First longies and some baking

I've eventually started knitting my first ever pair of longies.  I'm following Joeli's tutorial on Cloth Nappy Tree.  I have to say, it's great, Joeli's written it out for complete beginners and experienced knitters, it's really easy to follow.  I'm using my lovely hand-dyed wool and I love how the colours are turning out.

(I really must apologise for the terrible quality of my photos, I need to get the hang of this photography (as opposed to snapshots) thing.  You'd never believe that many moons ago I did a photography course, would you?)

I've also discovered the most delicious beer bread.  The recipe is from Recipe Zaar.  The Blokey asked me to try the recipe after seeing it recommended on the Homebrew Talk forum.  It's absolutely scrummy!  I've cut down the sagar by half in my version though and used salted butter rather than unsalted to make it a bit more savoury.  My most recent incarnation of it also included about a cup of grated red cheddar.  Delicious!!

 

Mmmmmmm, don't you just want some?!

Sssssssssssssss

Another of this week's projects:

He's a stash-busting xmas present for The Boy.  Made to this pattern.  He was really easy.  I'm contemplating unpicking his tail though, I want to make him into a rattlesnake by adding a rattle bead, if I can find one that is, they don't seem to be easy to find :( .

Pretty, pretty...

I had a go at kool-aid dyeing some wool for the first time this week.  I had the wool and kool-aid sitting there for about 3 days before I finally built up the courage to actually go for it, I kept thinking "Eek, what if it looks horrible?", but in the end I just bit the bullet and did it.  I am absolutely delighted with the results.

I started out with 3 of these beauties:

Supposedly 90g hanks of undyed merino from www.yarnundyed.com, but actually they're practically 100g (I love free stuff, even if it is just 10g of yarn :D )

I chose the hob method of setting the dye, rather than microwave, as I wanted self-striping yarn and wasn't sure how to do that on in the microwave (I know better now).  I went with the most boyish colourway I could with the kool-aid supplies at hand (I don't know what possessed me when I was putting in my order as I didn't exactly go for the most manly of colours/flavours), which was Lemon-lime/Berry Blue/Grape.  I can't believe the colour of this stuff!! Seriously!  Anything that makes water the colour that this stuff did can't POSSIBLY be intended for human consumption.  I did give it a quick taste, and have to say it was rather vile, I'll certainly not be rushing out to buy any kool-aid to drink in a hurry.

Here's my lovely yarn soaking in all it's fruity smelling chemical yuckiness on the hob:

I can't remember how long exactly it stayed on the heat, but it was probably about 80 degrees C by the time I turned everything off, I had read somewhere to let it get to almost boiling, but I was too scared of ruining my yarn LOL).  Then I left it to cool in the pans over night and rinsed in the sink in the morning.  Unfortunately when I took it out of the pans it became apparent that all had not gone exactly to plan, my lovely lime green had white blotches in it, lots of them, obviously the pot wasn't big enough for the liquid to get a good coverage.  I redid the green bit and then left it to cool for a few hours and then rinsed and hung it up to dry.  It took 2 days of impatiently waiting (although it did give a chance to finish up one of The Boy's xmas presents whilst I was waiting) for it to dry.

Once it was dry, I balled it up.  I'm not good at this part, I've read all the instructions on making pretty skeins and centre-pull balls and everything looks like it should just be nice and simple.  But no, it just doesn't work for me.  So I ended up with plain and simple balls of wool.  But WOW, what balls of wool they are.  I adore them, I'm so excited to start actually knitting them up :D !

All ready and waiting for me to join in the longies knit-along on CNT.  I can't wait!!