Knitting at Herbie Dog Digs

Here's my son at the petting zoo last weekend.....he's such an animal lover...you would have to be to lay on the ground with the stinky goat. 

And our view at the Jonas concert.  We scored seriously great seats - floor level, ten rows back from the stage.  Here's a photo of Kevin Jonas (I think) taken on our iphone to give you some perspective on how close we were.  My daughter's eyes just about popped out of her head when she saw just how close her Disney channel idols were to her!  And, there is nothing like going to a concert with every 14 year old  teenage girl in the city of Columbus to make you really feel your age!



At one point in the show, the Jonas Brothers hose the crowd with soap bubbles.  Hubby didn't duck.  He got foamed. As did the dad behind him.  Hysterical.





But amongst all this new, I found time for the old. 


The days are already starting to cool off and it seems to have been perfectly timed to the kids going back to school.  Not that this was a particularly warm summer.  There were very few days over 90 degrees.  Not at any point did I want to knit summer wear as I have in years past.  Wasn't inspired into anything but fingerless gloves, socks, scarves, etc.  I am hoping this isn't some crazy women's intuition about the upcoming winter - like I have to stock up on warm woolen items lest we freeze.  My daughter feels it as well as she exclaims every morning that she can't wait to wear her winter boots - the men in the family just shake their heads.

So in preparation for the cold, this week I finished a scarf made from Jaeger Roma in a lovely fern green color.  I found the pattern in the Nicky Epstein embellishment book and just added a couple garter stitches on each side.  Definitely still in my "leaf" pattern mode.  Made some matching fingerless mitts as well in the same yummy Roma.  I'm feeling I ended the scarf a little too early, though, (was afraid I was going to run out of yarn), so I may rip back and add one more repeat of the leaf pattern.


Friday night, while watching the wonderful tribute to Ted Kennedy (was never really a fan of Teddy but can appreciate what a larger than life character he was), I cast on for Sweaterbabe's knitted cowl.  I scored some RYC cashmere tweed (see previous post) last month but at only 25 grams per ball, I was limited to an accessory versus an entire sweater.  Here is it on the needles.  Its wonderfully soft and I'm thinking it's deserving of some matching fingerless gloves as well.

Apparently, my intuition about the impending cold only goes so far as I don't feel compelled to knit an entire glove or mitten - only fingerless....and my daughter wants to wear her winter boots with a mini skirt so I wouldn't throw away your Farmer's Almanac just yet!

Oh, before I forget, I will be posting a free pattern soon for fingerless mitts!  Stay tuned!

As promised, here are the photos of the rose-dyed yarn completed last week. I also have included a photo of the rose so you can compare the actual color of the flower versus the dyed yarn. Like the other natural dye attempts, this yarn ended up with high and low intensity of color, even with the vinegar soak before. Not minding it at all as it lends to the hand-dyed, made at home quality of it. A nice bonus is the yarn has a yummy rose-y smell to it.

Hoping, before the first frost, we will be lucky enough to get at least eight to ten more flowers. Not holding my breath but a girl can hope, eh?

Now, what to do with this small quantity (25 gm - approximately 100 yards) of yarn?

Hello and happy Monday! I'm still on my quest for finding natural items around the house to use as yarn dye. As luck would have it, we have a few rose bushes that were planted by the original owner of our house. Last year, the rose bushes rocked...I mean we had gorgeous light pinky-peachy roses almost weekly. This year, almost nothing. And rose bushes not in bloom have a serious case of the uglies.

You can imagine my surprise to round the corner of the garage last week to find eight or so perfect roses on our previously barren bush. Picture perfect.

So what did I do? Yep, chopped all their heads off! Fearing I wouldn't have enough dye color, I grabbed a few dark purple petunias, as well as some pinky-red Snapdragons (supposedly they are one of the best flowers to dye with? - Seriously, how do you dispute that?).

I soaked my yarn (about 100 yards) in 1/2 cup of vinegar and mildly hot water (read somewhere that helps the yarn "grab" the dye) for about an hour. I made sure just to set the yarn into the hot water and not agitate it as I was using my favorite Jaegar Extra Fine Merino and feared I would felt it. After about an hour, I squeezed the excess water/vinegar out and set aside.

I set the roses petals (removed the center), snapdragons and petunias in about three cups of water on the stove top and nearly brought it to a boil. Within 10 minutes, the flowers released all their color to the point that the petunias almost became translucent. I brought the dye off the stovetop and carefully lower the yarn into it.

Because I am a freak, I brought the steaming hot pot outside on the deck with me to watch. It was kinda an amazing process. Within 30 minutes the water was completely clear because the yarn with the vinegar bath actually acted as a dye magnet. It really does work! The yarn soaked up the dye from the water, leaving the water almost crystal clear again. The result is a beautiful pinky peachy yarn that I will post photos of this afternoon! This, by far, was the most successful dying adventure yet...partially because I love pink and was so very happy to finally be able to use roses from the garden!

For anyone wanting to try natural yarn dying, this website was awesome for information:

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/naturaldyes.html

Getting Rid of Fruit Flies - Summer gives us the opportunity to enjoy fruits in abundance and our family buy them by the dozen, our kids enjoy them, especially our daughter, Fruit Flies also appreciate the gesture, they will appear within a few weeks and will remain a problem for the rest of the summer.

I found and easy way to get rid of them and keep them in check, take a shallow dish about 9 inches in diameter or even bigger, pour about half of cup of Red Wine, covered the dish with clear Saran plastic wrap, make it tight and poke a few holes with a tip of steak knife a tad bigger than the size of their bodies and place the dish next to the source of the problem.

Alternatively, you could use used Tea Bags instead of Red Wine, make sure they are very moist.

The fermentation of the Red Wine or the moist Tea Bags is a magnet to them.

Thank you everyone who popped over from Ravelry to offer comments about our new blog. I truly appreciate the Ravelry community - always willing to offer opinion, share and participate in this crazy knitting thing we are all addicted to. Ravelry members are rockstars!

Hubby and I are working hard on suggested revisions and will most likely have another contest shortly. Working hard, that is, between all the back to school shopping for the kids. This year my son is off to middle school (big sniff!) and the list of supplies he needs is pretty impressive. What happened to the days that we went off to school with a new pack of pens, a few folders and notebook paper? When did it become imperative to learning to have dry erase markers that have to be a specific brand?

My son also needed all new jeans....in size 16 slim. That's right, he's eleven years old and has to be in a 16 for the length. No slim in the world is slim enough for him and he usually looks like he's wearing his dad's pants. He's always been really slender and now, is almost as tall as I am (5'5"). With hubby only 5'8", we're not sure where he gets his height. Finding 16 slims is no easy task. Too many trips to too many stores this week. Not enough knitting. 90 degrees and humid. I get cranky.

I did, however, find time to block a scarf I finished two months or so ago. Really digging the leaf motifs on this after blocking.

In between all this, I have tried my hand at some "nature dying". I bumped into a website at the beginning of summer that listed what dye color could be derived using different plants. So we had a go with it and the photo above is the results! Using Jaeger Extra Fine Merino wound in 100 yard hanks, the light green yarn was dyed with fresh cut grass, the yellow with tumeric and the brown with Red Rose tea. Now, these are not any special color you couldn't buy at the store. Nor are they hand painted and fabulous....but they are kinda cool that you could go into the backyard, or open a drawer in your kitchen and dye your yarn. I found none of the yarn dyed evenly (meaning I have highs and lows of the color) but I kinda like that too.

Today, we attack the rose bushes for dye base! Also, if you are a snapdragon in my garden, you best hide as I hear you are the best flower to use for dying!

Did I mention we used to live in Portland, Oregon? We moved to Ohio roughly two years ago for a job opportunity. Imagine my dismay to hear the Sock Summit was in Portland! The agony! Knowing I could have simply taken a few vacation days, not have to travel, be in my own bed every night and go to the hottest sock gathering this year?!?! It seriously has been bumming me out. Every time I log onto Ravelry, I get more and more homesick for the Pacific Northwest. Yes - could I have booked a flight, flown across country, stayed with friends, had hubby watch the kids and attended. Of course. But who has an extra $800 laying around to get to Portland for three days?

Here's the strange part....I don't even knit socks. The farthest I have gotten is a two needle variety pattern written in the 1940's. DPN's are my worse enemy. Doesn't matter though. I am pouting about not going anyways. I feel like I am missing a great party because my Dad is not letting me go! Pout, pout, pout!

The upside for me is there are many projects to use all this yummy sock yarn on without actually knitting socks! With that being said, to celebrate opening day of the Sock Summit 2009, I am giving away two balls of Adriafil Knitcol Trends sock yarn! It's a self-striping/patterning yarn that knits up to almost a sport weight (kinda inbetween a true sock and at DK weight). I have a photo of some on the needles right now that are going to be awesome fingerless gloves for the Fall. The best part is there will be a tiny Hippo included (knit on Red Heart - Heart & Sole).

So what's the catch? Free yarn? Too good to be true, right? Nope! I just need a favor....Just post a comment, including your email so I can reach the random lucky winner, and tell me what you like about Herbie Dog Digs and what needs to change. All input is greatly appreciated (good or bad)!

Good luck to all and we will pick the lucky winner on Sunday!!!

While skulking around the internet a few months ago, I found the website Drive-In.com. It's a really cool list of both operating and closed drive-in's throughout the United States. As we have only been in Columbus for two years and don't remember seeing a drive-in during our past exploration of the city, I typed in our zip code. Low and behold, we are a mere 18.2 miles from South Drive-In! An operating drive-in right under our noses!

Since finding the website, we (well, mostly me) have been talking about going to the drive-in. The kids were pretty hyped up about it (me and my big mouth) and had resorted to asking almost daily when were were going. Hubby has never experienced a drive-in as well. That's right - I was the only experienced drive-in-er in the family. Hubby had never been bowling as well when we first met. Maybe it's just the Buffalo in me - these were rights of passage growing up - drive-in movie theaters and moonlight bowling. I could tell Hubby was not thrilled about sitting in an SUV for five hours, using public restrooms and paying $7 for a bucket of popcorn but he was willing to give it a try for the experience value.

So, we loaded the kids in the car last night along with our Google directions, cooler (yes, you can bring sodas and food in!), pillows and, of course my knitting and headed south on the 670. We arrived in plenty of time as the website said the first show started at 8:50 pm....uh, try 9:15. Guy at the ticket booth was really nice (albeit mostly toothless) but had that midwesterner hospitality that I've come to enjoy in this area of the country. There were only twenty or so other cars that had come out to enjoy a beautiful Monday night at the drive-in.

South Drive-In definitely has seen better days. It's a two screen facility in a not-so-fantastic part of Columbus. The wear and tear is evident on the place and it was almost a step back in time. The kids were dismayed that they were going to have to stay in the back seat and complained of not being able to see. They both blew through three cans of Pepsi a piece during the first movie so you know what that meant - bathrooms were imminent by intermission. Bathrooms at the South Drive-In are in need of a serious overhaul - ew. Intermission was about 3 minutes long so we missed the start of the second feature. By the midway point of the second feature (Harry Potter), we all were pretty cramped with my son exclaiming he's never coming back.

I understand now why drive-in's are dying out. How can these places compete with mega theatres, 50" home plasma screens, etc. The upside is the price - $8 for an adult and $1 for kids under 12. And you get to see two movies. Last nights feature was G-Force (story about special agent hamsters that save the world) and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Pretty cheap night out for the family and we got to see the top two rated box office movies in one night (G-Force was much cuter than I expected). There are definitely some improvements cosmetically that they could make to the property to heighten the visitor's experience but you have to wonder if it would really make a difference.

Not sure if this family will ever see a drive in movie again but overall, it was fun and nostalgic. Then again, when next summer rolls around, I'm sure the kids will have forgotten how much they were cramped, etc and beg to go again! Now, to convince Hubby..........ha!

Finally, the rain has lifted and the sun is shining gloriously this morning!

Did I mention that I am an addict? Yes, a fiber addict. I buy embarrassing amounts of yarn. Our mail person must think I am insane as I continuously receive packages that are squishy soft and pillow sized. In my defense, rarely do I pay full retail for any yarn. I furiously clip coupons from the Sunday paper for Joann Fabrics when I need some regular cotton yarn, or internet shop looking for the best deals on the yarn I HAVE to have. You'll notice my list of haunts to the right - these are the sites I frequently troll looking for the best deals.

Because I hunt for such great deals, most of the time either the yarn or the colorway is/was retired...which causes me to buy much more yarn than I could ever use on a project lest I run out during the last two inches of a sweater and being unable to find more. This approach/mentality to yarn buying has turned our spare bedroom into a mini LYS.

Which leads to the reason for this post. Yesterday afternoon, when the sun finally popped out for the first time in days, I took photos of Friday's mail delivery. Two packages of yummy yarn!

*The blue is the new Berroco Vintage Wool in the color Gingham. Broke one of my rules on this one and bought three hanks at full retail. Ouch. This yarn just came out to much fanfare. I read so much about how wonderful it was that I just had to have it. I can happily say that it didn't disappoint.
*The gray yarn is labeled the steal of the day. It was marked down over $6 per skein! Bought from one of my favorite UK yarn websites - Cucumber Patch. Rowan Yarns - Cashmere Tweed is 90 percent cashmere, 10 percent silk = 100 percent satisfaction from me! I love this yarn as it has tiny tweed flecks of pastel colors. Love it so much that after I took these photos, I ran back to Cucumber Patch and order some more....Sick, sick, sick!


Oh, and what am I working on right now? Yes - more two needle socks. Somebody stop me!