Yarn Dyeing With The Kids

On the school holidays, the kids wanted to have a go at dyeing some yarn. I had bought some new colours of Wilton's Food Colour Paste, so we decided to test them out.
I had a voucher from Spotlight that they sent out for my birthday, so stopped in there to get some 100% wool for the kids - Moda Vera Pure Wool 8ply. Only cost me $2 after the voucher, so a good activity :)

The kids decided what colours they wanted to use, and where they wanted them to go on their skeins. They did most of the applying, I just helped and tried to guide it a little to avoid muddy patches.

DD went for more colours in smaller sections.

DS decided on fewer colours with larger sections.

Don't they just look so bright and happy?!

I have started to knit DS's into a scarf, using the Biba Trellis stitch I found in a stitch pattern book.

Cheers!

Socks For Little Witches

Finished! And they are so cute.

Pattern details are here on Ravelry. It wasn't a hard pattern - took me a month doing little bits here and there. Not bad considering they are only my 2nd pair of socks.
I did do one silly mistake when it came to decreasing for the toe. I think it was mainly because the pattern was for DPN's, and I was using one circular doing magic loop. I got it sorted though, and learnt how to undo a few rows and not drop my stitches.

Cheers!

Hip Hip Hooray

It's my birthday :)

Aside from it being a Monday (total monday-itis here lol), it was a lovely day. A chatty one with lots of phone calls from my lovely family.

Hubby had been working on my present for a few weeks, and even though it was finished a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't allowed it until my birthday (I did know what it was, as I had some input into it - see here on hubby's blog).

So what is it? A hand made swift and ball winder. Lets just say that the swift was relatively simple in its design and planning. But a ball winder is a whole other ball game ('scuse the pun)! DH got there though, as I knew he would :)

I did have to give it a test run to make sure it all worked great - it makes lovely center pull balls.

The kids got me some lovely BWM wool to practice my dyeing on, so I can use my swift to skein it up for dyeing and then wind into balls with the ball winder when I am done. I can't wait!

Now I am all birthday-ed out, so I am off to bed.

Cheers!

p.s. Photos were all taken by my husband :)