Hints of spring

Finally, we've had some weather which has allowed for the snow to start melting.   This leaves the snow, especially the snow banks dirty and grey.   I love this because I see it as a symbol of hope of the incoming spring.   

The ground is still frozen though, so the melting snow is running off into the lowest areas.  Luckily we have some drainage in the farm land around here which helps those areas.  It hasn't been warm enough for the frozen water in the ditches to melt though, so the snow melt is running over the frozen ground, making for a very muddy top inch of soil and grass.   It won't last though, because a few more mild days are forecast which should help a lot.  Right now though, much of this water is running right into the barn, making parts of it a frozen mess.

I've made some more of the comfort dolls.  A friend and I took a field trip to a yarn store in a nearby town, which was highly discounting sock yarn.  It was $.97 a 100 g skein!  There were limited colours available but I still purchased a good few skeins.  What there weren't though were solid colours.   My friend dug down and found some of this pink, which she passed one skein on to me to make more comfort dolls.  I thought it might be good skin tone, but it's very pink.  Instead I managed to make a pig girl.   I didn't have a crochet hook small enough, so making the hair was not fun at all.  Still, I'm hoping someone will love her.

I've almost finished spinning up the cashmere merino singles.  There is only a handful of roving left, but my bobbins were full.  Not having access to the deck and table where I usually do my dyeing, I tried a different technique in a roasting pan.   It was not a huge success.   I managed to label my black dye as brown.  I wanted brown.  I also should have diluted the dye a lot more.

I soaked the yarn for several hours.   I chose not to add vinegar to acidify the water, which I would do next time.   I lay the skeins in a roasting pan, and squirted and dabbed dye on the yarn, in what should have been short runs of colour.   I then added the vinegar and water to do a low water dye on what I hoped to be similar to a painted skein.

Nope, the dye ran, and the black which should have been brown, dyed all the white spaces I left.   Because I didn't dilute the dye enough, it's much darker than I'd anticipated or hoped for.

Look at the lovely blue sky though! And the snow is melting.  You can see the grass in spots!   I don't feel bad about the dye experiment because there are hints of spring today and it is glorious!