Did you know that if you use your knife to chop garlic before you peel and section a grapefruit, the resulting juice smells (but not tastes) like garlic? Well it does. I poured juice into my glass to sit down and begin this post and thought there was something wrong…my nose, the glass, the juice…but when I took a sip, it was fine. Thinking about the timeline last night as I was cooking dinner brought me the answer (the resulting comestibles from those actions were quite yummy).
And I digressed. Again. Not surprising really given the last several months. I looked at my last post for a refresher and discovered it has been almost 19 months since I have written down a story. What have I been doing? I have no idea. Well, that’s not really true but it hasn’t been anything momentous.
I have been doing lots of crocheting. How much you ask? This is a blog about yarn after all. Hold on, I’ll see if I can get a tally.
Ok, that took some time. Here’s what I’ve done (according to Ravelry) during the last 19 months:
27 hats, 25 amigurumi, 13 shawls/wraps, 11 cowls, 7 clothing pieces, 6 scarves, 4 blankets/throws, and 3 accessories/house things.
And I’m sure there some random items that never made it to my Ravelry file.
Yes, I just scrolled through Photos and without going back to the beginning of the span, I found over a dozen more…mostly hats and amigurumi and a sweater and I have to stop looking through Photos…
Here’s a few of the things I’ve made. If you have a Ravelry account you are welcome to look me up by clicking on the link in parentheses to see more (Dancingdogstudio). I’m not sure the site will let you look if you don’t have an account.
Santa Paws 12/20 
Garde Grows 1/21 
Baby Yoda 12/20 
Lil Pup 10/20 
Fall Sweater 10/20 
Guernsey Cowl 1/21 
Skull Shawl 9/20 
Rhapsodic Ripples Cowl 9/20 
Baby Hats 
Harry 6/20 
Gaithersburg Stole 6/20 
Oscar Owl 5/20 
Summer Poncho 4/20 
Easter Bunneys 3/20 
Fable cowl 3/20 
Delaney Hats 3/20 
Fall Feels Sweater 1/20 
Betafish 2/20 
Mandala hat/cowl 2/20 
Delaney Hat 
Alien friend 
It doesn’t stop there though. I currently have 6 WIPS (works in progress) and 40 projects in my queue (according to Ravelry). My excuse (one of them anyway) is that we have two homes and I need projects in both places…and then a project for the car when I’m not driving. And of course different projects for different activities…mindless ones for drinking with friends and watching football, slightly more complicated ones for listening to audible books, and one skein at a time ones for traveling. Of course there are the “Don’t talk to me, I’m counting” ones as well that are best done alone in the quiet.
The newest diversion, albeit a small one so far, is some yarn dyeing. I have been saying since I began crocheting that I have no desire to dye yarn. There are sooo many wonderful, talented people out there doing so. I want to support their efforts. That being said, I found myself in a quandary with a project.
One of my afore-mentioned WIPS is a shawl that I started in September of 2019 while on a trip with my BFFs from High School. It’s a lovely shawl, with a fun pattern and oh-so-pretty yarn. Unfortunately, I got 2/3 of the way done and ran out of yarn (my math skills apparently failed me). Not a problem you think, just order some more. Well, not so easy. The yarn was a gift given to me by a friend, who discovered it at a craft market while on vacay in Colorado. I was able to track the dyer down but it had been too long and she wasn’t able to help me out with another skein. Hmmm, I thought, what to do? I thought about using a contrasting color, trying to fade it to a neutral, adding on to the beginning side using one or all of those ideas to make things more proportional, etc. I wasn’t feeling the love with any of that. It has been bagged, tagged and stashed in a drawer ever since. Then, I said, “Self, why don’t you try dyeing some more yarn in the same colors.”
Spruce Dragon yarn 
Diamond Love Wrap
That of course is a completely different quest. First, find the yarn base. Check. Took me a while but I have it. Second, learn how to dye yarn. How difficult can it be to make green? I took some classes/watched some lectures and demos where both acid dyes and natural dyes were used. Below are the yarns I dyed. Pretty cool. Tom has promised to make me something with the yellows (spoiler); I have not decided what to do with the acid colors. However, does anyone see any green in the below photos that approaches the colors in the above photos?
Acid dyes on super wash 
natural dyes on various fibers
Ok, let’s make it even more complicated. Wouldn’t it be great to dye my yarn using plants from my garden. I have lots of green in the garden. And that’s where I am now. I have made a lot of brown, using plants that I am told will make green. I do not have any photos of these attempts since, well, brown not green. I will get back to it sometime this Spring.
And that my friends will bring me to the end of this post. Honestly, it’s not the story I intended to tell. that will be the next Post. It’s approaching cocktail and dog dinner hour and the natives are getting restless.
Here’s looking forward to 2021!