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I baked cookies today, plain old oatmeal cookies– not even a raisin in the whole batch (not that I’m morally opposed to raisins, I just didn’t have any on hand but a lack of raisins is no excuse to not bake oatmeal cookies.) I may have to bake another batch sometime tonight since it’s unlikely that these will survive the night.

I’ll be staying up late, hanging out in the shop (the radio is in the shop)listening to Ghost-to-Ghost am as is my Halloween tradition and spinning or knitting.

On the knitting front I’m attempting to knit a wool top that is less than sweaterish to wear under my clothes– something like a chemise, which has started out promising since the bottom 9 inches is basically a 4/4 binding tube that not even I could mess up until we reach the bosom– since I figure that it should really be without texture there I switched to stockinette stitch and started shaping. It’s very funky now. I’ll give it a few more rows and slip it on– if it looks like it’s going to work I’ll keep it, if not: I’ll see you at the FROG-POND.

The ladies of fiberlings were talking about dyeing today in the chat, so–

They are all such a bad influence on me, but in such a good way.

I used dry dylon dye (deep violet and poppy red)in the crockpot, I put down a little of the roving along the bottom of the pot and sprinkled dye with a wire mesh tea-strainer (similar to sifting flour with a sifter) over the roving then folded down enough to cover the first layer, and sifted dry dye again (alternating colors until all of the roving was in the crockpot) then I poured warm vinegar water over the whole thing, put the lid on and turned the heat up to high.

I didn’t keep a close eye on the time but I would guess it took a little less than an hour, and I pulled the roving out of the pot, let it cool in the sink and rinsed until the water ran clear. This is the first time I’ve ever done more than one color in the crockpot and I was a little nervous (not terribly nervous, there’s always over dyeing in black for mistakes.)

Although I’m not a huge fan of purples, this is really pretty stuff and I can hardly wait until it dries so that I can start spinning it.

I have been so sick for the last couple of weeks. Weeks! I’m not a good sick person, I’m a very cranky sick person and so I just tend to do whatever I can and then go lay down when I’m sick so that I’m not being cranky to those that I love. If you can possibly avoid the flu– I’m going to recommend you skip this one. I usually don’t get influenza strains, even then in four or five days I’m back to normal, this has been at least two weeks and I’m still trying to clear out my head.

We’ve adapted quickly to our less cluttered living room. Ms. Lexi has a definite preference for wearing crawly suits instead of dresses and is enjoying the freedom that our purged furniture allows her.

Mr. Josey has two more days of hometesting and then either we’re going to recap parts of second grade until he get’s the proverbial ‘it’ or we’re going to crack into the mysteries of the third grade. He’s taking a homeschooler drama class on Tuesdays, they’re reading Shel Silverstein poetry.