Fondue Is So Yummy!

We had a great dinner with the neighbors last night. Cheese and broth and chocolate fondue. Tom and I love The Melting Pot (though we don't get there often since it's really expensive) and he got me 4 HUGE fondue pots for an anniversary years ago. We don't use them often enough, mostly because you can't see my kitchen table! You crafters know what I mean. . . but we had a great dinner with great friends last night. We need to make that a once-a-month thing.

I've been working on a pair of bike socks for Tom. REALLY thin yarn, Patons Kroy, and size 1 needles. After I finish this pair I will have one sock to match these on needles so he can just grab two matching socks for his bike shoes. It's hard though. My tennis elbow makes it hard to knit for longer than an hour or so, and the yarn is so thin (I do sport or DK) that I do have trouble even seeing the stitches.

Today I get to reveal the fun pastel stripy yarn that I dyed yesterday. I did lace weight (not caked yet) and a sport weight of the same colors. I had enough dye, since I was doing pastel, to

dye both hanks of yarn. The lace came out even lighter since it's not superwash. For some reason the superwash stuff makes the colors some out brighter.

As usual, I chose colors using the paint samples. It's always nice to have those to compare different hues to makes sure the colors are of the same family and will look good together.

I only needed to make the green and blue dyes, I had the pink already mixed up from the Lisa's Lipstick color way.

When doing pastel colors you need only a small bit of dye. Or you can mix up the dye at full strength and use a lot of water and little of the dye mix. When you add the yarn the water will go clear almost immediately as the yarn takes the dye.

If there is still a lot of undyed yarn, move the yarn into a corner of the pot and add spoonfuls of the full strength dye and move the yarn back into the dye. Keep doing that until the yarn is the color you like. Making pastel colors isn't hard, and it takes less time since the yarn takes all the dye really fast.

I love the way the color came out. This is a terrible picture, the sun was shining in through the window and the camera wouldn't flash.

Here is the finished product:

Tune in tomorrow. I'm dyeing knitted sock blanks today. What are they? :) Gotta come back tomorrow!

Happy Knitting and Crocheting!