Rainy Day Activities..

It was a weirdly busy week.  It feels like we're having the second solid week of rain.  In the short time it wasn't raining, I got most of the garlic planted.  I say most as last minute, I decided to plant a 5th row.  I realized that I didn't have enough large heads of garlic to plant - larger cloves of garlic grow to be larger heads of garlic.  So I popped out to the market on Saturday but haven't planted it yet because it's too wet.  It looks like it will sitting on my counter as it's still raining, and then the remnants of Hurricane Sandy are supposed to hit us tonight, giving us more rain, which will apparently be followed by even more rain.  Already our ground is squidgy and mushy.   I've no idea where all this rain will go.

While the garlic and some flower bulbs languish in my home, I did manage to do a few other things.  I spun the most unworthy cabled yarn  ever.  I followed the exact instructions and got this over spun, twisted mess.  It's a pretty mess though, since I used some of the Indigo dyed yarn from my stash.  Not worthy of a photo though.

 Frustrated, I finally got around to processing the  cotton sample I'd spun from some of the naturally coloured cotton I'd purchased.  The colour is supposed to darken when the yarn is boiled.  There is a noticeable difference in the colours.  I took a piece of pipe - supposed to be PVC but I only had ABS around, so I tried it.  I had my sweetie cut it to size and then drill holes in it.  I wrapped the cotton around it and tossed it into a pot of boiling water.   It didn't melt or distort, so I called it good. 

I had a meeting to go to and remembered that I'd cast on a pair of socks at the beginning of the month and promptly forgot about them.  I'd only an inch done on the cuffs, and these were plain Jane, 3/1 ribbing so I could use them as a mindless knitting project.  I got over 3 inches knit at that meeting and then have made time to finish the one and get a start on the other.  I really think I should have chosen a more interesting pattern, although I do prefer wearing ribbed socks to any other - I'm just finding it hard to keep my momentum up for these particular ones - despite the lovely pink in the colourway.

I also dragged out the quilt blocks to work on.  This quilt was supposed to be done by October, so I'd have time to make a second one.   I counted each set of blocks, both dark and light, numerous times and always had 15 of each.  I cut them up into 4 as required by the pattern and as I was reassembling the blocks, I noticed that I have more of the dark blocks than of the light.  Did I just misplace them or did I really miscount each time I checked my block count number?  I've no idea, but it means either blindly making up a few more blocks, or sorting through the fabric shelf where I'd parked them.. neither of those options sounds like much fun.   It's a pretty block though, despite my manage to not match anything but the centre points.   I wonder if that could be because I've actually ended up using 3 machines to piece it together and perhaps they all have slightly different 1/ 4 inch measurements?

I also spun up some silk.  I'd been playing around with silk and I've finally gotten some that I'm quite happy with.  I'd been spinning some dyed Tussah and was getting horribly inconsistent results.  When I tried for more twist, it was harsh and unyielding, with little lustre that silk should have.  With too little twist it was soft, but obviously fuzzy and dull.   So I dug up a small sample of unbleached Tussah and tried it as a comparison!  Yay for that, because I think it's just the silk I'd been using and not me.  Phew!!!