Packing Up & Moving On

It is with great nail-biting nervousness that I write this post. When I do something I can never do it small and that goes for this blog as well as everything else I take on.

I have been very busy at work creating a new blog at my own address. This will be my last post at this current blog. Today I am moving all the previous posts, pictures, etc., etc. over to my new blog. I plan on keeping this here blog open for a few more days (weeks?) as I finish cleaning it all up and moving things around. All postings from this moment forward will be done at the new blog.

So, where exactly is this new blog? It can be found at here. Please keep in mind that this website is still very much a baby and I still have a lot of work to do before it is up to my satisfaction.

Thanks to everyone who has read this blog and left me just kind and encouraging comments. I look forward to seeing you at my new home.

 

Ever Usual Eucalyptus

 

Eucalyptus is another herb I really like to have around the house, especially this time of year. It is so good for colds and stuffy noses. I am prone to sinus infections so I like to keep a bottle of eucalyptus essential oil on hand. When my nose is stuffy due to allergies or a cold I will steam my face with a few drops of the oil placed in the steaming water.

A simple salve can be made to which the oil is added and this can be rubbed on the chest to help with congestion. It is like a homemade Vicks vapor rub.  

Another thing I like to do with eucalyptus is to take some dried leaves and simmer them on the stove in some water during periods when everyone is sick. It helps to clear the air as well as make it smell good. You would not want to do this in one of your best pots though as eucalyptus is high in resin as well as it’s essential oil. I like to have a pot that is just for simmering herbs in.

One last thing about eucalyptus, it also makes an excellent dye. A little over a week ago I wanted to experiment and see what color I would get if I used dried leaves purchased from my local health food store to make a dye. The color you get from eucalyptus will depend on the type of tree, growing conditions, etc. You can achieve anything from browns to reds. Unfortunately I do not know what type of eucalyptus makes what color of dye.

 It is a very long process extracting the dye from the leaves of eucalyptus. I simmered the leaves in the dye pot for 2 hours and then let them sit over night. The next day I simmered them again for another 2 hours. Then I was ready to add my wool yarn. I used equal amounts of dried eucalyptus leaves and yarn. And I did not mordant the yarn this time as it is not necessary to do so with this dye. I simmered the yarn in the dye for 2 hours as well. Once it was done simmering I let it sit in the dye bath overnight. A very long dye process!

My end result is a shade of brown that I can’t quite explain. It has a reddish tint to it. Sort of like a rusty brown. It is nice. Although it would have been neat to see it turn out a little more red than brown.

 

Too Many Books….

Warning: this post is very off topic from knitting and herbs…..

I spent the last two days going through and re-organizing my three bookshelves and a few boxes of books I have in my closet. I have been meaning to do this forever now but never get around to doing it. I finally found the time and boy am I in disbelieve. I have way too many books! I never thought that would be possible as I absolutely love books. But after today I have come to that conclusion.

 Over the last few years I have accumulated a ridiculous amount of fiction books. I hate to blame it on the library I used to live by after all it is my lack of self control that got me in this situation but my former library does have something to do with it. The library I once lived by had the nicest little used bookstore tucked into the corner of its first floor. Whenever I went to the library to check out books or take my boys to the story hour I would stroll over to the used bookstore to see what was available. It never failed that I would find at least one book I was interested in. Sometimes I would find more than one and even a few for SET. And how could I pass them up when they would be only a dollar for a hardcover in near perfect condition? Well, unfortunately I never did pass those books up and now I find myself in the situation I am now; drowning in a sea of books I have not read.

I counted them out and if I were to read one book a month it would take me 63 months to go through all the books that I have not yet read. That is crazy! I do not remember accumulating that many. The craziest thing of all is I can not seem to part with them. I actually do want to read each and every one of them. Maybe not necessarily keep all of them, but at least read them all.

Because of this, I have decided to make a vow with myself. I am going to attempt to read at least one book a month from this moment forward. As I finish a book I will pass it on to someone else unless I absolutely love it and know for certain that I will read it again. I am going to try to be disciplined with this because I feel holding on to all those books when they have not even been read is rather silly.

So, in the next few months do not be surprised to occasionally see me writing about a book or two (or more considering how many I have to read) that I am reading. I just started one of those books and it has already pulled me in. I hope to get through it before the Christmas rush is upon me.

What am I reading? It is called Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It is too early for me to tell if it is a keeper or not.     

 

Acorn Yarn, Revisited

The other day I finished knitting a pair of socks for my husband. I made them out of the yarn I dyed with acorns back in September. I think they turned out really nice. I love the little flecks of white. The acorns gave the yarn such a nice brown coffee with cream color which is perfect for SET because he is a major coffee addict! I’m currently working on some more dyeing experiments that I will be sure to post about here in the near future.

It got cold this afternoon! We were out and about and the rain coming down started turning to snow. It didn’t stick but sure got my two boys excited! I can not believe we are already half way through November and Thanksgiving is just a few days away. I have got to get a lot busier here on making gifts! I keep making things for people (like the above mentioned socks for example) and then giving them to the person they were made for right away. Perhaps I should be saving them for gifts…..oh well, keeps me busy I suppose.

 

Ravelry!

I’m so excited! Last night I just happened to look at my emails and my invite to Ravelry arrived. I kept trying not to think about it so as to make the wait go faster and I was actually pretty surprised to see it in my inbox. Of course I immediately checked it out. And boy am I blown away! There is so much to immerse myself in! I love how it can help me get more organized with my stash, patterns, needles, etc. Plus the community aspect of it is amazing. I am very impressed. I can not wait to dive in to it all.

 

Another Hat, Done

I put the final touches on the hat I made for Princess A yesterday. I actually finished knitting it about a week and a half ago but I still needed to make a pom-pom for it and weave in the ends. I don’t know why but for some reason I can get lazy when it comes to weaving in the ends on a finished object. I just don’t get it. I go through all this time and effort on knitting the item up only to let it sit and wait for it’s ends to be weaved in. I do it all the time. I guess I must enjoy the process of knitting more than anything. Why else would I go to all that work only to stop when I am so close to being done with an item? It is not unusual for me to have several finished objects lined up waiting for their ends to be weaved in all the while I have begun a new pattern. Sometimes I think I like to frustrate myself!

 What drove me to finish the last little bit of her hat yesterday was the cold winds we had whipping through where we live. She needed that hat pronto. I like the final result. The pattern is from Last Minute Gifts and the yarn is Manos del Uruguay. The pom-pom is a mixture of Manos and some left over yarn that I hand dyed (the comfrey yarn).  As for who is modeling the hat, Princess A doesn’t want to leave it on long enough to get a decent picture of it. 

 

Marigolds in the Dye Pot

I recently posted about dyeing some yarn with pineapple sage flowers from my garden. I wasn’t all that happy with the results but it was an experiment so I wasn’t too disappointed. My next batch of yarn from the garden was going to be done with marigold flowers. I have been wanting to get to it for awhile now but it was taking foreverto gather enough flowers to dye with. Next year I plan on planting a lot more to prevent this from happening. I did another experiment with some of the marigold flowers. In my garden I have a couple of marigold plants that are the typical orange/gold marigold and a few that are a deep orange red. This picture sort of shows the difference in the two.

For the experiment, I thought I would mix the two types of flowers up instead of keeping them separate when I make the dye bath. The resulting dye was a blood red! I added the yarn that was previously mordanted with alum. Almost instantly it turned a bright yellow. I left it to simmer and was meaning to check on it every 5 minutes but I do have a 13 month old. I ended up having to attend to Princess A and unfortunately the yarn got put on the back burner, literally. The yarn ended up being in the dye about 40 minutes. Way longer than I had intended. That long soak in the simmering dye bath caused it to take on a more brownish-yellow. Still nice but maybe not what I would have gone for had I been able to keep a closer eye on it.

Once it was cool, I decided to try dip dyeing it in an iron modifier. (I will try to explain what exactly is an iron modifier for those who are interested in a future post). I added one end to the pot with the iron modifier and allowed it to simmer for about 5 minutes. This gave one end of the skein an olive green color.

All in all it was not a bad experiment. I only wish I wasn’t interrupted like I was because it would have been nice to have gotten the yarn out of the pot before it started turning more brown. I still like the results though. I did try to over-dye the pineapple sage yarn with the remaining marigold dye. Unfortunately, there was not enough dye left over to really do much but turn it just a little yellow. Now it is more a yellow fawn color! I have yet to have been able to get a decent picture of it otherwise I would post one.

This final picture is of the marigold yarn re-skeined. I love when you re-skein them and all the colors mix. That is always the fun part to me!

 

You Win Some You Loose Some

   I have a really nice pineapple sage plant in my herb garden right now. It is really enjoying the mellow fall we have been having. It is blooming like crazy this week.Everytime I eye the brillant red flowers I wonder what kind of dye they would produce. I decided to find out for myself a couple days ago. I envisioned a soft pink or maybe a pale red. I was wrong.

I started with 2 0z of flower tops and simmered them for one hour. After the dye bath was cool I strained out the spent flowers. To the nice red dye bath I added 2 oz of wool yarn that I had previously mordanted with alum. I simmered the yarn in the dye for one hour. I then let it sit in the dye bath for about 24 hours. The results….. Let’s just say I am happy I only dyed 2 0z of yarn instead of say, eight.  It is not bad. It is just not at all what I had imagined. Instead of being pink it is a fawn color. I am really surprised by the results. Afterall the dye bath was so red. Oh well.

I am working on dyeing some yarn with marigolds and if I have any of the dye bath left when I am done I might just try overdyeing the pineapple sage yarn with the marigold dye and see what I get.

On another note, I have been very pleased with how my pineapple sage is doing this year. It is a fun plant to grow even if there are not too many uses for it. If you have never tried smelling the crushed leaves then you are really missing something! It really does smell like pineapple. The leaves can be added to tea mixtures but I have not personally tried it. The simmering flowers for the dye bath sure made my house smell good so, I imagine the leaves simmering on the stove would do the same. They might make a nice simmering potpourri. Something to try out at least.

I have a busy day planned for tomorrow. SET and I are going to check out some open houses in an area we are thinking about moving to. Until next time….

 

Ramblings & an Herbal Hat

I can’t believe it has been a week since I last posted. Bad, bad, bad. Time is flying for me these days. I don’t feel like I have been that busy but I guess I must be since the days zoom by anymore.

My knitting list continues to taunt me. It also continues to grow! This morning my youngest son, L-man I shall call him here, asked me if I could knit him a wool sweater along with the hat and mittens I plan on making for him. He said he wants to be nice and toasty this winter and he loves what I knit for him. How can I resist that?! A soon to be nine year old that actually wants to wear things his mama makes him. Melts my heart. So, now of course I want to start pouring through patterns looking for a perfect sweater to knit for him. I’d love it if I could whip one out in time for Christmas but with everything I got going on these days coupled with all the projects already on my plate that just seems like pulling off the impossible. But, knowing me I probably will give it a shot because I’m just so pleased that he asked for one. Just watch in a few days I will be posting on here about how I have bought the yarn to begin a sweater for him!

On another note, I finished work on the herbal hat for my husband, SET as I will call him. It looks pretty good. I love the colors. I made if from the yarns I dyed out of herbs. The main color, the brown tone, is the yellow dock yarn. The yellow stripe is the tansy yarn and the greenish-gray color is the comfrey yarn. I love how the yellow dock yarn looks. The picture doesn’t really show it but it is marbleized in places and looks so cool like that. That hat is a serious labor of love! I hand dyed the yarn with plants I gathered (some from my own garden) and then hand knitted the whole thing. Some serious love there. I have got some ideas brewing in my head for some more yarns to dye using herbs so be on the look out for those in future posts…….

 

Disaster Yarn Revisited

 I seriously scared myself this morning. It dawned on me just this morning that tomorrow is indeed Halloween which means Christmas is less than 2 months away! How can that be?! Wasn’t it just summer? I am not at all ready for it to be approaching the holiday season. I have so many gifts I need to make. Things like socks, hats, more knitted toys. I haven’t even begun thinking about them let alone starting any of them. Actually I am still trying to get everyone ready for the cold weather.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through a hat for Princess A and then I need to make one for her two big brothers and Dad. And of course there’s me. I always forget about making stuff for me. The sweater that I am making for Princess A, the one I posted about earlier using Debbie Bliss yarn, I am nearly ¼ of the way through that. Too many projects and the days just seem to be getting shorter and shorter…..

Thankfully, I finished Princess A’s longies made from the Disaster Yarn. I think they turned out pretty cute. They are nice and soft and feel like they will be real comfy. I made them for the upcoming cold months ahead. They are mostly going to be for P.J.’s I think. But then again they are so cute maybe she will have to wear them during the day too. They are made from the Little Turtle Knits Picky Pants pattern. I followed the instructions for making them with an elastic waistband. I think I am going to use some of the yarn I dyed with the goldenrod and make her another pair. This time I might try another pattern though to see what I like better. Oh no, I just realized I added another project to my list of things to make. I’m going to be so busy these next few weeks.

In the pictures I have posted you can see the finished Disaster Yarn longies. Next to the picture of them laid out is the ball of yarn I had left. As you can see it wasn’t much! I was sweating bullets at the end hoping I had dyed enough. I just made it as the picture shows. The other two pictures are of Princess A modeling them for me.