Sock Summit Casualty Count

We are now one month away from Sock Summit, and preparations are definitely moving into high gear.  Base yarn is on perpetual re-order, and I mutter grumpily about how Kraemer’s Sterling yarn is out of stock until too late. The near-constant use of equipment is taking its toll in the studios of indie dyers from coast to coast.  First, Jennifer’s second best dye-pot blew up, then one of my Rubbermaid soaking tubs developed a crack that slowly leaks water.

The thin grey line in the middle of the picture?  Leaky crack.  I can still use the basin for soaking and washing dyed yarn if it’s in the sink, but next time I’m at Fred Meyer’s Wall o’Rubbermaid I’ll need to get a replacement.

And what have I been dyeing? Sock Summit and Ravelry are  sponsoring a contest for dyers selling in the Sock Summit marketplace, called Dye for Glory,  and I’ve worked up a couple of colorways to enter.  One goes by the catchy name of Clown Barf, a term of affection that knitters apply to particularly BRIGHT colorways.  This is my version:

Available in my Etsy shop, of course!

We had a run of lovely warm weather, so the roses have been happy.  Here is a bloom of Just Joey, a lovely apricot rose with a delightful scent that thrives in the Northwest. No black spot!

SF Weekend in Seattle

We had a lovely weekend attending the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductions, along with the Locus Awards.  This year’s class of Hall of Fame inductees  is:

 Frank R. Paul

Michael Whelan

Connie Willis

Ed Ferman

Frank R. Paul was the first illustrator to make a living painting rocket ships and such  — his images were the heart of the science fiction magazine look in the 20s and 30s.  His daughters and grandson were in town for the induction –  a delightful family, with lots of stories going way back into the history of the field.  Here is Greg with the daughters,  Patricia Paul Franzke and Joan C. Paul Engle.

The Locus Awards banquet features a lot of hilarity with a Hawaiian shirt theme — here is Greg with John Kessel, who had just finished teaching a week at Clarion West, and Connie Willis, who  MCed the Locus Awards, post-banquet.

Connie, being a woman of exquisite taste and social responsibility, changed out of her rocket launch polyester Hawaiian shirt before the Hall of Fame induction.  Greg, making it into the trivia contest because of his Lilo and Stitch Hawaiian shirt, blew away the competition by 1) knowing most of the answers and 2) having incredibily fast hand-raising reflexes.  The prize was an autographed banana.  This year, to have a permanent memento, there were two bananas, one real, one plastic.

The wardrobe creativity extended beyond Hawaiian shirts — there was a Hawaiian print kilt that I didn’t get a picture  of, and Erica accessorized with a a wonderful mutant purse she made.

Part poodle, part bear, part monkey.

Perfect weather for the events, and yes, we kept watching the skies.

The real banana bravely met its inevitable fate, with a few raspberries from the garden for garnish.

Rooting About

I saw this root at the grocery the other day — it’s fresh turmeric.

A pinkie sized root ended up costing about 19 cents, certainly a cheap price for a new taste treat.  Peeled and eaten raw, it’s like a carrot in texture but with a much zingier taste.  I chopped it fine and used it instead of dried turmeric in my favorite cauliflower recipe, Everyday Cauliflowerby Madhur Jaffrey.

This is a tangy party in your mouth, with ginger, cayenne, coriander, asafetida, green chilis — oh yeah, and cauliflower, too!

Applied Chemistry

I’ve been dyeing some self-striping yarn by winding a bigger diameter skein, dyeing 28 inches of it one color, and the remainder another — when knitted in  a typical sock configuration, you get one row of the first color, followed by two rows of the other.  There are various ways of doing this, but here’s a particularly fun method and colorway that I’ve developed.

First I make a very hot vinegared dyebath in a purple that I’ve mixed from red and blue dye. The longer section of the skein goes into this while I’m holding the shorter section out of the water.

The red dye and much of the blue strikes on the skein as purple, but there is some blue left in the dyebath.

Dropping in the remaining undyed section of the skein allows it to start soaking up the blue.

The purple section is still taking up a little of the blue as well.  This makes for a very interesting and nuanced purple.

Since I wanted to reuse the pot of water, I then steamed the yarn to make sure the dye got throughly fixed.  Here’s the skein as it’s cooling down after steaming.

A bonus is that there’s still a little blue left in the dyebath, because I didn’t let the skein cool in it and absorb those last few molecules of blue dye. 

So I can take another skein of yarn and drop it in to soak up those last bits. It’s a prettier pale blue in person, and may stay that color, or get overdyed to deepen the color.  So many choices!

Teeny Tiny Sock Part 3

I finished the small sock that I started on World Wide Knit in Public Day. It’s another Wee Tiny Sock, done with no changes this time, just simple and easy.

Nothing quite matched it in the garden at the moment, but it goes nicely with this purple something-or-other.

I now have three tiny socks.  Sock Summit lasts 4 days, so perhaps I need a different sock  pin for each day?

The pink striped rose is now in quite full bloom, and it scents the whole front yard.

You don’t even have to take time to smell the roses, they come and get you!  But taking a moment to stick your nose into a bloom is just divine.