Dyeing Fun

Denise and I decided that despite the torrential tropical rain we had in Adelaide over the weekend, that we would finally do something about all the white wool we've been hoarding.
So I pulled out the first edition of Yarn Magazine that has dyeing instructions, and we started skeining all our wool, using the back of the chair. Then a quick trip down to the supermarket for 9 bottles of food dye and 8 litres of vinegar.
And this was on the morning when I finally decided to do some FLYLady cleaning, and fling out the crap in my plastics cupboard. All those margarine and take-away containers we don't normally need, got turfed and then retrieved to be used as dye containers.
Anyway, this will be fairly picture intensive, but we have to show off our creative work.
Helen's purple and green 8ply Bendigo Wool, 200g. No plans for this one yet.
Helen's yellow and purple (although its more blacky mud), 12 ply. Possibly will be made into a beanie.
Helen's rainbow wool. 5 ply, 150g or so from two half used balls. SOCKS, Socks and more socks til I run out of wool!
Denise's rainbow wool. 8ply 200g ball of Bendigo wool. Just waiting for inspiration
Denise's mottled 12 ply. Looks better in the ball than the skein. This will become a few pairs of Fetching wrist warmers.
Denise's yellow, red and black (although more a browny purple colour), 5 ply Bendigo Mills wool, about 100g of it. This is also destined to be socks. We used black dye, but the colour kept on running, and by the time the water ran clean, it was more a brown colour, which has dried to a deep purple. The colours still look good together. I see socks happening here.
Denise's red, blue and white Bulldogs wool. 12ply, so more Fetchings, and other football things. Possibly a scarf and beanie, depending on how much is left.
Denise's rose pink and green wool. 5 ply Bendigo wool. This is already currently being knitted into socks.
And this is what happens when we decide to go hunting through the stash for more white wool. We decided to pull the buckets in the tower out, tip wool all over the floor and sort while watching Star Trek. (Did I mention I'm a Trekkie? And I'm trying to convert Denise). I found some oddments, pulled out my 6mm circular needles and cast on for a beanie. By the end of the evening I had these. And the third beanie sits next to me on my computer desk, slowly being knitted as I wait for pictures to upload.
These will be sent off for the Guardian Angle charity knit. Anyway, the top one is called "I hate the colours, but my sister loved it and I bought one too many balls for her scarf, so what can I do with it?", the second one is call, "too much of the ball left over to throw out, not enough to make anything on its own, what else goes with it?" The purple one I'm knitting at the moment is call "What the hell was I thinking when I bought this yarn?" You'll understand when I post the picture.
Ooh, and we're about to go out to IKEA and buy a new stash tower. Denise has conceded that I have too much yarn for just one tower. Yay!

Ahhh!!! Holidays

Yes, I have been on holidays, my first real Christmas break in years, no pre-Christmas/
post-Christmas sales, no Back-to-School orders,
And we did very little of what we planned to do. And many things we didn't plan.
Like go to Mt Gambier. I haven't been there in 5 years, since my grandfather died, and its been good to go back there. It was even better to go with Denise and see everything new through her eyes. Having grown up visiting there every Christmas when I was little, I've seen all the tourist attractions, yes the lake is blue, caves are dark, pine forests smell nice and limestone has fossilised shells and bones in it. You start forgetting how interesting the place is.
The only problem with our holiday was that we decided to travel on a 38 degree day, and I've realised that my air-conditioner must have a leak in it, as it was re-gassed last year, and now just blows hot air. It was a welcome rest going for a tour down the Naracourte caves, where it was at least 15 degrees cooler than the surface.
So the first thing I had to show Denise while there was the infamous lake. We went to the look-out, and found that there is an even better look-out, just up those steps!
At the top of the steps is one of the main water holding tanks, where water is pumped from the lake to, and held before going down to the city to use. The reason for it being so high is to give decent water pressure to the city.
And of course, once you climb up, you have to climb down again!
While there we also had to go on a guided tour down to almost to the edge of Blue Lake. The first time I did this tour we actually stood on a small platform just over the water, however since then the level has dropped 2m, making the metal steps too step.
The tour was very informative, and a damn sight cooler than anywhere else unless it involved ice.
We got a lot of the history of the area, as well as a lot of the science behind how it was formed and why the water is blue.The reason for the blue is because the water is filtered through kilometres of limestone as is flows down to the coast. The water that is in the lake is actually still moving, just really slowly. So the water is ultra filtered, and very pure, and also contains tiny particles of the limestone. In winter they tend to be denser, the water has a vision range of about 17m, and the lake appears grey. However in summer they seem to drop away, the water has a vision range I think about 25m (I can't remember the numbers), so when you look at it from above, you can see so much deeper, and the water appears much bluer. The tour guide explained it so much better than me.
Understandably with all this heat, there hasn't been much knitting.
I'm currently trying to find a nice heart pattern to make a shawl for Denise for our Commitment Ceremony. I've got a few, so I'm trying them out, see which one looks the best, which ply wool to use, which size needles, then ordering a couple of balls from Bendigo. I can't find a shawl pattern I like, but I've got an idea on how I want it to look. Let's hope I can draft something up.
Denise has cast on a Tubey Jumper of her own, so I'm now compelled to get mine finished before she does. I've only got another 20cm to go, but that damned 3x1 rib is making me not want to finish it. It's boring, but you need just enough concentration to remember to purl every fourth stitch.
Now I'm back at work I need a small traveling project, and I have almost finished my first Merino Bambino baby wool sock. The wool is so soft, and the colours are so bright. I love these already. It's bad manners to take your shoe and sock off in public to test your sock length? Right?
Denise has cast on for another pair of fetching gloves. She's getting to be quite the project whore. She has almost as many projects on the needles as I do. I'll have to do a count later when I update the side bar.
Oh, and the last big thing since I updated this, I've hit another milestone in my life, the quarter century! I am now 25, although I was feeling old before the numbers changed.