I updated my operating system in early December and bam, I was unable to post any photos to my blog. All the suggestions made no sense, since there weren't any of those options that I could find in my settings. Finally though, this morning, I found a hint, tried it and poof things seem to be back to normal. I did some dyeing over the holidays. These red mittens were supposed to be made with the Newfoundland mitten pattern. However the grey was too similar to the blues and yellows in the yarn and the lack of contrast made the mittens dull and unexceptional. I even tried two different greys, one quite a lot darker than this one. Neither looked good, so I settled with a simple cable up the centre. They look fairly nice, although simpler than I'd wanted. They are mittens though, so very warm and wearable.
The yarn was leftover commercial wool from other projects. I had some white which I didn't think was enough for two mittens, and bits of grey. Both were similar weights. I'd wanted to dye the yarn pink and blue, with the dyes blending where meeting to make purples. I had been using quite old dyes, and while usually they are fine, these had obviously started to thicken. When the pinks started turning red, I mixed in some yellows to change up the colour way a bit. It looked really good in the skein! It's nice enough knit up, but this does show how you really can't necessarily gauge how a skein will look when knit up.
Also, more dyeing, these two skeins were dyed in the same vat, at the same time. They are totally different greens. The small dark green skein was a slightly off white compared to the lighter green, but not dark enough for this difference in colour. They were obviously two different breeds of sheep, but both were wool so the take up shouldn't have been quite this dramatic. Luckily, this yarn is for a shawl with light and darks, so it should work just fine.
Also, sometimes commercial sock yarn doesn't look like you think it will knit up. This yarn looked bright and cheery in the skein. I knew it wasn't red and green type holiday colours, but it looked festive and so bright that I made a quick pair of socks from it. Once knit up, I could tell that they aren't Xmas socks though, they are spring socks. Pretty and pastel. Nice enough and it's a German yarn, so a very good quality. It knit up like a dream. I've found though that a lot of the imported German super washes, do fine in the washer, but don't like the dryer, so these are hang to dry only, just to be sure.
I hope everyone's holiday time was full of good things. We got to see family only because we could all only find one day that worked for everyone. It turned out to be the only day without freezing rain, or ridiculous snow squalls and blizzard conditions. We had it far easier than other parts of our province, but still, I didn't leave the house even for groceries for a couple of weeks, between the weather and holidays.
