DYELICIOUS!

I’ve got a dozen crock-pots simmering away up in the home ec room, cooking up 10 pounds of colored wool top for the carding station at Yarn School! Wheeeeee!

I’m already totally excited about Yarn School. I got some bag samples in the mail today. I’m trying to pick one for this year’s sessions. Ron talked me into doing a new bag each year. I was going to use the extra bags from last year (the minimum order was pretty high), but I think instead I’ll just sell them cheap & get new ones so last year’s students get a new bag. The ’07 ones were undated, awfully cute, and they’re the perfect size for a project bag, so I’m sure they’ll get snapped up if I price them right.

I think I’m going with a green bag this year. Eco-green, not color green–although the sample I got is a retina-searing fluorescent green. I did request it, but I was hoping for a warmer acid green (it was called “Toxic Green,” which could go either way, and swatches online are all but meaningless), so cfolor-wise, I’ll probably go with black again (black & yellow are the school colors). Generally speaking, I really want to try to pick the green option whenever I can, so I’m looking at some totes made out of woven recycled plastic. They have the look and feel of canvas–some like a lightweight ripstop nylon canvas, some more like a heavy duck canvas. Of course, the ones that are 100% post-consumer are very spendy, so those are probably out of the running for goodie bags, though I am considering getting some fancier Yarn School bags to sell this year.

I just had a delicious brie & apple sandwich for dinner, and I’m sipping on a beer and contemplating what the rest of the evening has in store for me.  Definitely some knitting, as the end of January is fast approaching and I still haven’t officially finished a sweater. I did, technically, finish one, but I’m unhappy with the waist shaping, so to call it January, I have to rip back most of the torso and reknit it so it doesn’t pooch at the sides.

See? The shaping was kind of an afterthought.

Here’s what it causes:

I have enough naturally occurring lumps and bumps. I don’t need to add any through poor knitting. I had this fantasy that it would cure itself after I washed it, but that was, in fact, only a fantasy. On the bright side, washing it did make the sleeves a bit longer, which is happy.

Bored of my endless stack of raglans, I started to tackle my big box of ancient UFOs this week, starting with an old tank from knit.1. I had finished the whole back (it’s only 2 pieces) and then lost interest. But I’ve taken up the cause again, which is good, because it should go nicely with my ugly denim/strawberry Y’all suck skirt.

I’m off to go be productive and avoid mirrors (I’m dressed like a bag lady and I look about a hundred today, so whenever I catch a glimpse, it takes the wind out of my sails).