the yarn on a warping board or do you just wing it on deciding which pegs to use? I've only used household objects (chairs, table legs, etc.) when I've dyed in the past and tied the yarn based on how much it takes me to complete several rounds. Not exactly scientific. Cheers!

sheep#100 said...

Oh my gosh that is BEAUTIFUL yarn! I'm drooling now.

Anonymous said...

You create the loveliest yarns! You have such a great eye for color.
Isn't funny how birthdays have turned into birthweekends? My daughter is 20, so I don't have to do the whole party bit anymore(one for family, one for friends). It is exhausting, but fun.
Julie

Karen said...

Love the "Marigolds at Twilight". I can see myself getting into dyeing, except I then would never knit it all up. Half the fun of the "self-striping" kind of dyeing is seeing how it behaves when knitted.

Looks like the birthday was a success. I used to to measure the success of a birthday celebration by the size of the bedtime tantrum that night Fortunately, my kids are pretty much done with that, but now they are onto other things like sleepover parties and taking a crowd to the movies. It can still get wild in its own way!

I have lilacs in bloom at my house - I wish they would last longer! I am thankful they are still here at all, since my husband subscribes to the "scorched earth" school of landscaping and he thinks they are messy and in the way. Geez!

yarnophiliac said...

Looks like you and the kids had a great time! I know how hectic it can be. I love the yarn, too. Was there a particular site you got intructions for the board from? You may have mentioned before -- forgive me if I am being brain-dead...love, Heather

YarnB said...

wow your yarn turned out amazing!!! I have yet to tackle the self striping yarn yet..good for you!!!!!!!!