EEEEK!!!!

So there is officially less than a month left until Christmas. Take off time for shipping any gifts that need to be shipped...and there is only 3 weeks left!

I had last week off from work. I got snowflakes done. That's it. Snowflakes. Now granted, those are on my list of gifts, but that only covers my co-workers for the Christmas party on Dec. 8th. I thought I would have all sorts of time to crochet last week. But no. I ended up having to work a half-day on Monday, because my boss "forgot" I was going to be off, and needed me to schedule appointments for him for this week for our next big project. So I did that. Then I took my car in for repairs that were needed due to a traffic altercation my daughter was in (ggrrrrr...she is ok...but I didn't need this right now...guess that is why they are called accidents and not on-purposes). By the time I got done with all of that...it was 5:00 and I had to go work at my second job. I didn't take time off from that, it's part-time, a couple of hours here and there, how bad could it be? So...I was home at 9:00. One day of vacation chalked up. Tuesday wasn't much better. Wednesday was spent cleaning the house getting ready for any guests that decided to come to dinner. Thursday was cooking and eating and cleaning up again and football. Lots of foottball. I hate football. What happened to Sunday being football day? Now it is on every freakin' night of the week it seems. But I digress...Friday was running around doing errands, battling shopping crowds, etc. You get the idea. A week off just isn't enough time. My To-Do list...hardly a thing got done on it...and I'm not talking my crochet list, just my general list.

On a brighter note, I no longer have more people in ahead of me than I do behind me in line on the Ravelry wait list:
You are #56419 on the list.
3713 people are ahead of you in line.
5748 people are behind you in line.
84% of the list has been invited so far
I am hoping I get the invite when I am off for the Christmas break so I have time to get acquainted with the site. I'm excited to see what it's all about.

I sold my most recent batch of threads on eBay. Still not what I was hoping for, so next batch is at "Buy it Now" pricing. I had some new bidders though, so I am generating some interest, and the feedback I have received so far has been good, with requests to keep dyeing. I have a batch soaking now, so might be able to dye it tonight if I get home at a decent time. Hoping to have about 4 of each colorway to put up, so about 40 balls. Not bad, if I can get it done! I might miss bowling tomorrow just to get it done.

Up on the auction block

Update: I did better this time around as far as the bidding went! All 3 sets were sent off to Ohio this morning. I also received my first feedback as a seller for the first group I sold! Now...if I get some housework done, I can dye another batch of thread!

Since I like to use colorways combined with solids in my doilies, and it is not always easy to match the colors with stuff in the stores, I thought it would be a good idea to make coordinating solids using the same colors of dye. For a first run, I thought they turned out pretty good. Still some fine tuning to do, but if there is a good response I will do more that way.

Off to hit the shower and head into work. Only 4 more days left, then I am off for a week...YIPPPEEEEEEEE!!!!

Preliminary Results Are In!

<=====Front Drying







Back Drying==========v

I finished washing and rinsing the thread I dyed. So far so good. I'm not sure if the ones that I made to coordinate will do so, need to wait until it dries completely before I can tell for sure. Overall, I am pleased with the results. The colors are more vibrant than I expected. In my mind I was hoping for lighter shades. I will have to keep experimenting. I have so much fun doing this!

I also sold my first 4 colorways on Ebay. I have now made my first Ebay transaction as a seller! One person bid on all 4, and while they went for much less than I had hoped, I have to start somewhere. The buyer is doing the Happy Dance I am sure! She got each cake of thread for .99! I know I'd be doing the Happy Dance if I were her! I am still doing the Happy Dance for selling them. I was starting to think no one wanted them, so I was pleased. Hopefully when I list the next batch they will do a little better, and I will build from there. My little threads will be on their way to Anchorage, Alaska first thing Monday morning!

Dyeing!

So I dyed 5 colorways last night. Didn't take but a couple of hours this time. Will be able to rinse those Saturday night. We had fun mixing the primary color kit that I bought and ended up with blue, peach, purple, green, yellow, red, orange and pink to dye with. Can't wait to see how they turn out.

This morning I was up bright and early to dye the second batch I had soaked in soda ash overnight with a different process. I used some of my new colors from the kit I bought on Ebay. Gonna see how it turns out. I made a large colorway using 4 colors, then made 3 coordinating solid colors to match it from the same batch of dye. I'm excited to see how it comes together. I want to do more now, but I have to prep some more before I can by winding it on my swift. Since that takes a bit of time, I probably won't get any more actual dyeing done until next weekend. I do have the week of Thanksgiving off, so if I prep enough, I can be a dyeing fool!

No dyeing after all

We didn't get to dye. I ran out of time to get it ready to soak, so I am going to finish that over the next couple of nights, and soak it Wednesday, so we can try on Thursday.

I did put some of the thread I dyed back in July up for auction on Ebay to see how it will go. I did that on Saturday, but as of right now, I still don't have any hits. I've been told to be patient. I'm trying.
smartsmiley.com

On a good note, I am on the edging for Mom's Christmas present! I had to stop last night because my hand was getting tired. I figured if I kept pushing on, then I would probably pay for it later by either being in too much pain to crochet for a couple of days, or making a mistake that I would have to go back and fix. Once I get the edging done, I can move on to the smaller projects and hopefully get some of that list taken care of.

Dyeing Thread on Sunday

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My daughter and I are going to do some thread dyeing on Sunday. We are going to experiment some and have a lot of fun with color mixing. We are hoping it goes well and we will be able to put it up for auction on ebay to see what the response is. We are excited and hope it goes well. She is hoping to find something to do from home that will allow her to be at home during the last months of her pregnancy as well as after the baby is born. Hopefully we can generate some excitement over the next few months over our dyed thread that it can support her better than being a server at a local restaurant.

Of course, this will cut into crocheting time, and Christmas just keeps on getting closer and closer. I'll have to work on my other projects over the next few nights so I don't feel to bad about neglecting them come Sunday.

Long time no see

I hand-dyed some thread back in July and worked up bookmarks for each color. I have already given away 2 of the bookmarks but here are the results of 4 of my custom threads...

The results are in...

It is kind of hard to tell, as the pics are a little on the blurry side, but the one on the left is when they were wrapped and set, and the one on the right is the finished product. All wound beautifully from the swift to the winder. I had a little trouble at the beginning with the one Kitty helped with, but after exercising a little patience, I got it worked out and on the swift and wound. I am very happy with the results. For the most part the colors were a lot more even. The violet color had some splotchiness to it, but it isn't extremely noticiable. I may try to work up some bookmarks with each one just to see a small sample of how they each look when worked up into something. This was fun...can't wait to do more. Hope thread goes on sale at Hobby Lobby soon!

Dyeing Weekend

My swift arrived on Friday! I knew it wouldn't come with instructions, so I had spent some time surfing the web to figure out how to use it before it got there. It was really easy to set up, and is just as nice as all the reviews said it was on joann.com. I couldn't put my tangled mess on it of course (I still have one to de-tangle and tame...the other is headed for the trash I think), but I was able to make hanks for my next round of dyeing. It went faster than doing it on the back of my desk chair, and it was more consistent, so I am hoping that when it is all said and done, I will be able to put these back on here to wind into balls. I worked on these on and off Saturday afternoon/evening. I am going to have to wait for a thread sale at Hobby Lobby before being able to do more. I still have 2 white balls I can hank, so may do that just so they are ready, and while everything is set up still.

I made 5 hanks, 3 white, 2 ecru. I soaked them in soda ash overnight and part of the day (about 18 hours total), then I gently squeezed out the excess soda ash water and carefully hung each one up by the window to air/drip dry while I dyed. Of course, the slight breeze didn't care that I had been careful and blew one hanger down. So, I carefully rehung the thread, after mumbling under my breath for a minute (or two), and made sure the hanger was secure and could not be blown off again. The cat didn't care either apparently, or her curiosity just got the best of her, and I just about killed her when she messed with it and it got caught on the hanger and got pulled and...*sigh*. We've made up now, but she was shooed away the rest of the afternoon.

I laid out my saran wrap, and my first hank. I put on my gloves, mixed my dyes and I was off! I had some help, thank goodness, or else I would have been dyeing for much longer than the 3.5 hours it took. I was bound and determined (hopefully it will pay off) to make sure the colors were even, that the spots that didn't quite get as much color last time (around the folds of the hanks and around ties), weren't missed, and that I didn't use too much dye. We had a pretty good process going by the end, we shall see if it worked.

With each one I did, I added water to the dye. Two reasons, I wanted to make sure I had enough to do all 5 hanks, and I wanted to see the color variation that would result. I'm not sure how much the color will vary, but they certainly lasted. I probably could have done another 5 or 6. The colors were still very vibrant even after being watered down several times.

I was a little "done" and was probably a little less careful with the last one, maybe too much dye (had to blot before wrapping), so might have more bleeding than I want. Did some experimenting with color mixing for the last one, and I can't wait to see how it turns out! Next batch, I may do more color mixing, because that was fun! I wish I got pictures of all of them before they were wrapped, but I did get a few. By the time I remembered the camera, it wasn't worth it to unwrap it just to take a picture.

Then they were all wrapped, looking like colorful cinnimon rolls in a little tub on my kitchen counter, waiting for 48 hours to let the color set. I felt with my first experiment, the one that sat for 48 hours turned out the best, so I am went with that for all of them this time.



After they sat for 48 hours, I rinsed them in hot water until it looked like the water ran clear. Then I put a little bit of Dawn in a tub and let them soak in there while I rinsed each one. By the time I was done with that, I pulled the first one out of the soapy water, and rinsed it again, getting out the soapy water. There was some color that came out while they were soaking, but not too much. After rinsing in cold water this time, I put them back in a tub of cold water, no Dawn, and let them each sit for a few hours. Actually, I went out with a friend, and had run out of time, so that is what I decided to do. When I got home, I rinsed them all once again in cold water, then put them in the spin cycle in the washer to get most of the water out, then hung them up to finish drying.

Now, I'll just have to see if they go back on the swift to be wound into nice little thread cakes. I don't think they tangled very much, if at all. That will be another post!

Thread Mess!

I broke down and bought a yarn ball winder. I had an online coupon for joann.com for 40% off, so that helped. It arrived. I grabbed my 3 newly dyed projects to sit down and wind them into nice little balls...and they are a mess. Either I didn't put enough ties in to keep it from tangling or the washer did it, I don't know. The little bit I was able to wind looks great...go ball winder!


Here is the finished product. It took me about 3 hours and a lot of patience to get it untangled, creating a regular ball as I went, then from that, I wound it onto the winder. That part took all of 2 minutes.

It did not go as smoothly as I thought it would. I went ahead and ordered the yarn swift too, with the 50% off coupon I found a couple of days later. I don't know if this will help with the tangles for future products or not. We'll see. I guess I need to get out the camera and take some pictures of my new toys, my recently finished projects, my dyeing experiment and my thread mess. By the time I figure out how to dye thread, I am going to have invested a whole lot of time and money, so I will have to keep doing it just to make sure I get my money's worth!

Thread Dyeing

I decided to figure out how to dye cotton thread. My favorite ebay store, Sara's Colorwave Yarns, has become very popular, and unless you catch her new inventory within the first few hours she puts it up, you are outta luck. So I asked myself...How hard can it be really? Try finding good instructions on dyeing cotton thread...not so easy to find. At least not with any great detail, or specific to thread. Can't use the cool Kool-Aid method, cuz it doesn't work with cotton. Last I checked, they don't make wool in size 10 thread.

I found a couple of websites that did explain it a little. I went with the easiest, but maybe not cheapest, version. I bought a couple of tie-dye kits and used one so far. My thread is wrapped and set. I have to wait 4-6 hours more before I know how they turned out. I didn't get very adventurous this first go-round. Just used the colors as they were, no mixing ... blue/violet/fuchsia. We shall see. I tried applying it in different combinations, double folded the thread on one, fuchsia/violet/blue on one, violet/blue/fuchsia on another. Here is a picture of one of them drying.

If they turn out well, I may try posting instructions with pictures next time. I did find a website that sells dyes for cotton in more colors, so again, if it goes well, I will expand. Looks like I can buy some of their kits for about the same as the tie-dye kits, but with the soda ash included (I had to buy that separate for my first try). It was easier than I thought it would be...so far.

If this becomes a new "hobby", then I will have invest in a yarn ball winder and possibly a spinner, because using a chair was kind of a pain. I will probably invest in the ball winder regardless, because I can use that for my ever-growing stash.