Moved on to socks

Finally dyed that sock yarn I got last week.

It's using logwood. Not sure if you can tell from this pic but there's very subtle color variations. Sadly I don't have a ball winder, so it took forever to wind this purple guy. I'm not sure what I'll make with it, socks no doubt. Sadly I don't have Cookie A's sock book, and I probably can't wait until Christmas (I'm assuming someone will buy me the book) to make something out of it, but that does mean I get to have fun browsing patterns on ravelry.

Ready for its close-up

My first plant-dyed multicolored skein is dry, and ready for its close-up.



It came out pretty good I think. I tried something different this time, and it came out not quite as felted as my other skeins, but a bit thicker and not as soft as its pre-dyed self. The yarn is a single ply, which I think is why it fulls so easily (but sadly it's the only undyed yarn I've seen in my town). Sooo, as a birthday present for myself (b-day was yesterday, and the package came yesterday!) I bought undyed sock yarn.


I'll be brewing the first one tomorrow. Fingers crossed it doesn't felt.

As part of my birthday celebration J and I made Chocolate Lava Cake.

Really it's more like Gooey Chocolaty cupcakes, but it was really good.

Half Amused

Nearly done with the body of Jessamy's sweater. It fits much, much better now that I've tinked and reknit nearly all of it. I have half an inch of stockinette stitch left, then it's a bit of ribbing, sleeves, and collar. Yay.

It is green!

My green yarn is very nearly dry.
Turns out yellow and purple do make a green!


It's an unusual color, but I'm quite happy it didn't turn out to be a color only a mother would love.

And here is purple again. I don't think I showed off the purple enough in the last post.

Only thing is, they are all slightly felted to far. Still knittable, just that the skeins are a little thicker, and well, felted. Going to see if I can find some undyed superwash ...

And that's supposed to be green?

The day started off with some yummy strawberry muffins.


And ended with this:

It was supposed to be green. Or at least that's what the natural dye book told me would happen when I mixed Tumeric and Logwood. And I guess it is technically green, just totally not my idea of an ideal green.

For some reason I thought I would dye the yarn half yellow/half green, though now that I think about it there's not very many half and half skeins out there. The half "green" yarn wasn't looking very good, especially in contrast to the very nice yellow. So in a hasty decision I threw (or rather very gently placed) the whole skein in the pot, and you've already seen the outcome of that.


Here is the original yellow (using tumeric).
And this is the logwood I dyed last night. Perty, isn't it.
We shall see what the green yarn looks like after I rinse it, maybe some magic will happen.

Are you following me?

Look, a new widget! In a great show of confidence I've added Blogger's Following widget, so now I can find out who reads my blog confirm that I really am just blogging for my own amusement.

Pot of gold

Last week I finally decided to stop being such a miser and fork over some money for something fun - equipment so I can start dyeing yarn again! Even though I'm going to only be working with "natural" (an odd phrase) substances I still needed new pots colanders, etc, since you're not supposed to use equipment that will also be used for cooking since natural doesn't always mean safe or nontoxic.

I had done some dyeing a few years ago, in the good old yarn store days, but hadn't done any fun experiments since moving to England.

Here the tumeric is brewin'.
And one of the finished outcomes.

This is English Ivy, not at all what I expected. It's a very subtle color. I'm not even sure how to describe the color. Butter? Tan? I think I'll just stick to calling it "pretty".


Tomorrow I'll be trying out logwood (had to purchase that dye), which in theory will result in a blue, and then with the exhaust dye I'll be overdyeing two of the tumeric skeins and, possibly(?), make a green! I can't wait!

Not the wall, but still pretty

I seemed to have hurt my left big toe on last week's walk, so there's been no long walks for us lately. Plus the scattered showers would have made them pretty miserable. So today we decided to take a short walk in Jesmond Dene, a park about a 20 minute bus ride from us.

This is St Mary's Chapel, built in the 17th century.
Supposedly there was a well very nearby where it's said that Jesus performed a miracle in the 1200s, and was later a pilgrimage site. But we couldn't find it! So we went off to the main park.


A old water mill, used for grinding corn in the 1700s.



At the foot of the park was "Pet's Corner". A bizarre mix of zoo zoo and petting zoo. It's free, so the animals consisted of ducks, sheep, goats, very smelly pigs, birds (like Budgies), a peacock, and lots and lots of chickens.
My toe didn't bother me at all during the walk, so we'll be walking in Hadrian's Wall county during the next (assuming there will be one) full day of sun.

Happy 4th!

I kept forgetting today was 4th of July! Usually at home the illegal fireworks would have started last week, and culminating in a very loud day today. Mostly though my only reminders that it was the 4th was the "happy 4th!" messages on twitter.

Although did have a culinary treat today for dinner.
Jessamy had actually made the dough last night, and had let it rise in the fridge overnight (a user comment on the recipe said it was better that way).

We also watched Serena vs Venus today. I have no idea how tennis is scored, but just thinking about how messed up the situation was kept me entertained. The announcers mentioned that this was the third time that they have had two US finalists play on the 4th of July.
I'm still reading El Hobbit. Actually, I'm reading El Hobbit and The Hobbit at the same time. I don't know if my understanding of conjugation is getting better (actually I do know, it isn't getting better), but I am learning some new nouns, like capuchon (hood). Of course this also means it's going to take me twice as long to read the book than if I just read one or the other. I'm just hoping I can keep renewing it from the library...

I'm more than halfway done with Jessamy's sweater. Only there's a slight problem. It's still too big! So really it just makes her look, well, large. Not good... So tomorrow I'll be ripping most of it out (to a few inches above the armpit) and reknitting. I'd rather reknit it so she can wear it at least once than have it never be worn at all.

Day 10 of the Hadrian's wall walk

Today was day 10 of our coast to coast walk.


Look! It's our first bit of wall on this leg of the journey. No, the bar wasn't included on purpose. But it is the fuel of champions, as Jessamy calls it, so it does deserve a place in our pictures. In the distance you can see two people. This was actually the crowdest stretch of land we've walked so far. All but a few said hi as we walked past. And except for one mean lady who got an attitude when she found out she had chosen the wrong path, despite Jessamy and my warning her, the rest of the people we came across were friendly.

Limestone Corner. The Romans started to use these limestones to continue with the wall, but ended up abandoning them here for our viewing pleasure.


Brocolitia Fort. Now just mounds of earthworks.

Temple of Mithras. The stones are original, but the altar pieces are replicas. The original altar pieces are actually in the new Great North Museum in Newcastle. We've already seen them!

Where's my spindle?

Yes, we came across more cows, who seemed to enjoy freaking us out.
A really long stretch of Hadrian's Wall.


Whin Sill. An extremely high ridge where the wall was built. Great scenic views, though I doubt that was the primary motivation for the Romans.

Look, a (pivot?) hole for a gate.
And another great stretch of the wall. On the top of the hill is Housesteads which we visited last October, and which was the end of our trip.

Amused cables

I'm still working on Amused.

Last night I realized my row gauge was off. After some measuring, and panicking, and having Jessamy try it on I decided that to go with the size small, and to keep with the pattern and not do any math finagling.

And then this morning I realized the first iteration of the cables were off. One side I've decided to just leave along. It actually looks ok on the right side.

But I did spend the whole morning fixing the otherside's cables. And since it was all the way on the bottom, I had to rip out that entire section.

I'm actually at the point right now where I've placed the sleeve stitches on waste yarn. I think it's looking good!

Day 9 of the Hadrian's wall walk

Yesterday was Day 9 of our Coast to Coast walk.

After an hour's ride on the Hadrian's Wall bus we arrived at Chester's Roman Fort. So far this is my favorite ruin museum. Like Housestead you could walk around in the ruins, but there seemed to be a lot more things to see at Chesters, and the signs were better.

I think we ended up spending two hours there.

Here's me in the baths.


And Jessamy


We had learned all about the baths when we visited Bath 5 years ago. It's still amazing though to see how inventive and sophisticated their way of life was. And to think the "western" world is just now starting to use under-floor heating (hypocaust) again.

This is the barracks. It was built in the built in the 2nd century AD (the rest of the fort was built around the time of the wall, AD 122). They are not the original barracks but that doesn't detract much from the impressiveness.


A stable along the road.

After the fort we went to Chesters Walled Garden. It was established in the 1990s, but I got the impression there was an old ruin of a garden here previously.

They had a small dye plants section. Unfortunately their signs were faded from the light, or gone entirely. So I don't really know what these plants are, but we did buy a guide, so now I have a list of dye plants that grow here.

Then it was off to the path.

We were already tired at this point, having not done any of our coast to coast walk for a month, so we decided to cut the walk a little short from 5 miles to what we think is 2.

Good thing too, because it started with this hill:


The walk was pleasant an uneventful until:


Yes, that is a cow right where we were supposed to enter the field, and you can just see to the right of the picture two other cows. As soon as I realized what our predicament was I started laughing in what closely resembled hysteria. The last walk's experience still fresh in my mind. I'm a city girl, and those cows are big. If people didn't have pain inducing tools cows would really have no cause to fear us. Fortunately Jessamy was braver than I was and she went over the ladder first. The cows of course backed away as soon as we walked across the ladder, as I "logically" knew they would.

Before we knew it, and about 45 minutes of walking, we had come to the next bus stop. We had a tough decision to make at this point. We could gamble on reaching the next bus stop, which was around 3 miles, we guessed, away, or somehow kill over two hours until we could catch the bus that would bring us home. Fortunately I realized that even though the next bus (and the only one that stops around there) wouldn't be going to Newcastle, it would be going to Hexham, where haven't actually visited yet.


But before the bus came I was able to get a quick picture of the countryside.

Hexham was a cute town.

It's claim to fame is that it holds the first purpose-built prison in England, and it's abbey.

It was much bigger on the inside than I thought. I was particularly impressed by it's organ which we were fortunate to hear a little of.

Another highlight of the abbey was thirteen century stone stairs, which were worn and indented from centuries of use.

Shortly after looking at the abbey we caught the bus back home, slightly sunburnt but happy.