Gratefulness

My attitude has changed and I am thinking about how grateful I am to be dry, clean, well fed and well rested. I have lived on the Gulf Coast, Biloxi MS, way back in 1970, just after Camille destroyed so much of the coastline there. I know things do eventually get back to normal and some folks never return and are happy in their new circumstances. So the outlook does improve with time and there is hope. One of my commentors said, God's still in control, even when we don't see it. There you go.

In the meantime, Friday, some of the girlfriends had a dyeing day and the results were yummamente.

For the sake of busy work and to run my fingers through it all, I decided to wind the yarn I/we dyed into cakes. But first, a little before and after. Here is a shot of some yarn unwound from a Goodwill sweater. The label said 70%silk 30%cotton.

before

after

I noticed that my yarn stash was primarily full intensity colors and needed a bit of pastels to balance it all out. And this yarn is definitely not winter weight, so spring/summer lights were appropriate. I dyed this stuff at home with procion colors, but used the microwave to speed things up. It all works just fine. There is absolutely no bounce to this yarn and it will be very different knitting it into anything. The aqua and green cakes in the foreground are wool.

(The silk/cotton is just not springy like wool. It is like string. However, it will show textures, like cables and such much better because of that aspect. I will knit something without sleeves, as the stuff ends up stretching down to one’s knees. All the Goodwill cotton sweaters have arms that are four feet long. Funny.

I love the way the winder makes the yarn so neat in these little cakes. They stack. I love to stack. That contraption is not the winder, but is a swift. The winder is hidden on the left.

Two skeins of Kona Superwash Merino sock yarn. Frieda Green and a mess of Melody colors.

I dyed mohair and will try to figure out something to make in concert with this red-orange stuff.

It goes from light red-orange all the way down to really red. Hot-cha-cha.

Under the influence of Frieda, and so glad to be. It turns out that this green is the perfect foil for purples as well as tomato reds.

Aqua is my new fave color, and while these seem pretty turquoise-y, they were meant to be aqua, until I really get some. Then they can be as turquoise-y as they want. The lavender is pretty nice. Any lighter and it just looks gray. We are not a gray person.

Speaking of turquoise...my sheets are er, really turquoise.

This is the poncho I started from they yarn I dyed last week and blogged already. It is really intense and I thought very autumnal. I love the mitered diamond pattern (no surprise) and it was sailing along looking yummy, until I got to this point when I could try it on.
Disgusting. Awful. Yucky. NOT GONNA FINISH IT. It needs a border to make it longer, and believe me, it will not help the thing, not one bit. It is just not me. I will frog. (For you non-knitters, frogging means, rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.)

But first I will rip this lovely thing. I never wore it, though I tried. It was a mix of wonderful yarns and they will reappear again, in some other form, just not this thing.
It feels so satisfying to undo a mistake. I am grateful for this life lesson.