Pretty colours to start off new projects

 I made an apple pie.  I was playing with 1830 -1860 recipes.   Lots of them are pretty interesting and a bit different.  But some are really what you'd think of as a modern apple pie.  Many use puff pastry instead of a short crust.  I didn't have any puff pastry, or extra butter to make it, so I used a short crust.   The recipe uses much less sugar than a modern pie, and nutmeg as the flavouring.  It was delicious and didn't last very long before it disappeared, so I'm guessing I'm not the only person who liked it.


 I did some dyeing in mason jars.   This is wool fabric rather than yarn.  It's pretty easy to do.  
1-presoak the wool
2- set jars in a pot of water like a double boiler. Next time I'd use a trivet in the bottom of the pan, just in case, but I didn't have any issues without it.
3-Add water with half the vinegar you are going to use to the jars
4- add the dye stock to make the desired colour and depth of colour you want.
5-stuff the wet wool into the jars
6-heat the jars slowly until the water just below a boil.  After about 30 minutes, stir in (a plastic chopstick works well) the rest of the vinegar and simmer for another 30 minutes
7- let cool in the water and when room temp, rinse, gently squeeze wool in a towel to remove excess
water ( or spin in your washer)
8- if fabric for rug hooking, toss in the dryer. 
If for some other reason, hang to dry.

 Merino and silk blend.  It was seconds so I don't know the percentage of either.  However it was super slick and has huge lustre.  You could see the silk in the roving.   It's lovely, lovely, lovely, despite me having to hand card rolags because the roving was a little iffy in places.   This is a worsted weight.  It's going to become a toque.  A lovely, warm, lusterous winter hat.

I spun this up years ago, meaning to weave fabric for a vest.   It's singles that are slighly larger than 2/8 cotton but not as thick as 4/8.   It's polwarth I think.  I had picked up 500g at a show and was going to order a second batch, when the company announced they were retiring and there was nothing more available.

I had wanted to weave it so it was a random plaid pattern as it's a variegated yarn.   But I was going to need more than 500g, so the bag of singles got set aside.   I dug them out yesterday.   I'm winding a warp of 2/8 cotton in black and the same weight of cottolin in purple.   I have about 2500 yards of the varigated wool.  We'll see what happens.   I'm only putting a short warp on the loom - 20 in wide by 6 feet long, so I should have enough singles. I will admit I'd have preferred a wool warp for this, but nothing suitable is in my stash, no black or similar colours of roving in my stash, so I'm using up what I have.

I'm tired of snow and cold weather.  It's May and supposed to be spring!