Sunday Morning, Comin' Down

The snow, that is. Again. God, I hate snow! Ohio, why do you have to snow so, so much? Can't you just snow for the holidays and then stop and go back to being 40-45 until spring? I'd be happy with that, ya know.

Anyhoo, I still haven't gotten my yarn I ordered. :0( (I know, it's not like they have those tube thing from Star Trek to beam me yarn.) So, I took Ari and Charlie and went to Joann's at 8:00 last night to get some, instead! :0) Plus, I got so excited to order my sock yarn, that I forgot to order yarn for Charlie's socks. My friend Lori and I have been talking about the construction of the "perfect baby sock." And I didn't have any boy-approved sock yarn! So, we picked up some Sensation Soles and More in Green and Blue for Charlie and in a purple and pink for Ari. (I had 3 coupons....I had to use them, right?) And I also picked up a skein of brown Wool Ease Chunky to do a test bonnet for Charlie. I had picked up some Homespun at Wally World, and I HATE it! That is the WORST stuff to crochet with. I will knit a bunny blanket buddy with it, because the old ladies at the LYS that used to be right across the street from my house said it's much easier to knit with. (Of course, they unfortunately went out of business about 6 months before I learned to purl. :0( My sucky luck!) Oh, I had also gotten some brown sock yarn for Charlie off ebay, but again, the zapping thing and my impatience got the better of me. Especially when I needed other yarn. And had coupons. (I love Ron "Tater Salad" White, and I just can't say the word coupons enough. Coupons.)

Yes, I'm a little giddy today. Dan took Melodie on about a 2+ hour shopping trip to the parts store today, so I've got the nice, quiet, well behaved children at home while I work. Yay!

So, I got Sway's capelet done last night. I haven't taken any pics yet, though. I'll probably do it after work tonight. Then, onto the next project! I think I'll do my arithmancy homework next. I'll be using my numerology numbers to do a striped bag for my drop spindle...or a DPN holder. I'm still undecided.

On the Hook

Last night, I started a capelet for the dog for my Care of Magical Creatures assignment for the House Cup! I'm doing it in Gryffindor colors. I'm about half way done with it. Hopefully I'll finish it tonight!!

Yesterday, I ordered some new sock yarn! I got Knit Picks Palette in Hyacinth and Tidepool heather. I'll be doing the Tidepool heather in Crusoe and the Hyacinth in Tidepool. I'm probably going to do a sock between the higher one and the anklet, and I'll be doing the toes with my leftover Wicked Witch!

New pets!

Well, we've acquired 2 new pets this past week. We got a woolybear caterpillar that we're going to try to over-winter and watch turn into a Tiger moth in the spring. (Directions on how to do so can be found here:Capture a Bear for the Winter.) We've only had it since Saturday. It was fine this morning. This afternoon, it's on the bottom of its jar. I hope it's doing it's "sleeping-on-the-bottom-after-being-tired-of-perching-on-the-twig" thing and not it's "dead" thing! I think we'll keep our eye out for some more, just in case!

Today, Dan was up at a friend's shop doing some work to some of the Herbie pieces. When he was leaving, he found a baby snapping turtle in the parking lot! He didn't know it was a snapping turtle. He came home and shoved a Taco Bell cup in my face and said look what I caught you! I looked and said "a snapping turtle!?!?" He said, no it's not. I found it on Google images. I was right....na na na na na. It's really cute, though. He's only about as big as a silver dollar. He's in our old hermit crab cage. When he gets too big for his cage, we'll see about setting him free at the Wilderness Center or taking him to the Sanders Center. We've named him Woodstock. That way, he can be Charlie's and we don't have to get Charlie a goldfish right now, since he's the only kid without a goldfish. I'll try to get some pictures later. I took some with my new camera, but I think it's too fancy for my poor picture taking skills, and I couldn't get it to focus right. I'll try again later when I don't have 3 kids bouncing off me asking if they can just touch the turtle one time.

My yarn is looking good. It's still drying. I got about half of it untangled. It's looking alot more brown now. I've got it hanging above my dryer to hopefully help it dry a little faster. I'm antsy to get knitting with it!

Oh, and for our grand finale......no tardies! In fact, the girls were even ready early for school this morning. Dan took them for me, and he brought me home a maple cream stick! (There is an AWESOME bakery right by the girls' school.) Yay! It's been a good day. Now, I just have to clean tonight and FINALLY get out my Samhain decorations for our "reunion" tomorrow!

I've been "dyeing" to try this!

This morning, I decided to cut work for an hour, and Atley and I gathered walnuts! We took them out to the driveway and smashed them with a rock, carefully choosing the ones without maggots in them (ewww!) and giving those back to the squirrels. Atley was a big helper and carried the bucket for mommy, and even picked some off the tree! When we were done, without prompting, he said, "Thank you for the nuts, Mr. Tree!"



Then, we poured boiling water over the hulls and let them steep for an hour until the water cooled down.



Then, I added the yarn and let that steep for about an hour and a half to 2 hours. I did add just a tablespoon or so of vinegar, just to be on the safe side. I had taken some of the hulls out to make the yarn fit. (And dyed my arm!) Atley told me "Thank the nuts momma." Do I have another inherently pagan child coming up?



I took the yarn out, rinsed it (this time, I remembered I had leftover gloves that the midwife didn't use when Charlie was born still laying around), and here's what I got!



It's starting to look a little more chocolate-like now that it's drying some. For future reference: Strain hulls or put them in cheesecloth. There are little flecks of hull strewn throughout my yarn, but it looks like that should shake out fairly easily when it dries.

Yay! I'm so excited, though. I can see I'll be doing more dyeing in my future!