More hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn!

I have become the Mad Dyer. I found that I really, really, really like dyeing roving, and then spinning the result. And, since I am sick and tired of the wet, cold rainy and even snowy weather we have been having (although today was blessedly warm), I dyed more roving some weeks ago in bright summery colors and have been slowly spinning them into sock yarn. I should mention I don't use precious writing time to spin yarn--I only do it when I am tired and have no brain left for anything else than watching TV (spinning yarn is my way of making TV time useful). I decided to name my yarn something warm and summery and not cold northwest-y. The one to the right above I called "Bahamas Vacation," because that is where I wish I were right now. The one below to the left is called "Dry Tortugas," which is not an alcoholic beverage, I found, but a string of islands. For some reason I think "Dry Tortuga" should be some kind of cocktail--it just sounds like it should. Perhaps it is...I am not very informed about mixed drinks.

And then there is the other one I had posted about earlier, the one with primary colors, which I decided call "Primary Thoughts."

I'm selling them at my Etsy site; I've decided that I'm going to try to use the proceeds from yarn sales to buy the Adobe Creative Suite software (as well as to continue to contribute to building an orphanage in the Congo, which my church is sponsoring). My software skills in that area are not all up-to-date. I'm fairly up-to-date with InDesign, and Adobe Acrobat professional, but that's it. My Dreamweaver software is years out of date. I hate not keeping up my skills.

As for dyeing roving...I am going to dye some more, but that will have to wait until I get this novella done. Meanwhile, I have some red/coral red wool roving that I'm combining with black wool, which should look rather dynamic.

I also bought some supplies (foam brushes and citric acid--I understand citric acid is non-toxic, smells better, works just as well, and is less expensive than vinegar for dyeing) from the Dharma Trading Company. I used to get their catalog years ago, back before there was an internet, lost touch, then found to my delight that they now have a web site. They speci

alize in fiber arts and clothing blanks (plain white cloth and clothes you can paint/dye/etc.) and their prices are very reasonable. Check them out!

I am so glad today was warm and sunny. I found some weeks ago that I'm severely vitamin D deficient, which has contributed to a host of on-going health problems I've been having for years (fatigue, some memory loss, muscle soreness, insulin resistance, and on an on). So I've been taking vitamin D supplements, and decided to go out and work in the garden today to soak up some Ds from the sun, even though the soil is very muddy. The lawn squishes when I walk on it, seriously. I knelt in the grass next to the flower bed in the front yard, felt my knees becoming decidedly wet, and discovered that mud liberally covered the knees of my jeans. Ugh. Very deceptive that lovely green grass. So I got one of those kneeling pads for gardening, which was not much better, because it was spongey and thus soaked up the mud from the soil. My knees absorbed more water than mud, because the spongey pad no doubt filtered out the mud particles and let the water through.

But, I found to my delight that the danged squirrels didn't dig up all of m

y bulbs like they usually do each year, and I found some slug-damaged hyacinths as well as some over-crowded tulip bulbs and daffodils that were just sprouting. So I separated these bulbs to give them some breathing room, and with any luck they'll grow all right into some very nice flowers.

Only one set of daffodils, though. I had planted more than five sets last year, and I only found one set. This does not make me happy. However, there is a good bulb farm--the Van Lierop Bulb Farm--not too far away from here, over in Puyallup. I bought some bulbs there, and was smart enough to take my camera with me to take some pictures of the lovely tulips they had growing in their gardens at the time. Here's a few pictures of them, below (and above).