Busy, Busy, Busy

I hope everyone had an awesome Halloween and weekend! Saturday was the day for errands, and an expensive one at that! We had to replace our vacuum (because our old one caught fire) and the Xbox360 (because ours red ringed), but it is worth it. Both were upgrades to the ones that died, so at least it didn't feel like we were buying the same thing over again. Sunday, Halloween, was fun too! We had a lot of candy, made popcorn balls in the afternoon and drank. What's better than that!?

I wasn't able to hit the deadline I wanted for the owl bag I'm making unfortunately, but I did get further on it. I hope to finish it tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I have one wing and the eyes left to do. Then need to assemble and make the lining. Shouldn't be too bad, right?

Speaking of schedules, I think I've mentioned a few times on the blog that I'm a writer. This month, November, is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWrimo) where participatants write 50,000 words from November 1st to November 30th. Crazy, right? I've participated almost every year of the last 5 or so. This year, my idea is a little rough, but I've decided to go ahead and jump right into it. That being said, I'm really going to have to manage my time just right to get it finished while also completing my crochet projects and keeping up with the blog! Wish me luck!

Now onto something more interesting, yarn dyeing! I think I mentioned last week that I was planning on dyeing more yarn. This time, I used the squirt bottle method with the microwave and I'm really excited by the results. I started with a skein of natural yarn I got from Knitpicks. I love how it was already prepared for dyeing! I wanted to pick two colors, but 3 dyes, so I used two blues and a yellow. I decided it would be fun to pick colors that actually mixed well, making another color, instead of a muddy mess. I also decided I didn't want each color to come out solid, but almost a tie-dyed affect, leaving some of the natural color of the yarn coming through.

I was really excited about using my ball winder once the yarn dried. At first it didn't work so well. My homemade swift kept collapsing and I wasn't putting enough tension on the yarn so that it was coming unraveled from the ball.

Here are the results! I call the colorway California.

Materials used:

1 skein of Knitpicks Natural Bare Superwash Worsted
3 bottles
a mixing cup
plastic wrap
2 large microwaveable bowls
plastic bag (to cover the counter)
tongs
Vinegar
Royal Blue Wilton's icing dye
Cornflower Blue Wilton's icing dye
Lemon Yellow Wilton's icing dye

(Sorry, some of the pictures are from my iPhone, so not the best)